Comments on: Does Frugality Beat Inflation?

By: carol mason

carol mason — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 04:22:04 +0000

Live in Kansas and raise a few head of cattle, my
thoughts to share Big Bales of hay 45.00, last wk.
corn 9.00 for 50 pounds, in the winter they can’t
live on just hay. Takes between 500 and 600 dollars to process a beef after you feed for 2 years

By: Debbie M

Debbie M — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:30:28 +0000

I’m with kristine–becoming more and more frugal can beat inflation, but staying the same doesn’t. Even if you’re very frugal, spending only 20% as much as average people, inflation attacks that spending.

For example, I bought a small house and paid it off. Yea! Property taxes and insurance still rise each year. Cutting my own hair means I spend no money at all on hair cuts. But if the price of something else goes up, I have no wiggle-room in the cutting-my-hair part of the budget because it’s already at rock bottom.

That said, you can keep getting better at being frugal. Every time you find a new way you like, you can profit from that forever, and it can be a springboard to new ideas. But how long can this go on before you have to become a cave-dwelling freegan to keep your costs from going up?

By: Sara

Sara — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:19:21 +0000

I have noticed that frugality is definitely protection against inflation. I recently was in a position of needing to outfit a new home because of divorce. By shopping yard sales, I acquired everything I needed at extremely low prices. These items may last the rest of my life because I tended to looked for older pieces of kitchenware and sturdy vintage wood furniture. This will tremendously reduce future replacement costs. I am starting to buy high quality clothes for work so they won’t have to be replaced so often either. I spend little on material items at this point. Hopefully I will be able to buy myself an inexpensive home soon which I will pay off quickly and therefore reduce my home expenses to very little. So over several years of procuring what I need, my need for income actually gets reduced. Working to establish gardens, fruit trees and bushes and decent food storage will help to lessen food expenditures over the next few years. So yes, I think frugality can not only reduce the impacts of inflation but beat it…

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 09:52:33 +0000

Buying pre owned is a great way to beat inflation. All wool sweaters, all cotton clothing, great quality handbags and belts of leather, beautiful coats and suits are all available at yard sales for pennies on the dollar. Shop better neighborhoods where people with larger incomes grow tired of new things before the “new” is even off the item. It’s interesting to see how many items of clothing are available at garage sales with the original tags still attached. Take advantage by buying gently preowned things, antique furinture, beautiful older accessories at flea markets and yard sales. Stop sending your money to China, beat inflation, save wads of cash and help the environment. Buy pre owned! We bought a slightly used TV at a sale, the owner had just won an even bigger TV at a raffle, and we paid $75 for this big TV. The TV functioned perfectly for more than ten years, and it was from a yard sale so there wasn’t any sales tax to pay. Worked out to less than $7.50 per year to own and use the TV. Now that beats inflation!

By: kristine

kristine — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 03:28:26 +0000

If you have already sealed your windows, if you have already changed or lifestyle to live lean and mean, then an increase in any consumable you need will have a direct impact on your budget.

Adopting new frugalities to ameliorate new specific inflationary increases will lessen their impact. No one is perfect, and there is always room for improvement, but you can reach a kind of critical mass, where the lifestyle is finely tuned, and you become subject to the law of diminishing return.

Long term readers of TSD may fall into this category; new readers likely will not, and resonate more with this post. I am looking for new ways to address the former scenario, much like a dieter who has plateaued with 5 pounds left to go.

By: Sonja

Sonja — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 20:20:29 +0000

Two particularly great piecse of frugal advice came to me from Amy Dacycyn’s “Tightwad Gazette”. She talks of avoiding being an early adopter with technology. Just wait patiently and someone will probably give you their “old” one or sell you one very inexpensively. We were slow to switch from VHS to DVD and got a lot of great VHS movies from friends who switched right away. We still had children at that time who were delighted with the free Disney movies we were given. I am using an iPhone 3G right now that was given to me by a friend who had to have the iPhone 4.

Second, if you are looking for an item “put the word out” that you are in need of whatever it is and ask your friends and family to keep you in mind if they hear of anyone needing to get rid of or sell their whatever-it-is. We got a lawn mower this way, a 52″ rear projection TV (not LCD or HD, hence the need for another friend to upgrade, an air compressor and a welder. My sister-in-law got a free piano this way, she just had to move it herself.