Contest: What is the most extremely frugal thing you've done?

**Momto2Boyz** · 03-19-2009, 09:10 AM

Ok, I have a TON of juju that I will never use. So I thought I would hold a contest to see who has done the most extreme, silly frugal thing to save a buck (or two

). Please be sure that your extreme frugal story, follows the unwritten rules of frugal ethics, no stealing, cheating or lying, but as long as it's legal...anything goes!

I guess I'll set a deadline of Friday night, and I'll award prizes on Saturday morning! There will be winners in three categories: Pure Hilarity (you know the ones that are so ridiculously funny, that we all laugh out loud while reading), Creativity (will go to the most unusually creative entry) and Usefullness (whoever can give the most extreme, but useful frugal story or tip).

Prizes will be awarded as follows:
Pure Hilarity: 10,000 juju
Creativity: 10,000 juju
Usefulness: 5,000 juju

If I have people on my friends list who do not submit an entry, I will send PM's to them and ask them to help me judge in the three categories!

This is just for fun, I thought we could all use some laughs these days! Plus, it's always fun to see some of the extreme and silly things that we have all done to save some cash!

Have fun with it!

**thesightofoneself** · 03-19-2009, 09:14 AM

oatmeal, almost every meal, 5 cents a bowl
i know i'm not going to win, i'm not frugal, i'm simple

**lvngwell** · 03-19-2009, 01:35 PM

I always astound my friends by the way things just happen to me. Once when I was off of work for a few weeks (paid "vacation") I made some extra pin money by helping a friend with his landscaping business. I felt good about geting paid vacation and also earning more money on the side - as well as the fact that I was helping my friend get his business back on it's feet!

The first day I was out my friends told me I was mad. Why would you work on vacation?? I wanted to help, I wanted to pay down some debts - to ME that was more relaxing than charging a spendy vacation on a credit card which just assured that I would HAVE TO return to work to pay it off - with interest!

So off into the warm sunshine I went with my gardening gloves, sunscreen, thermos of ice water, and homemade granola bars. After about an hour I started to weed some bushes near a shopping center. I bent down to pick up what i thought was a scrap of paper only to discover it was a $100 bill!!! I was stunned!!!! I took it across the street after work and asked the girl at the bank to test it to see if it was real - it was!!!!

After "work" I joined my friends around their pool to relax and sip lemonade. They started in on me about working again and said, why ever would you DO that? "Karma" I said as I pulled the $100 bill from my pocket! Thier jaws just dropped and one girl choked on a cookie.

After I told them the story I had several people ask if he needed more help! I really believe that responsibilty and good choices are rewarded in this life - and I have the $100 bill to prove it!

**2ndGenGranola** · 03-19-2009, 01:49 PM

We were still making payments on two houses when baby #1 decided to make his appearance. We did not have $$ for all the baby stuff. I dug through sofas, chairs, drawers, old boxes, parking lots, every place I could think of to find change to roll. With the exception of safety and personal items that were new from family, baby #1's clothes, cloth diaper covers, mobiles, bouncy seats, highchair...were bought with rolls of pennies, nickels and dimes at garage sales.

**lvngwell** · 03-19-2009, 02:06 PM

OMG my husband just reminded me of the most outrageous thing we did when we were flat broke!!

It was near Thanksgiving time and we had no food - I mean NO FOOD. Our local grocery store held a turkey giveaway. All you had to do was collect a certain amount of receipts (I think it was $200) during the contest period and you presented them in a special envelope for a voucher for a free turkey!!

During the dates of the contest they started printing their receipts on the bright yellow paper to make sure people knew these were the only receipts acceptable.

One day after counting out the pennies in my jar to buy a loaf of bread for PBJ's I saw a receipt lying on the ground in the parking lot of the grocery store. Someone had bought patio furniture to the tune of $250 dollars - I raced back in to the store and handed it over for a free turkey!! I had the butcher cut it in quarters and we ate well that day!

Then I got an idea - how many other people were just tossing their receipts? How many free turkeys could I get???? Turned out there was no limit! I started combing the parking lot for yellow slips of paper. We would go late at night and learned which bushes they got caught in because of the way the wind blew in the parking lot. I became a master at opening the car door just the right way so I could continue to drive while scooping up a receipt (my husband was driving - not me!)

I went inside and learned when they swept the front of the store and picked the yellow slips out of the garbage pile when they were done sweeping. I went through garbage cans and found every place I could to get receipts.

I took them home and put as close to $200 in each envelope as I could get using the tiny ones I found to bring it up to $201.69 or $200.98 so as not to waster a penny of the found slips!

In the end we got 12 free turkeys total!! I hade them all quartered and started to collect turkey recipes! We were so thankful to have meat we ate the entire year off those free turkeys!

When my family found out what I had done they were embarrassed for me - but the people at the store were cheering me on (and some cashiers dropped receipts at my feet as they casually walked by!) We never went on welfare though that whole terrible period - were drove around at night and garbage picked scrap aluminum and metal, sold junkyard finds at the flea market, and did anything we could to survive.

To this day I still LOVE turkey!!!!!

**MTS04** · 03-19-2009, 02:13 PM

Rock on lvngwell, rock on. That's a story of one man's trash is another man's treasure. Good for you!

**Momof3girls** · 03-19-2009, 02:38 PM

lvngwell-I just have to say, that is one of the coolest things I have ever heard of! I applaud you for the ingenuity and persistence to stay off of public assistance and get what was unwanted by others for free:up:

**foxxyroxie** · 03-19-2009, 03:58 PM

I don't know if this story counts... but I'll tell it anyway.

One year during the Easter season I was very ill with brochitis. On one of my excursions to Walgreen pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, I was sitting in the waiting area of the pharmacy and noted that they had all kinds of Easter basket filler items on sale. Let's say I was having a good day and having 5 Easter baskets for my DBF's (the one that I was dating then) niece and nephews, I proceeded to fill my shopping cart with the items that were covered by instore coupons. We had stuff like activity books, crayons, candy, etc. In addition to those items we had a few other items needed. We proceeded to the cash register area to check out. The cashier was new and was ringing up the items one by one, rather than the quantity key for multiples of the same item. All of a sudden, the cash register locked up. The cashier had to have the manager come and cancel the transaction and she proceeded to re-ring the sale. Then we realized that since I had bought so many items we realized that the register stops or locks up at 99 items. I was both red-faced and embarrassed that I had bought all that stuff and that the cashier had to break the order down and we paid for the first order and then the rest of the items had to be rang up on a separate sales transaction. To this day, my friends harrass me that I'm the only person they know that has locked up a cash register at a store!!! They even warn me if I go to Walgreen and say "now don't buy more than 99 items so that you lock up the cash register!"

QM · 03-19-2009, 04:11 PM

lvingwell - I love your story. That's something I could totally imagine myself doing. Twelve free turkeys...awesome job!!!

**McD** · 03-19-2009, 04:27 PM

Oh dear. This is more of a frugal failure but I'll share. When DH and I first got married, we liked to go grocery shopping together. I found a bottle of ketchup marked down to a ridiculously low price like 37 cents because it ahd the label torn off.

We took it home and a couple of days later Zac started to use it. All of a sudden he got the funniest look on his face and says, "THIS IS UNSALTED!!" Oh he threw the biggest fit, wanted to toss it.

Finally I yelled, "FOR 37 FREAKING CENTS, YOU CAN SALT IT YOUR DANG SELF!"

**marjorie** · 03-19-2009, 04:28 PM

I divorced my husband. He was, for a time, my most expensive hobby. Once we got married it developed that he didn't really like to work. At all. Not even taking care of his own kids so their mom could work. Once we seperated no more bounced checks, no creditor calls... lived pretty hand to mouth, but the peace of mind made up for alot! LOL

**danni** · 03-19-2009, 04:34 PM

lvngwll you totally made my day!!! I would so do that too and my friends would laugh or feel sorry for me too.

**Debbie-cat** · 03-19-2009, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by lvngwell

OMG my husband just reminded me of the most outrageous thing we did when we were flat broke!!

It was near Thanksgiving time and we had no food - I mean NO FOOD. Our local grocery store held a turkey giveaway. All you had to do was collect a certain amount of receipts (I think it was $200) during the contest period and you presented them in a special envelope for a voucher for a free turkey!!

During the dates of the contest they started printing their receipts on the bright yellow paper to make sure people knew these were the only receipts acceptable.

One day after counting out the pennies in my jar to buy a loaf of bread for PBJ's I saw a receipt lying on the ground in the parking lot of the grocery store. Someone had bought patio furniture to the tune of $250 dollars - I raced back in to the store and handed it over for a free turkey!! I had the butcher cut it in quarters and we ate well that day!

Then I got an idea - how many other people were just tossing their receipts? How many free turkeys could I get???? Turned out there was no limit! I started combing the parking lot for yellow slips of paper. We would go late at night and learned which bushes they got caught in because of the way the wind blew in the parking lot. I became a master at opening the car door just the right way so I could continue to drive while scooping up a receipt (my husband was driving - not me!)

I went inside and learned when they swept the front of the store and picked the yellow slips out of the garbage pile when they were done sweeping. I went through garbage cans and found every place I could to get receipts.

I took them home and put as close to $200 in each envelope as I could get using the tiny ones I found to bring it up to $201.69 or $200.98 so as not to waster a penny of the found slips!

In the end we got 12 free turkeys total!! I hade them all quartered and started to collect turkey recipes! We were so thankful to have meat we ate the entire year off those free turkeys!

When my family found out what I had done they were embarrassed for me - but the people at the store were cheering me on (and some cashiers dropped receipts at my feet as they casually walked by!) We never went on welfare though that whole terrible period - were drove around at night and garbage picked scrap aluminum and metal, sold junkyard finds at the flea market, and did anything we could to survive.

To this day I still LOVE turkey!!!!!

That is just awesome! What a fantastic idea to scope out for more reciepts! I certainly would have done the exact same thing. You deserve a reward for that one!

**marjorie** · 03-19-2009, 04:58 PM

I just thought of another one. Back in the day, Wisk detergent was selling disks of washing machine detergent in sample (2 to a pack) sizes. They didn't seem to sell very well. I had a coupon to buy one and discovered a $1 coupon inside good for one of any size. A drugstore I went to once in a great while had one of those standing displays filled with this detergent. The manager saw me buying some, opening the boxes, getting the coupons and "purchasing" more. He was tired of seeing that full display. Really tired! It took up room he wanted for a higher profit display. He allowed the 2 cashiers who were not busy to open the boxes, take out the coupon and hand them to me. Another cashier rang the sales until, with the manager's permission, we cleaned out the display. I thought I was doing really well until I thought about storage. Yes, you guessed it! The loaded the whole, filled display unit back up and loaded it into my hatchback. I only paid tax for laundry detergent that lasted a very long time.

**ncarr** · 03-19-2009, 05:03 PM

it costs roughly $50 to have my cocker spaniel groomed. last summer I just didn't have the money but she was so fuzzy and hot. So I used my husband's hair clippers and cut her myself. She looked kinda ridiculous at first but once I got the hang of it I have been able to keep her trimmed so that I only need to pay to have her groomed 3 times a year.