RULE # 1:
COME OUT OF THE CLOSET!
Do not be afraid to be FLAGRANTLY
CHEAP in PUBLIC! LET IT ALL HANG OUT & BE PROUD! Cuz
hey, in the right circles, they call that 'resourceful.' You are a FRUGAL
guru, teacher, model & an example to others who will soon be caught
up in the American, post-Iraq debacle DEPRESSION! Wear that badge, that
uniform with PRIDE! You are forwarding the planetary action, as well as
evolution. You score points for stuff like that especially if you use your
free time for creating ART
that
sizzles! The second value of coming out of the closet is once you do, pals
call you, 'honey I got this SOFA at the FREECYCLE GROUP (in every city
of the USA) or I got this this BOOK SHELF, this COFFEE table in an alley,
it was nearly new, I wouldn't have believed it possible. etc."
I raised four fatherless babies from a Spanish hubby who didn't have
the word 'alimony' in his Dictionary -- and I raised them in a rented,
3 bedroom house in West L.A., every room filled with furniture I
found on front lawns.
So now I teach.
2. NEVER BUY CLOTHING RETAIL. Don't even go into a shop or department store. Don't rationalize with DISCOUNT shops, either. Just ask all your pals to give you their wardrobe discards. If you're embarassed to come out of the frugal 'closet' with pals, tell them that you give the clothing to a LATINO HOSPICE of WETBACKS who came over the border in just muddy trousers. b.) IF YOU MUST BUY something, use thrift stores for clothes and only buy things you really need. Pals' gifts don't fit? Keep 'em in trunk to give to poor Latinos. STUDY the DRESS FOR NOTHING PAGE. 10 SECRETS! Next,Make your own dresses.
3. Second hand books. [I got a coffee table book (History of the Jews,) for a buck and (four Lee Child, Robert Crais and a couple of that fun CARL HIAASSEN mystery/thrillers, these are MY FAVE thriller -writers-- to collect, (now that I collected the complete works of Frederic Forsyth, Daniel Silva...) and I got a ton of paperbacks today, all for a buck each from ABEBOOKS.com, which means one of the 13,500 vendors. YOU search their stacks in minutes, just try any title. Here's one you'd adore. My most thrilling thriller ever ODESSA FILE by FORSTYH or HOSTAGE by ROBERT CRAIS. Just go looking. Here's the TIPS ON HOW TO FIND THESE TITLES, the TECHNOLOGY of it. I paid $3.60 postage, 4$ for the 4 books so it ain't free, just cheap ---cheaper than my LOCAL GOOD WILL store, and I have exactitude of CHOICE. the main factor. TRY COLIN WILSON ," PSYCHIC DETECTIVES". Wow. Whatta book! ABEs allows you to select writers you peruse and choose. I GOT all my ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGERs from vendors. Buy HARDCOVER & you can even make money being a BOOK SCOUT for your local book stores. A signed lst edition Isaac Bashevis Singer is $300-3,000 bucks! Thrifts sell books for pennies. A pal sez she got two nearly new books by Sylvia Browne for fifty-cents each at a thrift. I'd pay the store to take them off me, myself.] Haggle at the GOOD WILL. Three for a buck, please? Smile hopefully. They may do it! For a list of titles you want to collect: BIBLIO ONE and BIBLIO TWO
Re-sell the books you DO NOT want to leave to grandkidsat your garage sale when you have l00 or so stacked up. NEVER sell great books. These you save or give to your children. Good or great books are very rare. A used Colin Wilson paperback is 9-15$ so learn to DEAL BOOKS. Special writers are valuable even in paper! Again, hit those BIBLIO URLS! Above. You can also donate the used books to rich pals who give you clothes or pals who came out of the 'frugal Closet,' or or to a charity ~~ good karma.
4.) SLIM LARDER SLIM MOMMA! Why be out shopping and spending money on food or clothing? If you get restless and need a shopping fix? Grab a shovel and work on the vegetable garden. I'm nearly 70 and need new heart valves (have needed them from childhood,) but I developed the lazy/easy way to garden and still dig at every house I rent. Each house I rent becomes a total jungle in one year flat. And learn to make your own SOAP?. Get a SOAP GURU by saving tallow/ fat, skimming all chicken soup then a Craigs list ad goes to "BARTER" Section. "I save fat from my pets' dinners, cooked from best meat. I skim it off, freeze it when I get to 20 quarts, I put this ad up. It's pure sweet, fresh tallow. Will Trade you multiple quarts, for a bar of your soap." When that bar runs out, I have another 20 quarts of fat for you and would you teach me to make soap please?! What fun, soapmaking. You'll love it.
5.) SHOP the Super Market SALES, STOC UP & USE COUPONS. They send circulars. Keep them near and review before you get in car. No eating out ever. Take the big bucks you save and buy the staples on sale with coupons. I get colombian coffee only every single coupon that comes out and when the can is on sale. Oatmeal has to be on sale, and a coupon. Milk has coupons, eggs too. SUNDAY paper has the coupons so get on good side of all neighbors who have news paper service and get the circulars out Monday morning. I never get 4-cup yogurt unless coupon and sale when it's 20c each cup! Never get flaked/shredded cereal unless coupon and sale both. Then I stock up.
THE WISDOM OF STOCKING UP. You do it once a week so you don't spend money on gasoline and then you shop methodically total focus, no haste, no waste. Next two or three days, stay home and garden. It's wise not to waste 5$ a gallon gasoline on running around as a habit. Stock up on the stuff you always need. For me it's the 32 oz plain full fat YOGURT for instant desserts, serve it with GRANOLA, fruit, my homemade jam. Always have those in stock. Always have corn tortillas, buy dark yellow corn, no preservatives or cellulose, natural from MEXICAN MARKET, freeze two thirds, use one third, then there are the other thirds to thaw and use before I have to return to the store. I always have broccoli in the house, and top ramen and tofu which you cook with it along with home toasted sesame seeds, chile sesame oil, seaweed flakes. I always have eggs (the yolks at times are for kitty formula) at times in my scrambled eggs. My market has bacon ends half price, I buy a lb, freeze them in little plastic wrap pckgs, one strip each, don't allow myself more. I always have milk on hand, Bible bread, which I FREEZE so I don't have to go out for it more than once a week. I thaw two pcs in toaster every AM. I always have big size coffee, bought with a coupon which market doubled. Have Butter. Have Frozen fish but not sticks, too much carb on 'em. I find the leanest & cheapest fish is at any ORIENTAL MARKET where I get tilapia fillets or whole fish from China. As low as a dollar a pound. If they have whole fish, I ask for nothing thawed, wanting it solid frozen as I'm going to re freeze it. I don't like having fish around for more than a few hours. Soy sauce, mayo, relish are obvious but SOUR CREAM isn't so obvious. You can put a dollop on enchiladas, a dollop on granola, on a yogurt or stir it into buttered hot vegies or mashed potatoes. If I could afford to eat beef, I probably couldn't indulge in these fatty foods. I like to freeze a few dozen chicken thighs or legs, use as needed. So that's my stock up list.
6. Shop the 99c ! Big Box detergent, 99c, All shampoos, too. After you come out of the store and put your booty in the car, GO around back TO THEIR DUMPSTER. (Which is why I park behind the store!) Freshly set outside, the fruit is still wrapped in plastic and is quite fine. Watermelons, berries by the hundred, (often, I just plant them & grow berry bushes) Hundreds of pounds of onions. I plant those too for the flowers, later more onions. Brooms, bowls, pots, tons of stale bread which I throw to the birds in the parking lot or bring home for my street's crow population. NEVER EAT FLOUR based foods, ever! Poor people can't afford to waddle or have so much mucus stored everywhere that they get flus every few months!!
7. No cable - That's like mainlining mindless entertainment in huge doses. It has to put you off 'reality and life,' somewhat. At least prime time TV has shows of spotty interest. It's also 600bucks a year. Why drop 6 bills for something that's free. Entertainment is free. VCR still around and I'm betting you see dozens of great flicks at garage sales.
8.Walk or bike in suburban areas, say to get to the park but never bike out on city streets. I met a homeless guy last week, he has had 75 separate accidents on bikes in L.A. traffic, one knocked out four teeth. (Just bike as much as possible in suburban streets, not main drags. ) Save 50$ a month on gyms! But don't do this in an ultra smoggy city cuz medical bills will kill you if the emphysema doesn't.
9. Barter for services. That massage therapist will work for a horoscope! I once read palms at a party for BEVERLY HILLS TOP plastic surgeon. I told him, "Sir, I'd work for some of your parties if you take out this fat under my chin." He said let's do it. This works with dentists, doctors. Another exchange, that you can offer, house cleaning which doctors always need. I dieted, did neck stretches and didn't need Doc, ultimately. I traded horoscopes with my acupressure needles guy, Yogi Shmogi. That stuff really works!
10. EVERYTHING's FREE AT THE LIBRARY! If you don't need to FTP articles as I do, or correspond wi. book vendors or check astrology clients every hour, cut your internet cost by discontinuing service at home. Use local libraries instead, free! And guess what, now they have BOOKS there! Use the two BIBLIO LISTS given in Rule #3 as a sampling of the great writers. Garage sales also great for books.
11. RENT BIG, TRAVEL LITTLE! No more travelling out of town to visit relatives. Spend the money on a superb villa. In your own town. Rent ancient houses, big ole homes, 8k sq. feet garden minimum, multiple bedrooms. I see mattresses and bedsteads on the junk heap in front of houses daily! Keep a rope in car, and a quilt. Throw heavy stuff on top. Sofas, chairs, whatever, tie it down. Then, let relatives come to you. Put a mint on their pillow slip, guest soaps in their bath, CD Player and Cd's. You run a class Bed & Breakfast, so why travel all over the landscape to visit others. Rent to roomies. Everyone gets dead bolt on their bdrm and carry your phones/ CD's back after you play 'em for the gang. Zero Theft Tolerance.
12. SHUN THE GRAVEYARD! Don't eat meat at every meal. Uric acids give gout, arthritis. Rotting meat in the bowel gives cancer. Animal fat gives heart disease. Save a fortune and huge medical costs and save your youth & health as well. Great vegan substitute entrees are found in a fifty cent paperback by FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET and RECIPES for a small planet. Follow HOLISTIC methods to sidestep specific genetic diseases in your family tree.
13. Juice fast once a week.Celery/parsley/ dumpster vegies/ fruits. Do a tsp of chlorine in sink of water, soak vegies ten min. first. Rinse, and get a 29$ juicer at WALMART. If dumpster celery is a tad droopy, cut off bottom half inch, soak in sink for a few hrs. Ditto carrots, salad. They hydrate well. And hey, if your face needs hydrating, I saw a lady use my juicer daily for a month, a mix of carrot, spinach, quarter lemon whole, celery and she went from pocked, saggy wrinkled skin to l8 yr old skin perfection in thirty days. I said Syl, you're getting younger but my juicer is getting older! She quit and went back to fifty, slowly. DORIAN GRAY! Read the HOLISTIC WEBSITE!
14. HIT THE DUMPSTERS! Recycle bottles, cans. I keep a few hundred cans/ bottles behind backseat of car hatchback-visible! Cops who stop me for sushi driving, (California rolls or right turns on a red light,) see it and won't give me tickets for no tags on my back plates as they imagine I'm dirt poor. If you really want the good stuff, merchandise, Hit the DUMPSTERS in INDUSTRIAL PARKS, Those Zoned-for-Factory areas. You get PC's, keyboards, paper, recycle-able INK cartridges, pens by the thousand. Organizers of every kind. Office supplies, networking cables and plugs. You meet the nicest people at two a.m. One was a double Pisces senior gal feeding 2 dozen cat sites a night. She carried cans of Friskies meat in her trunk. A saint in the night. Ahhh. Dumpster diving is made of that. SIMILAR is FREECYCLE ORG. There's a group for every city in USA. You get emails basically offering free stuff, just 'pick it up!' like Macs, pcs, furniture, books, videos, boomboxes, everything. You answer fast as it goes fast. You meet neat people, too.
15. THERE'S ALWAYS A CHEAPER WAY TO DO STUFF: Save on long distance phone calls by using SKYPE. Or get those 99cent Store calling cards...a penny a minute! My calling cards could have been sent me free by mail, as I'm a stargazer. So, they could be provided by astrological clients, phone friends wanting advice but I don't do that. I've become an internet stargazer, saving my voice....however if you're in a consultancy biz, just ask pals in your state to send you one. They're often good in one state or two. Dump all phone services related to long. distance.
If you smoke, GO NATIVE! Roll your own. Tobacco shops will show you the line, let you try a puff of diff blends.That alone is fun. That's a free ciggie every time you go in. Smoke shop men are a hot date but that's too much to pay for low cost ciggies. Unless you got those cravings.
RENT MOVIES and get the gang to kick in on the cost!
16. Cut OUT refined carbs! WHITE FLOUR FOODS, SUGARY ITEMS & SODAS burn fast, burn hard, give you mega munchies an hour late. Protein and greens keep your pipes clean as you actually eat way less! They 'stick to the ribs.' Proteins are usually toxic so equal weight greens should be eaten with flesh, at every meal. We've all seen poor people, pudgy, faces like meat pies? That's white bread, oatmeal, beans at work! STUDY CHEAP EATS!
17. Drive your old car into the ground.My 83 HONDA is still going! Cost me 300$ in l995. 15$ a year, amortagized!
18. Mend old clothes,those gashes with stitches are folklorico! Patches in bright colors are even better of course. Stuff faded? So dye them! True, DYE is costly but it sometimes comes up on the "BENT SHELF" for 25c each. That's when I grab it. RIT DYE is truly yukky color crap. Go online and buy analine dyes, much better. I save old, enamel fridge produce drawers for the stove, for really power-dying at a boil.
19. Cook from scratch full time unless coupons appear in paper (which can get doubled at super market,) as this will bring you some junky, tasty experimental food, like I got box of frozen Calzone empanadas for only 50c with a double coupon, and it was on sale at that market, also. I just got two Ben & Jerry ice creams for 2$ each with coupons, as they were also on sale. Took me 48 hrs to demolish each, in four days they were goneski. (I hadn't had ice cream in several years before those coupons appeared). BTW, PISTACHIO is a really good flavor! Butternut Pecan is ok. B&J Put all these nuts in there, and I'm nuts for nuts Juicy Juice is junk but I USE its many flavors to sweeten fresh fallen ripe grapefruit juice and after a coupon is quite inexpensive. I never drink it straight so it really lasts.
20. STAY INFORMED. All Daily newspapers by subscription have two prices. First price is when YOU CALL THEM to subscribe, like 30$ a year, but when it's over, let it grind to a total stop. Then, they will call you and beg you to take it at the l9$ for a whole year price. You must have newspapers, as many as possible to gleen from neighbors, the main reason is because.....Problem is the newspapers all have learned a scum trick. When the l9$ is up, it was on your credit card, so they automatically renew you for the coming year at THREE TIMES the price, 59$. Only a phone call can dissuade them.
21. You must COLLECT COUPONS! A frugal person will dumpster dive & get more than enough food for a family of ten, totally free, but occasionally a fancy piece of junk TV DINNER stuff is useful. Those are a buck each at 99c store, by BANQUET. Same price as SuperMarket. FOR PRODUCE, I pick fruit up off lawns in my suburban area, at least l00 grapefruits, lemons, oranges, limes a week. I have an orange and UGLI tree, (ask me for SEEDS,) I juice citrus, throw it into a JUICY JUICE 64 oz. BERRY or GRAPE, super sweet, blending half and half with the commercial, pasteurized over sugary stuff. I save and re-use their 64 oz, convenient plastic bottle! I also save all old big jugs / bottles filling them with pipe water saving in huge steel shelves on south side of the house. Why? Because in L.A., I am in quake country. Water could disappear at any time. And I occas. use them to water nursery plants (tables full of babies on ping pong tables cut in half (legs added,) on south side of house in dappled sun/shade) Refill and stash.
22. Grow your own everything. Those bags of potatoes in the dumpster give you sprouts. Cut them out, leaving a hefty little piece of the potato, plant them. Spinach and cilantro have little roots, you leave a central sprig, plant the root and only eat the outer leaves. Then, later, you get spinach or cilantro seed. TOMATILLOS give you seed, ditto tomatoes, apples, oranges, all citrus. Many fruit trees give seed that you stratify in fridge a few months.(Bag of peat is moistened, seeds are in it, put in butter dish.) Stratify cherries, pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots, roses. Many grow up to be very like the mother plant so I plant every seed, then I put baby trees on CRAIGS LIST BARTER page. "FREE BABY TREES, bring bag of potting soil." That's the trade. I need endless fine soil for my nursery and reg dirt doesn't cut it. Garden for free this way. MORE GARDEN TIPS.
23.) DRUG STORES WANT TO COMPETE WITH WAL-MART. Drug store chains usually aren't cheap, but I hear that national chain CVS drugs http://www.cvs.com, wants you to join the 'club' online, then they have the special club prices, they also give you two for the price of one, they double coupons. I hear my nephew walks out of there with ten bags and pays nothing!
24.) HOBNOB WITH WINNERS, HELP THEM ON THE WAY UP. You may be poor and middle-aged, but you know the most cherished and exciting person in society, the beautiful girl who is 18-25. Send her to the LUCK IN LOVE MARRY WELL WEBSITE. When she takes the 120 free Seminars there, she will quit dating disco hotties and marry a billionaire as there, she will be instructed how to penetrate high society. That girl will take you to Paris annually for life! BALI! JAPAN.
25.) UTILITIES COMPANIES GIVE DISCOUNTS TO POOR PEOPLE, NO ENQUIRY. Tell phone/ gas/ electricity you're way way too poor and are going without food. They send you a postcard, sign it, it says yes, under 12,000 a year earnings. They cut the bills to the bone.
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