EXTREME FRUGALITY: 5 THINGS I DON'T DO!

what is going on YouTube I am prepper princess the author of living on almost nothing if you are interested in purchasing my book I'll go ahead and leave a link down in the description box below it is also available in paperback form today we are going to talk about the five extreme Frugal things that I do not do but a whole bunch of other people do so I will go ahead and tell you what they are five things and I'll explain to you why I do not do them because they're not quite as Frugal as you think okay so the first one is I do not dumpster dive you always hear about people dumpster diving and some people find some really great things which is awesome good for them there's a couple of reasons why I don't dumpster dive okay number one dumpsters on the west coast it's been in California Arizona and Nevada everywhere that I've been dumpsters are either locked so that you can't open the top or they're these long like the Long Tall dumpsters and they have a tube coming out the top that goes directly from the dumpster to the store and it's fully enclosed on top so no matter what the circumstances is are there is no way to get into a dumpster in California Arizona or Nevada the three states that I have tried there's just simply no way to get into them the second reason is okay for starters in California there is a law that took effect in 2022 where stores are not allowed to legally throw away any consumable food all consumable food has to be donated to a food bank or other type of service that gives away that food for free to people in need so I would if I were ever in a position to where I couldn't afford my hundred dollar a month grocery grocery bill which is what I spend per month I would simply go to a food bank because uh dumpster diving versus a food bank you're you would get this essentially the same thing I mean that sounds weird but you know what I mean it kind of makes sense when you hear the explanation of how it works in Arizona um everything it was the same thing every dumpster I ever went to was fully enclosed uh and locked but even if the dumpsters were available to get into in Arizona or Nevada I wouldn't have dumpster dived anyway because it's so hot there that I would imagine that the food would have very quickly spoiled and I simply wouldn't have trusted it for health and safety concerns that's the that's another thing and another thing is that I I literally spend 100 a month on food 50 of that of which is my coffee seriously I spend about ten dollars on one canister of coffee and the rest of the money is half and half I spend like ten dollars a week on half and half half and half used to be a dollar 68 so I was spending maybe let's see 320 times four so like twelve dollars plus eight dollars for the coffee so it was 20 just a couple years ago now it's 50 get on coffee but I've switched all of my Meats to like beans and I no longer eat carbs it's just uh simply like fish or tuna canned tuna whatever and beans and well I guess beans have carbs and vegetables so and I'm one meal a day so I don't eat as much as the normal person I guess my body is adjusted to it so I don't have a whole lot of food expenses anyway and when it comes to stuff dumpster diving for stuff I simply call my family or I'll put a post out on Facebook and say hey I need Furniture can anybody hook me up and like everybody raises their hand this dining table the chair and you can't see it but there's a side table over there and I have another matching side table that goes with the coffee table all of it was free because I threw it out there that I needed some chairs and some stuff like that my family said come pick it up I did done deal [Music] um all right number two I don't use coupons [Music] what I use this app and that app and I use this and I use the grocery loss leaders and stuff like that that is great I'm seriously I'm very happy for you extreme couponers good for you um so some of the things that I've noticed With Coupons there's there's several different reasons I don't there's always more than one reason why I don't do these things okay starters I shop at WinCo and Grocery Outlet WinCo is employee owned they don't do coupons their prices are so low they do not accept coupons literally like I go there uh steak is 2.99 a pound chicken is 1.99 a pound they have these bulk bins where you you take you take a bag like like you do in the vegetable department and you fill it with I don't know pancake mix and there you go you get another bag you fill it with banana chips there you go you get another bag you fill it with almonds there's no coupons for those type of products the other place that I shop at is Grocery Outlet which is pretty rare because I get pretty much everything that I need at WinCo unfortunately it's within a half hour drive of where I live but uh Grocery Outlet is the other one and again their prices are so low that they don't accept coupons so um and and I do notice another reason is that a lot of the coupon not a lot 95 to 99 of the coupons that I do see um are typically for pre-packaged food like uh I don't I don't buy pre-packaged food or I do very very rarely I don't eat potato chips I don't don't drink soda um I don't eat I can't think of granola bars Pop-Tarts like I I don't eat that stuff um I simply eat you know I'll cook a whole chicken and and vegetables and then that's that's it I mean sometimes you'll see the ads that have lost leaders that are for fruits and stuff like that but um I simply don't use them um I grow a lot of fruit on my property now I have oranges lemons apples and I'm going to be adding at least four or five more fruit trees so I will have in grapes I'll have bing cherries all of my fruit needs will be taken care of when it comes to vegetables I grow artichokes I don't grow we'll we'll get in we'll get into that later okay so I don't use coupons number three I no longer shop at thrift stores it's fun to browse I'll give you that um but in the last few years ever since you know what the thrift stores are not really a bargain anymore I I'm F well for starters that's in reason number one they're not really a bargain anymore if you can get a pair of pants at Target or Walmart for 15 bucks but you go to the thrift store and they're nine dollars I would rather just spend the extra four or five dollars and get a new pair as opposed to the used ones that'll wear out a little bit faster they'll let they'll cost three quarters of the cost but they'll last only half as long um so that's one of the reasons I do find that there was an awesome thrift store when I was in Arizona and they had some awesome furniture deals but I didn't need any furniture at the time and when I moved here I mean I'm not going to pack up a trip the cost of a truck to pack up a truck full of furniture a U-Haul and then haul it several hundred miles up north just because you got a good deal on it you would have lost all of that money in the size of the truck that you would need without the furniture and the size of the truck you'd need with the furniture so it wouldn't have been any sort of money saving and I already had Furniture when I moved to Arizona so it wasn't a big deal and again I would just put out put it out there I got I got I got Furniture I am good [Music] um in the clothing so one of the things that I also do with clothing now so what I used to do is back in the day back in my day when pants were like two for five dollars I'd stock up I'd get like 20 bucks worth you know I'd have eight pairs or whatever um and I've taken more of a minimalist approach because first of all those pants are typically the older Styles and the older style I'm getting older my body is my body does not like the low rise jeans anymore you know now I like the high rise I like the mom pants the mom pant flares I like the flare pants and the high waist and those are really really hard to find at thrift stores if you can find them at all when it comes to shirts um I have a very simple wardrobe I have maybe four or five different short sleeve shirts that I wear in the spring and summer and then I've got like five plaid shirts that I wear in the winter and you guys see them over and over and over again several of them are three years old or older and I simply don't want to bring any new clothes into my life I don't need them and and I don't I honestly don't want them because I have I I don't know what it is I have decision fatigue if I see too many options in front of me I don't make a decision so if I have too many clothes at this point I'm just going to be like you know what Screwed I'm just wearing my pajamas out today I'm gonna walk out in sweatpants and a T-shirt and uh call it a day because I can't make a decision as to what I'm gonna wear today because there's too many choices so um that is also a reason I don't shop at thrift stores number four is something that a lot of extremely frugal people do I don't make my own laundry soap what I used to I used to make my own laundry soap quite a bit uh the problem I had is that the recipe would usually be like a five gallon jug and I'm one person who does one load of laundry per week and uh that jug would eventually get moldy after having it for three or four years plus I would have to store the washing soda and store the Fels naptha or the zote soap for whatever reason um as well as there was one other ingredient I I can't remember it was washing soda soap and something else but I simply didn't want to store all of that stuff then I went down to making a single bottle of it and blah blah now I bought this house and it came with a HE washer so I need those little pods and I buy these Amazon essential pods that was like eight dollars and I get like 120 pods but you gotta remember I do laundry once a week There's 52 weeks in a year and I have 120 pods that's gonna last me two and a half years for eight or nine dollars two and a half years for nine dollars so and plus um you know two and a half years for nine dollars I'm not going to worry about the difference between nine dollars and five dollars over the course of two and a half years you know it's a four dollar difference over two and a half years so I I'm I'm simply not going to worry about it a lot of people want to figure out how different ways they can save money on laundry and to be honest that two and a half years is probably going to be stretched out to three to three and a half because I don't use soap every single time uh I will use soap usually for two weeks in a row and then the third week I won't use soap because I strongly strongly believe that like we over use soap in this world shampoo and conditioner hand soap face soap body wash lotion uh dish washing liquid laundry detergent we simply in my opinion in my personal opinion and it's just an opinion we just use too much of it because the commercials for the last 70 years have told us that we need to fill a whole capful even though we only need a fifth of a capful you know we need to use a pod in every single wash I I simply don't believe that and my clothes you know I'm not out there digging trenches or working in a coal Factory or you know I'm not a diesel mechanic so my clothes need washing a lot less frequently and they don't require a whole lot of soap because there's not really any stains on them so and then of course if I feel like it I do still have bars of zote and Fell's nap with the soap that does not expire but I've had it for so many years from making that soap that from making the homemade soap that if I do have a stain I'll just rub the zote soap on the stain with a little bit of water and then I'll throw it in the washing machine without additional soap and every any the stains get out it smells good it works for me um the last thing is number five and it comes with sort of a caveat so let me explain I don't grow a traditional Garden so whenever I see people who are doing homesteading gardening extreme frugality I will see this Garden that is you know raised beds that go 50 feet that way and 20 feet across and they've got one row of lettuce one row of spinach one row of onions one row of zucchini one row of this one row of that uh and it's it's cool to look at I will give them that I love it I love looking at it I absolutely do but um I don't I don't how do I put this there is no benefit to eating leafy greens in my opinion so I will eat brussels sprouts green beans things that you can chew on that you have to bite into that make a sound when you bite right lettuce you have to have there's only 15 calories in a head of lettuce there's only you know 10 calories in a giant handful of spinach there's only a few calories in those leafy greens and while people say that there's plenty of vitamins and minerals and stuff like that those vitamins and minerals are also available in the higher calorie fruits and vegetables that are like green beans brussels sprouts carrots onions potatoes same vitamins and mineral anyway it's and trust me I have researched this you please feel free to research it yourself Google it go to the Weir Webster's Dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica and you will come up with the same type of information so I like vegetables that I can bite into um but those vegetables that I buy carrots potatoes onions green beans sometimes corn but very rarely do I eat corn I like it in my fajitas but uh you know that's about it brussels sprouts the frequency at which I have to eat them at each meal because I only eat them I only eat one meal a day over seven days so if I buy a bag of Brussels sprouts that lasts me a week you know if I buy a bag three two zucchinis it'll last me a week three cans of green beans it'll last me a week so the cost and the time and effort I would have to put into growing those vegetables is not cost effective for me I would be much better off making a YouTube video or doing a product review or going to my part-time job or you know selling some Amazon books or something to that would accumulate much more money than the time and effort I would have to put into growing those vegetables to make it worth it and the stuff that I buy at the store is extremely inexpensive like I said carrots potatoes onions so cheap like onions are like 69 cents a pound carrots are like a dollar a pound potatoes are less than a dollar a pound like sometimes you can get a five pound bag for 259. it's it's just it's not cost effective for me I do however like growing things that require almost no work so I grow artichokes I've got artichoke bushes out there I swear I'm tired of artichokes but [Music] artichokes require no maintenance so I just plant them I water them and I leave them that's it I water them a few times and then they start acclimating to the weather I don't have to do anything to them except occasionally you know rip off a little Branch there and and that's it I have fruit trees I have [Music] seven fruit [Music] ten I have 10 fruit trees right now and I will be adding probably 10 more but I don't really have to pay for fruit so the way that that the whole system works is that each fruit is ripe at a different time so I'll have oranges for three or four months every day three or four months and orange juice and oranges and more oranges and orange juice then I'll have red delicious yellow delicious and honey crisp apples you know for three or four months then I'll have my bing cherries which are not grown yet but eventually eventually I will have bing cherries for like two months at a time and you know the list goes on and on so I don't really have to buy fruit but the thing is is that it's just you plant it water it a few times and then it just acclimates to the weather and I leave it and that's it that's all it took so I do grow a garden but not a traditional row garden with with leafy greens I don't I don't waste my time with that all right folks that is my list of five things as an extreme Cheapskate in an extremely extra I think I'm the most frugal person on YouTube I I'm not I I don't know if it's between me and beat the bush as being the cheapest people on the planet but but um I I really think I'm up there and those are five things that extremely frugal people do that I do not and that is my reasons for not doing them all right folks I hope this information has been helpful uh maybe think about it do your thing all right folks do what you can with what you've got prepper princess out they're on their little heated blanket keeping nice and warm because we don't turn on the heater in this house no we do not no we do not you guys are so cute Rocky's snoring Nala is staring good doggies good doggies that's the side table I was talking about the lamp was six dollars at a thrift store and the lampshade I found walking on a walk in somebody's right on top of somebody's garbage can I talk about not dumpster diving I didn't dive for it it was just sitting on top and I picked it up than the table and I also have another matching side table which will eventually go over here chair was my grandma's there you go good puppies

Channel: Prepper Princess

Views: 73,478

Keywords: extreme frugality, budget, finance

Id: kBTRk9v3mFw

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023