This Internet Group Is Dedicated To Saving Money, Here Are 28 Of The Best “Frugal Wins”

As a former Sears appliance technician, I take phenomenal care of my appliances and I’ll never have to buy brand new. Here’s why...
I worked for Sears appliance repair and have troubleshot most appliances around the house. I cannot count how many times I have heard customers complain about buying a pair of brand new washing machine/dryer sets and wishing they had their old set back. Not only this, but I’ve picked up the tricks to making appliances last. After having worked on the newer ones vs older, used appliances, this is what I’ve learned:

DON’T USE TOO MUCH SOAP!! People make this mistake all the time. Especially with washing your clothes, brands will sell you a detergent with the cap that has measurements on it. Never use these measurements. Even the lowest measurement is too much. If you are washing a normal sized load of laundry, all you need is 1 tablespoon of detergent. Yes, you read that correctly. Towels/blankets can use maybe 2 tablespoons. The reason for this is because most marketed detergents will have a little sticker on it that says “HE”. This means it is high efficiency, or in other words really really really really concentrated soap. 1 tablespoon of HE detergent is equal to about 1/4-1/2 cup of soap. If you were to add 1/2 cup of HE soap, it creates an over abundant amount of suds for your washer. Too many suds can cause balance displacement and mess up your suspension. If you have a washer that senses the moisture content of the clothes, the extra suds can cause your washer to work overtime to get rid of them. This causes the motor/shaft to wear out faster. The extra oil in the suds can also trickle down easier into the shaft and cause rust. Lastly, too much detergent will cause more mildew build up between the tub and basket of the washer.

That being said, never ever ever buy Tide Pods. They are expensive and will wreck your washer/dishwasher. Too much detergent.

Never use dryer sheets. They will coat your lint trap with wax and ultimately cause house fires. Also, get your dryer cleaned often! Lint doesn’t always stick to the lint trap. It can escape and get into the heating element, causing it to light up into flames. Open up the dryer and vacuum out the lint, or use a wet rag to wipe it up.

The salesman is quick to sell you on all the new gadgets, functions, and color of the appliance. DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM/HER! Say you are on the market for a washer/dryer. The big boy sets will have any function you want. It’ll have crazy settings specifically for bedding, towels, whites, delicates, self cleaning. Looks awesome... but in fact this is pointless. If you go this route, you’ll end up buying a brand new washer with 20 settings that you NEVER touch. Most people only use the Normal and Heavy setting on their washer, and trust me these 2 settings will wash your clothes just fine. Same with a dryer: most people only use sensing dry or timed dry. There is almost no practical use for any of the other settings when they do the exact same function as your most normal setting.

The newer appliances combine plastic and metal moving parts, which cause the need for more repairs. The older appliances are made mostly of metal and last forever if you take care of them. I find that older people hang on to their appliances for longer and it always seems to have gone in their favor. I have worked on their 20+ year old washers and dryers they’ve had since the 90s, and in my experience they wash/dry better than any new appliance on the market. Plus, over the duration of their life, they have had little to no repair needed on them. If you can get your hands on an old washer/dryer, I highly recommend it!

Older appliances still have replacement parts on the market, and they are cheap. You can buy mostly anything you need to repair the machine with the exception of cosmetics (the outer shell, sometimes handles, main display and buttons).

Take care of your appliance. Once a month you should be running a cleaner in your washer/

Frugal tip for bedding.

Today, when I stopped at the dry cleaners, I asked if they sell or donate items that never get picked up. I was interested in a king size down comforter. They had 2, both looked in brand new shape. I picked the heavier weight one and paid $48 (the price of the cleaning) I saved approximately $200. They also sell some clothing, sleeping bags & curtains/drapes that aren’t claimed.

Thrifting souvenirs.

Hi all, just a quick frugal tip. If you're one of the lucky folks who gets to go on a trip somewhere, you can save a lot of money by visiting a thrift store in that location to find great souvenirs. For example, when I was in Alaska for work, I stopped by a thrift store and found a nice Northern Lights sweatshirt and an Alaska Brewing Co. t-shirt. What could have been an $80+ purchase in a souvenir shop ended up being a $12 purchase. Someone complimented the sweatshirt today (three years later) and I realized I never actually shared this tip with you guys!

I lost twice
Went out to dinner. Daughter wanted a fountain drink. I latched onto the "learning opportunity" and explained that a fountain drink costs about $0.25: $0.15 for sugar/flavor, $0.07 for the cup, $0.02 for the lid, and $0.01 for the straw. They charge $2.50 for the drink. Wife piles on and says "we'll stop at the store on the way home and get a 2-liter bottle of the same drink.

Well after the Walmart trip (whcih threw in some gummi worms, cookies, etc) rang up to $25.49, my daughter said as we left, "you should have saved $23 and just bought me the drink I wanted."

True.

The Manufacturers are on to us…

I am trying to be more frugal and the discussions and tips here have been very helpful.

One frugal behavior I’ve practiced for decades is to get every drop of shampoo, conditioner, etc. before opening the new one. I don’t mind using conditioner with a little water in it in order to get every bit out of the bottle. Recently I’ve noticed that my shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, etc. have lids that don’t screw off. It’s not that they’re hard to unscrew - it’s that they’re not made with threads to unscrew them. They won’t come off without cutting the bottle. The bottle says it contains 20 ounces. I don’t want to buy 20 ounces of product and only be able to use 18 ounces.

Anyway, I think they’re on to us.

12 years ago my grocery store had a sale in my deodorant, $1 a piece.

I bought every single one. 12 years later, I'm on my last one. It's been a ride /s

My spouse and I bought a house recently that had been empty and unsold for about 6 months. It was actually in pretty good shape, but the previous owner had left one of those blue cleaner cakes in the guest toilet tank. Well, six months of dripping into the bowl left grey-blue streaks and a dark ring in the toilet that could not be washed out. We thought our only hope was to replace the toilet. Fortunately, my spouse is pretty handy, but we have been busy with other things so hadn't been able to tackle that project yet.

Then someone on Reddit (not sure if it was this sub or not) suggested that a pumice stone will remove old stains on porcelain. I wasn't thrilled to take a stone to my porcelain, but we were replacing it anyway, so why not give it a try? In 15 minutes I had every stain gone, and no scratches.

$3.50 pumice stone from Home Depot vs $200 new toilet. Needless to say, spouse is thrilled!

To use an old phrase, "Thank you, kind Redditor!"

Being frugal has me literally in tears.

My local grocery store had 3 lb bags of yellow onions on sale for one dollar. I bought three bags and put them through the food processor and flash froze them in "pucks" using my ice cream scoop. Yes my house reeks of onion and I don't know if my eyes will recover (kidding) but I've got two gallons of pre chopped onions in the freezer for cooking!

A $20 pen is a much more impressive gift than a $20 t-shirt
If your budget for a gift is low, instead of buying something on that average price, buy something that is usually a lot cheaper. The quality will probably be superior and the receiver would almost certainly never have bought it for himself or herself.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be the pen vs t-shirt example.

A $20 whisk is better than a $20 kitchen knife. A $10 pencil case is better than a $10 backpack A $5 chocolate is better than a bunch of cheap chocolate that adds up to $5.

I stopped buying paper towels. My life went on. It’s been about 6 months since I’ve bought paper towels. The honest truth is I’m a paper towel addict. If they’re in the house I use them up so fast. Like one roll every two days. I was feeling pretty broke so stopped buying them for a few weeks and now I’m never going back. I have about 15-20 dishcloths / thicker cleaning towels that I use and wash all together every few days, sometimes with other towels and clothes. I use sponges for cleaning more. Good for the environment and my wallet.

Feel like I just discovered a cheat code.

Why did nobody tell me there are butchers/meat markets that are actually way cheaper than the grocery!?!? Here I was thinking it was all for bougie gentrifying upper middle class moms to get their 16/lb Blonde d’Acquitaine flank but nope!

There’s cheap butchers with tons of rotating items on sale, and you can buy in bulk!!! .85/lb chicken wings? Whole NY strip loin for 6.80/lb? Pork ribs for 1.60/lb? Sirloin tip for 4/lb? HELLO, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE

My meat devouring butt is in tears. Im just celebrating that I can now actually afford plenty of meat and freeze it for later. Plus I have access to plenty of offal and other cuts I ate growing up (liver, skin, cheek, head, shank, sweetbreads, tongue, turkey necks, tripe, fatback, hocks, neck roasts). This is life changing to me, literally. Thats my rant thank you.

I think I am frugal. My wife thinks I am a dork.

I always buy pump shampoo, conditioner, body soap etc. I find it last longer and is easier to control how much I use. I know I need exactly 2 pumps.
Well after the bottles are "empty" I put water in them. I just got 11 "extra" days out of my shampoo. I told my wife "Hey I got 11 days out of that shampoo!"
she says: "You counted?"
I said: "Yes! I got 9 days out of the bottle before that and 14 the bottle before that."
"I married a dork."

Snack hack.

We raised 6 kids so saving money was key. When we would buy the big bag of munchie mix at Costco I would air pop some pop corn. I would mix it 50/50 with munchie mix.

There was more than enough seasoning to cover the popcorn and it stretched the bag twice as far. No kid ever complained.

We often could get bread at 25 cents a loaf. I would cut it into crouton size pieces and toss with a bit of oil/butter/margarine whatever I had and add a tiny bit of vanilla. Then toss with sugar and cinnamon and put in oven till crispy.

It made a fun snack for lunches or after school

Kitchen scissors were my friend. I would cut chicken breasts and sausages in half after cooking. The kids could have more but it saved waste as often they would take a whole item and not eat it all. We started this when friends came over. Their kids would take a big portion, not finish it and then it was wasted.
I also cut French toast/pancakes/waffles into strips when they were leftovers. Kids loved them as a snack to dip with syrup or jam.

I really liked a $700 chair at a fancy furniture store, took a picture and did a Google image search. Found the same chair at Walmart for $200.

Not super frugal purchase, but saved $500 per chair.

So my husband and I love coffee, it's one of the things we choose to spend money on more than the average person probably would.

A little while ago our old espresso machine was showing signs it was probably nearing the end of its life, it was a relatively cheap one that had done well for a good few years. We decided to maybe have a bit of a splurge and ended up buying a pretty expensive automatic espresso machine, we did however get it for 50% off in the lead-up to EOFY sales so there was that at least.

After we got it, we didn't really think more about it and enjoyed our new purchase, until a couple of months down the line I realised we had basically stopped going out for coffee at all, something we used to do a fair bit. I had also started taking a latte in a thermos cup to work instead of buying one every day. The new machine just makes it so easy to make coffee.

So I did a quick bit of napkin math and a conservative estimate is that the machine will pay for itself in 6ish months. It's saving us about 45 dollars a week and that's not taking into account the fact that if I went into the coffee shop to get a coffee there was a high chance I'd buy a snack as well.

Homemade iced tea is better and CHEAPER than store bought.

I’m sure it’s been posted before but I haven’t seen it this year yet …. Make your own iced tea for pennies compared to store bought. You can make it as strong or as sweet as you like it. Don’t like black tea? Make iced green or mint tea. Sooo many variations and delicious! A 12 pack of name brand soda is going for 10-12$!!

If you have hulu, log in and click cancel. Instead of cancelling they will give you “deal” options like $2.99 for 6 months. I’m guessing same deal with other services.

Get a discount on streaming services like hulu.

My wife likes to get spray tans and bikini waxes before vacations. To save money, I bought the equipment and now I do both for her.

A few years ago, my wife came home from a Brazilian wax appointment and told me that she'd had a terrible experience. The wax was too hot, the technician (or whatever you call the waxer person) was grumpy, and a lot of hairs left behind. She said, "Honestly, I bet you could have done it better!"

That gave me an idea. "You know, I bet you that I could."

So, I read some articles online, found the right supplies, we watched a few training videos together, and, long story short, she has never been back to another waxing salon.

It cost a couple hundred dollars for the right equipment and supplies to be able to perform each of these services, but neither was very hard to learn. It only took about 3 spray tans before I'd gotten really good at giving them.

Brazilians were a bit more of a learning curve. I practiced waxing my own thighs for a couple of months before I attempted waxing her. I started with really small strips and the first few took forever, but now I can do one in about 25 minutes and she tells me that the results are better than any salon she ever went to.

The key for both services was purchasing professional quality equipment and supplies. I did a ton of research and tried a few different products before settling on what we found to work best.

The equipment paid for itself within 6 months. Now, each spray tan costs about $2.50 and a wax about $2-3.

My wife loves that I do them for her. She doesn't have to get naked for a stranger and she gets waxed consistently enough that it's far less painful qnd can keep a nice tan all summer with the perfect amount of color every time.

Do I enjoy providing her these services to her? Yes, I absolutely do. My wife is beautiful and I love taking care of her. However, I would not do them for her if it had not been her idea to have me learn to do them for her.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Edit: For those asking about supplies:

I order waxing stuff from Honeycomb Wax Company and spray tan solution from MineTan. Both have starter kits available. The spray gun in the MineTan starter kit isn't great. We upgraded to a gently used Norvell m1000 a few months ago and it is much better.

Rule of thumb with equipment and supplies: You get what you pay for. As you are not paying for someone to do the application, spend up and get nice quality product (ie, professional products, not stuff from the drug store).

Anyone still cutting hair at home?

So, I got into the habit of cutting my hair during covid, when all the barbershops were closed and stuck with it afterward. Not only does it save money, but it's very convenient to be able to have a quick cut first thing in the morning, or to touch up a cut in between things.

Anyone else still doing this? One other question I would have is experiences with hair clippers...I got a fairly cheap set to try out, but wasn't sure what a decent "upgrade" would be now that I know I'm sticking with it.

Not owning a car is like a cheat code to building wealth.

Sooo many of my friends have $600+ car payments, depreciation, pay hundreds on insurance, gas, and parking. Then pay thousands when they get into an accident or have their catalytic converters stolen, or their car gets broken into. Over a thousand dollars per month just to get from point a to point b!

Meanwhile, my monthly bus pass is $75 and my bike (second hand only was $200) takes me places for free (with the occasional $10 maintenance at my local shop)!!!!

I can’t imagine owning a car in this environment

That extra money goes straight into my pockets!