I did surveys for money so I could buy things I otherwise wouldn’t. I made thousands doing it and bought SO much stuff I needed and wanted. I got entirely sick of them though as it really is a grind and stopped. It’s impressive how much stuff I bought with this money. (I’m happy to tell anyone how). Sometimes when I’m leaving for work I just think of everything I’m wearing or carrying that I didn’t pay a penny for.
I go to the hair salon school and let students cut my hair to save money (it’s super cheap) and began colouring it myself. I only get my hair cut like twice a year as well despite wanting to do it more.
I have like seven digital library cards, I give the library a fake address in their city and sign up. It actually only benefits them that they get more patrons reading books. I can request books at my library anyway that they don’t have in their collection and they’ll get it from another library too.
My health benefits through my workplace include orthotic sole inserts, but also you get two pairs of shoes. That’s two pairs of shoes a YEAR. I have coworkers who do it and don’t use the orthotic insert, just for the shoes. If you have workplace benefits look at everything they give you and use whatever you can.
I will price match at the grocery store to the penny. You just stand there and say “this is 5 dollars at Walmart” and nobody ever checks so if it’s really expensive I’ll tell them it’s a price I’ve seen it be before even if it isn’t that week. The cashiers will also say “this is X amount at X store” and ring it up without me asking sometimes too.
I’ll go to my doctor and get a prescription for something so it goes through my benefits even if I could buy something to treat it over the counter. I’m Canadian so it doesn’t cost me to go, and they’re legit conditions, but I don’t HAVE to go in. Universal health care for the win.
Our drug reps bring us food like once a week so that’s usually my lunch that day.
How much do I dislike the inconvenience? Some types of inconvenience I’m very tolerant of, but others I’d rather pay the money.
Often times when it is discretionary, I choose to just skip it altogether. Like if I’m not willing to run out for fast food, I’m not going to use one of the delivery apps.
I’ll use an office stapler to close a limb laceration before going anywhere near an emergency room because America is a fucking capitalist hellscape. So, moderate, I guess.
I almost never order snacks or fast food delivered, cheaper to walk to the store if I want it
I think I have done it like twice when I was sick.
Expense aside, I find it useful for maintaining some level of discipline. If I can’t be assed to get it myself, then I don’t want it that much.
I’m pretty broke and have been for most of my life, so I’m pretty willing to be inconvenienced. Only thing I have to my name is a very old house in need of substantial work I can’t afford to do, on a very small town lot, and a car that’s falling apart.
I keep my heat set to 60f/15.6c at most, which is well outside of my comfort zone (I prefer being too warm over too cold). I use heated mattress pads/blankets to make it bearable, as they cost exceptionally little to use round the clock for a month, around a dollar a month vs the several hundred per month my heat goes up when kept to a comfortable temp.
I grow as much of my own food as I can. I know people do the math and determine that home grown somehow costs just as much as store bought, so it’s only good as a hobby, and I genuinely don’t understand that calculation. I compost and mix compost into my garden soil and my food is basically free…? And I recently added a small flock of chickens that eat my plant scraps and food scraps, and their waste is great fertilizer. It’s a nice holistic system. I also have some plants like tomatoes and peppers that grow year-round in hydroponics, the small amount of electric and powder nutrients used to grow them costs far less than the food they produce. I’m working on expanding my hydro options to sell surplus to friends and family.
I use compressed sawdust pellets (like for pellet stoves or horse bedding) as cat litter. It’s basically the same thing as feline pine but it’s $7 for 40lbs, which is enough to completely toss and replace the litter about 10 times per bag, more in summer because I use less (takes longer to dry out so needs to be replaced faster anyway). The litter is compostable, so it goes into a special pile that gets used as yard/flower garden dirt. However this requires that I stir up the litter at least twice a day, to allow the urine to dry properly. Else it just reeks of ammonia.
All food scraps, whether cat food or human food, get saved for something. Scraps my chickens can’t/won’t eat, like raw carrots, onions, garlic, and celery, get turned into broth along with bones. After being turned into broth, the remaining material goes into my worm compost. Anything chivkens can eat, especially cat food my cats don’t eat, gets saved for them. Egg shells get saved (by everyone who gets eggs from me) and used as calcium supplement for them.
If I can build or make something, even poorly, I’ll do that before buying a thing (beer, bread, covey coop, chicken coop, shelves, etc.). If I can repurpose existing tools to do a thing I only need to do once, I probably will even if the task is far more frustrating as a result. I desperately wish we had tool library here so I could just borrow stuff. But no. And on this same sort of trajectory; I’ll do things manually rather than using gas or buying new tools. I inherited a ton of really high quality hand tools from my grandfather, and I use them quite a lot. I also shovel snow by hand rather than putting gas in my snowblower, unless we are expecting a blizzard.
I have more but this is already too long so ima just stop.
You’re my hero and I will be seeking your guidance in the post-apocalypse.
I usually take my hourly wage and compare it to the inconvenience. For example, if that inconvenience takes about an hour of my life, but saves me more than my hourly wage, I take it. There are exceptions of course, for example if I am low on money.
It also depends how much you like the activity. I’d rather do my job for 2 hours than cook for 1 hour.
We do this comparison, with the added “will this save money” modification. My time outside of 40 hours per week can’t make me more money unless OT is approved. So that time is worth $0/hr. If the actions i do during that time save me money, I try to do them. It massively increases the amount of money we have for vacations and other fun stuff.
I’m also undiagnosed hyper focused ADHD, so that may be why. My wife tells me I can slow down, but I absolutely cannot.
I’m the exact same especially the ADHD because it gives me another calculation to do "Building my own looks fun plus buying one is more expensive minus the chance of me getting bored half way through and wasting the initial investment. Hmmmm lets spend a little more and just get the thing premade.
Yup, that’s pretty much the reason I don’t cook anything that takes more than 15 minutes to make.
I usually enjoy cooking, which is why I do it. But im exactly like this with chores, gardening, etc.
Yesterday I transported a seven-foot long, 70# piece of furniture across town by bus.
Hell yeah!
I declare you president of this club.
👑
I’ll take a bus for 1h rather than pay a taxi to get someplace in 10 min to save $40.
A lot, I’ve walked across a city rather than pay for a taxi
Hell yeah, that’s how I live too. It’s exhausting & time-consuming but at least money stays in my bank account 😛 And we’ve got great legs & a great ass & excellent cardiovascular health.
Eight
Woof, I don’t know if I could do that. I did six during college, and that felt like a big sacrifice.
Nice try but “inconvenience” cannot be measured numerically. We need anecdotes.
One time i eight’d to save money.
More dependent on how much money. $100 is a lot for me in general, so I’ll definitely go out of my way. $20… Maybe, depending how much inconvenience and how much the remaining price is. I’ll never under any circumstance inconvenience myself over less than $5, because I can’t fathom a situation where $5 saves my life. Maybe if my entire family died.
Enough to use the stupid fucking fast food apps that need to ask which location I’m ordering from six times and every screen takes two seconds to load.
I live in a tiny garage “apartment” with only a washing machine, no dryer, and essentially “babies first refrigerator” too small to even keep a tub of ice cream in the freezer just so that I don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck.
Maybe try putting in the ice cream before the baby?
Seriously? I have priorities man! I can do without the ice cream, but there’s no way I’m going without a baby on ice. What kind of life is that!?
I am a baby first person, too. But they seemed like they wanted ice cream more. To each their own, I guess.
I have no idea, I’m quite frugal already without it being an inconvenience. If I’d step it up a notch to inconvenience I wouldn’t be saving much more.
In a though spot? No new stuff. Rent, food, internet, electricity. Put everything to the side I can afford.
English is a tough language. It can be mastered through tough thorough thought though.
Username checks out.
