I re-use sandwich bags.

My grandpa made all his own tools rather than buy new ones,(like, pliers). Took him hours.

He was Scottish-American.

When my shampoo or conditioner ran out, I used to pour some water in the bottle and shake it up. It would generally last at least another week.

You know the paper napkins that are folded into squares and when you unfold them, there are four squares? Well, my family used to cut those in half, so that a napkin was two squares big instead of four. All so that we could get twice as many individual napkins out of a whole package of them.

Nowadays, I use whole sheets of paper towels. Fuck napkins; they're too flimsy.

I re-use sandwich bags too! Yesterday I scored two boxes of Dunkin Donuts coffee after an event ended. It will take me a few weeks to finish a box so...

I put the other box in the freezer.

Maybe it's more laziness, but since I only make 1 or 2 cups of coffee at a time, I only change the filters every 3 or 4 days.

On the positive side, I do reuse coffee cans as flour and sugar cannisters.

I traded in the Bentley for an XKE.

And switched from 60 year old Scotch to 48.

A gentleman has to retain his standards.

I cut my own hair, with that stalwart of late night TV infomercials, the Flowbee. It's the only thing I ever bought off a TV commercial that worked. And work it does, like a treat, although I have straight Caucasian hair, and wear it pretty short. In the five years I've had it, it's probably saved me close to $2,000 on an outlay of $89.95 + shipping, for the whole kit. But more importantly, it's saved me countless hours of sitting in salon chairs, and explaining to bored stylists how to cut my hair so it doesn't look funny over the wrinkles in the back of my head. No bad haicuts + 100's of hours in salon chairs saved + $1900 in my pocket = very satisfied customer.

Go ahead, laugh at my middle class, white bread, vacuum cleaner hair cut self. I'm laughin' all the way to the bank.

Dude, salons are great places to pick up chicks, and some really cute guys. ;-P

omg, you wouldn't believe us... But it's not so much frugality, as sometimes it's just more fun to fix things yourself, or use "found" items than buy everything new and replace it the moment it isn't perfect.

Anyway, we have lots of cast-off items, especially electronics stuff, because my husband is great at fixing them. I think almost his whole pc is made from bits and pieces of other people's computers. For about 10 years, we had a great TV that someone we knew literally threw out their window because they had problems with it; our dvd player and vcr player are both things people were throwing away and gave to mr. taz for parts. My food processor, our dishwasher... I could go on and on.

My favorite current story though (and I was just telling dodgy about this), is my graphic tablet stylus: I've had it for so long, that I wore the little plastic nib down to zero, and the chance of getting a replacement part around here is just about nil. But I love my tablet, and it's been an indefatigable workhorse since I got it, so mr. taz ended up trying a few different things to replace the nib - and now it's been going merrily along for months and months with a toothpick nib that he filed for roundness and coated with super glue to get it to fit exactly. I'm clicking "post" right now with a toothpick.

My nonno had a friend named Mr Parnigoni who took him under his wing when he emigrated from Italy. Mr Parnigoni worked for the Post Office so he made a decent living, but he lived in a shack in the woods, bathed in a metal washtub and bought all the botulized cans at the supermarket at a discount. His wife wasn't too thrilled about their lifestyle since she occasionally gave him a black eye. One time at dinner I asked my nonno "How old is Mr Parnigoni?" and he slammed the table and said in a thick Eye-talian accent: "Iz time to die!!"

I too reuse sandwich bags and cut my own hair. I also stick the last bit of soap onto the new bar so it doesn't get wasted.

For a long time I had a rule that I would not pay more than a dollar for a book, although that's gotten relaxed lately -- yesterday I paid 2 dollars for a book, twice as much! Eeek.

I also rely on my rich friends for gadgets -- I get their old ones when they trade up to something better, and they're always trading up. I got my digital camera this way, and now I'm biding my time, eyeing their iPods and fancy cell phones.

paulsc, if I could've bought a flowbee in England when I was married, then I would, because my then husband had very thick straight hair and, apart from one old Italian barber who he'd been going to for years, nobody could cut it right. The barber eventually retired and my husband set out on a quest to find someone who could do the perfect haircut.

In the end, after he'd tried every barber's in East London & Essex (he flat-out refused to go to a 'hairdresser'), I bought him a set of clippers from QVC, and that was the only way he was able to get a haircut he was happy with. Number 3, all over, once every 2 weeks. Once a week in hot weather.

He threatened me with dire consequences should I ever use them to trim, er, you know. So I used to wait until he was out. He never knew.

Thinking about my own frugality, I use these twice, because there's enough cleanser in each one to do two cleansings, one in the morning, one at night.

He threatened me with dire consequences should I ever use them to trim, er, you know. So I used to wait until he was out. He never knew.

still laughing....

i'm not frugal...thanks for making me realize, i'm the great waster.

not sure if this counts as frugal...but for years my lunches consisted of what my children didn't eat.
not frugal...sad.