What common everyday inconvenience have you intentionally suffered for frugality?

[workingovertime]

Curious to see some examples. No judgement!

Some of mine:
-Haven't replaced car battery for few months so instead of having keyless entry/start, now I have to take out manual key from keyfob and insert keyfob that happens to be under the center console every time. A real hassle when you have full hands or raining
-Haven't replaced bedroom light bulb that's been out for a while now. Now instead, I just use this "annoying" yellow light that I despise instead of my preferred white light

[eye.surgeon]

You'd feel right at home over at MMM if changing your remote battery seems a bit spendy.

[workingovertime]

You'd feel right at home over at MMM if changing your remote battery seems a bit spendy.

Lol. I don't like how their forum is set up though. Many of their threads are like 10 pages long. I personally like seeing multiple new posts rather than following the same old stuff.

[wander]

Curious to see some examples. No judgement!

Some of mine:
-Haven't replaced car battery for few months so instead of having keyless entry/start, now I have to take out manual key from keyfob and insert keyfob that happens to be under the center console every time. A real hassle when you have full hands or raining
-Haven't replaced bedroom light bulb that's been out for a while now. Now instead, I just use this "annoying" yellow light that I despise instead of my preferred white light

No, those are basic needs and I would replace them ASAP.

[livesoft]

We didn't replace the central heat in the upstairs of our home for 2 winters when it stopped working. We just spent more time downstairs where its central heat was still fine.

[Mingus]

I can understand not replacing a battery and a lightbulb out of laziness. But disguising laziness as frugality in these examples is a little much.

[LadyGeek]

This thread is now in the Personal Consumer Issues forum (how you spend your money and your time).

Related:
- What frugal thing did you do today?
- That Extravagant Thing You Do

[workingovertime]

I can understand not replacing a battery and a lightbulb out of laziness. But disguising laziness as frugality in these examples is a little much.

While I am on a more extreme-side, your assumption here is very incorrect. I have no desire to elaborate or prove anything to a stranger on the internet though but just saying.

[6Pack]

None. If there is an everyday inconvenience that myself or my family is suffering through, I will take care of it.

[MathWizard]

I chose the cheapest staff parking and walk about a block and a half further.
This saves $ 375 per year and is good exercise, but is quite s bit colder in the winter.

I pack a lunch everyday.

I drive an older car.

No cable, just OTA like when I was a kid and Netflix.

Movies from Netflix, not in the theater.

[Thrifty Femme]

None. If there is an everyday inconvenience that myself or my family is suffering through, I will take care of it.

+1

[Keepcalm]

never understood this.

if you have the financial staples in order, hell you can hit Starbucks every morning and be just fine.

life is too short to pinch frugality like that.

[Nate79]

You are on the wrong site to discuss frugality.... Folks around here are allergic to it (except in the one thread where people brag about the one frugal thing they did this year).

[Mingus]

You are on the wrong site to discuss frugality.... Folks around here are allergic to it (except in the one thread where people brag about the one frugal thing they did this year).

This isn't frugality though. The examples given are the equivalent of not replacing dead batteries in the TV remote. Whereas frugality would be the TV remote is broken, and I'm not buying a new one.

[grettman]

What some people call frugal I call spending money wisely. On the frugal end there is the making of bar soap (not as hobby) or cutting your own hair (and not because you like to). Then there is spending money wisely --- like not paying for cable if you don't feel you are getting your money's worth. I chose to "sacrifice" cable because we don't enjoy 200 dollars worth of cable. The cord cutting isn't to cut costs for the sake of cutting costs....its just cutting waste...

[BanquetBeer]

I don’t like paying for service. If they want to charge meshing price for something (I.e. taxi in non regulated countries) I’d rather walk.

[GerryL]

Where I live I can take a bus (3 doors from my house) to light rail and then straight to the airport. Bus is not very frequent and train ride is about an hour, but it beats spending $60-$70 a week (maybe more now) to park near the airport. Sometimes friends will drop me off or pick me up at light rail station so I don't have to wait in rain or wait up to an hour for bus at night. For longer trips -- 3-4 weeks -- this is more economical than frugal. It is a pain, though, having to figure out flights that work with getting to airport on public transit.

[Nicolas]

I drove a 1996 Corolla into the ground. I bought it from my daughter in 2008 for $3K. It was overpriced but it was my daughter so I didn’t care.

Eventually the gas tank sprung a leak but it was at the top so if I didn’t fill the tank all the way it wouldn’t slosh out. Then the volume knob fell off the radio so I used my leatherman to adjust it after that.

Then the electric door locks went haywire, the locks continually locked and unlocked themselves with no way to control them. So I pulled out the fuse for the door locks and left it out. I used my key and fingers to lock and unlock after that, like in the old days. But I found out the windows shared the same fuse as the door locks so now my windows wouldn’t go up or down anymore. I left them up. It was good the AC still worked so in the summer I was okay.

I drove it like that until one of the fuel injectors failed. The estimated repair was $300 so I junked it last year.

[livesoft]

... or cutting your own hair (and not because you like to).

Uh-oh. I went to an NBA game last night and was so inspired by the many shaven heads that I cut my own hair today for the first time. I just didn't want to drive to the hair cutting place.

[drk]

Cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms rather than hiring a cleaning service.

No judgement!

I can't tell if this is a promise or a command, but I can't help but judge your examples. Sorry!

[drk]

... or cutting your own hair (and not because you like to).

Uh-oh. I went to an NBA game last night and was so inspired by the many shaven heads that I cut my own hair today for the first time. I just didn't want to drive to the hair cutting place.

If you're comfortable with the look (and have a reasonably symmetrical head), it's great. Stylistic flair and variation is pretty easy to add when you have that safety hatch.

[multiham]

I drove a 1996 Corolla into the ground. I bought it from my daughter in 2008 for $3K. It was overpriced but it was my daughter so I didn’t care.

Eventually the gas tank sprung a leak but it was at the top so if I didn’t fill the tank all the way it wouldn’t slosh out. Then the volume knob fell off the radio so I used my leatherman to adjust it after that.

Then the electric door locks went haywire, the locks continually locked and unlocked themselves with no way to control them. So I pulled out the fuse for the door locks and left it out. I used my key and fingers to lock and unlock after that, like in the old days. But I found out the windows shared the same fuse as the door locks so now my windows wouldn’t go up or down anymore. I left them up. It was good the AC still worked so in the summer I was okay.

I drove it like that until one of the fuel injectors failed. The estimated repair was $300 so I junked it last year.

I truly hope that there was sarcasm in this post. No one should ever drive a car or run any equipment with a leak in the gas tank. I'm not worried about you since you knew about it. I'm worried about others who may be impacted by the lack of safety with your car. Everything else you posted are just conveniences.

[2015]

I haven't "suffered" because I refuse to hire a cleaning service. I'm retired, have the time, and I do it better and faster than they do besides (without breaking anything!).

[Jack FFR1846]

I cut, split, stack, haul and burn firewood to greatly reduce oil used to heat during the winter. It's barely into the cold season and I've gone through at least a cord so far. This isn't the "pretty" fireplace wood for show......the forced air wood furnace is in the basement and heats through ducts throughout the house.

[Nicolas]

I drove a 1996 Corolla into the ground. I bought it from my daughter in 2008 for $3K. It was overpriced but it was my daughter so I didn’t care.

Eventually the gas tank sprung a leak but it was at the top so if I didn’t fill the tank all the way it wouldn’t slosh out. Then the volume knob fell off the radio so I used my leatherman to adjust it after that.

Then the electric door locks went haywire, the locks continually locked and unlocked themselves with no way to control them. So I pulled out the fuse for the door locks and left it out. I used my key and fingers to lock and unlock after that, like in the old days. But I found out the windows shared the same fuse as the door locks so now my windows wouldn’t go up or down anymore. I left them up. It was good the AC still worked so in the summer I was okay.

I drove it like that until one of the fuel injectors failed. The estimated repair was $300 so I junked it last year.

I truly hope that there was sarcasm in this post. No one should ever drive a car or run any equipment with a leak in the gas tank. I'm not worried about you since you knew about it. I'm worried about others who may be impacted by the lack of safety with your car. Everything else you posted are just conveniences.

No sarcasm, everything I wrote happened. I never considered the safety hazard, perhaps I should’ve. I was the only driver of this car.

I used to drive a car where the floor began to rust out and a hole developed, you could see the road. If I drove through a puddle it would sometimes splash up at me. It was a 1970 Nova.

[bhsince87]

We keep our house at 63 degrees F in the winter.

But we probably offset those energy savings by running massive AC's to keep it at 68 degrees in the summer...

[denovo]

We didn't replace the central heat in the upstairs of our home for 2 winters when it stopped working. We just spent more time downstairs where its central heat was still fine.

I am guessing no one slept upstairs?

[LilyFleur]

We didn't replace the central heat in the upstairs of our home for 2 winters when it stopped working. We just spent more time downstairs where its central heat was still fine.

Hahaha! When my weird heater's radiator leaked and caused water damage, I just ripped the heater out and gave myself an additional closet. It hasn't been a problem as I live in coastal California.

[MathWizard]

We didn't replace the central heat in the upstairs of our home for 2 winters when it stopped working. We just spent more time downstairs where its central heat was still fine.

I am guessing no one slept upstairs?

When I was young many of us slept upstairs in the winter.
The heat was what flowed up through a one foot by one foot grill
in the floor. Long johns were pulled under the quilt to warm bodyheat in the morning.
Only one very bitter winter was a double bed moved downstairs for 4 of us to sleep in.

There's a reason why I save. I remember times like those.

[JediMisty]

Not a coffee drinker, but I love diet peach Snapple. I buy the single powders and make them myself rather than buy the bottled ones. I wash out the glass bottles in the dishwasher, a clean one every day and make three or four throughout the day. Better for the environment and easier than lugging them home from the grocery store. But mostly because I'm frugal.

[DorothyB]

I have a 2002 CR-V with just over 199K miles. The door locks have been funky for a couple of years now. Remote will lock or unlock all doors ONLY if the driver's door is already in the locked or unlocked state that I want the other doors to switch to. Then the front passenger window quit working (luckily in the up position ) Not paying to fix either of these.

Then the key quit working in the driver's door most of the time. I do intend to get this fixed next year.

[JBTX]

We kept a refrigerator / freezer unit for over 20 years. First the icemaker gave out. Then the light bulb in the fridge burned out. We didn't get it repaired because I was too cheap to pay a repairman to fix them (light bulb was probably just laziness).

We finally did a major kitchen remodel and replaced all appliances. Frugality for us is intermittent and uneven. I can identify with point of OPs thread. As you attempt to be more frugal, you don't always do it rationally or evenly. I'll spend $20 on fast food for 3 and not blink, but ask me to spend $10 on the internet for something of real value and I'll drag my feet.

[goodlifer]

These examples are all nuts. The whole reason to make money is to avoid having to deal with these types of problems. You know what I intentionally suffered today? I made the horseradish sauce for our prime rib roast with yogurt instead of sour cream because I didn't want to send my husband out to the store while he was enjoying his vacation. We used the the regular silverware and the Mikasa plates instead of the sterling flatware and Wedgwood plates because I didn't want to hand wash after eating. True story! I'm not joking at all.

[toofache32]

My wife and I had this discussion recently about how there are some areas I don't mind paying top dollar, and other areas where I am downright cheap. I gladly pay $100 for a car service to the airport and another $100 to get home so I don't have to deal with traffic and parking. And I always fly first class even with ridiculous fares. But on the cheap side, I held on to my wife's engagement ring for 5 months before asking her to marry me, because I was waiting for her birthday so I didn't have to buy her a present. I probably got this cheapskate quality from my dad who scheduled his wedding on Labor Day weekend because it was one less day he had to take off work for the honeymoon. As for inconvenience, I drove a truck with a broken air conditioner for several years while living in the hot South. My girlfriend (now wife) finally asked "don't you have air conditioning in this thing?" I said yep I've got a two-forty. Two windows going 40 miles per hour. We also went through a period of years where we did Valentine's day on February 15....restaurants aren't crowded and flowers are 50% off.

[sambb]

i prefer to spend rather than save for above sorts of things

[red5]

OP, I'm glad you got a few actual answers amid the judgements. If you are interested, there is a Frugal subreddit that may give you some better responses.

[CarpeDiem22]

My cellphone is 2 years and 3 months old and the battery won't last one full day. I keep one charger at home and one in office. If I am travelling, I carry a compact power bank. However, I don't consider this an inconvenience really as it still performs decently, and I anyways had a spare charger and a power bank. I will junk the phone if performance issues develop.

[lazydavid]

My cellphone is 2 years and 3 months old and the battery won't last one full day. I keep one charger at home and one in office. If I am travelling, I carry a compact power bank. However, I don't consider this an inconvenience really as it still performs decently, and I anyways had a spare charger and a power bank. I will junk the phone if performance issues develop.

If you think the phone is otherwise good for another year or two, get the battery replaced. It's usually pretty cheap. I think I paid $39 to have Samsung replace the battery in my wife's former S6 Edge, which enabled her to continue using it past the 3-year mark. Then when I upgraded her to an S9 this year, because it still held a charge I was able to get $200 trade-in on the old phone (think it would have been $25 otherwise). So for less than $40, I was able to put off a $800 purchase for an extra year, and save myself an additional $175 on said purchase. Best return I've had the past two year.

[chipperd]

-cars: we always purchase 3-4 year old vehicles and drive them into the ground and keep well over 200k miles (last had 268k). Cheaper to keep fixed and safe most times.
-mortgages: switched from fixed to heloc in 2009, then back to fixed about a year-18 months ago. The suffering was in the risk
-made my own replacement laces for boots out of para cord yesterday. Seemed ridiculous to spend $9 on laces to me.
-almost always bring lunch to work.
-have cut my own hair for decades; initially to save $, now to save time. Same with my son's, who now as a young adult, asked how to schedule a haircut at a barber shop the other day.
-purchased an indulgence last month: used day sailer with trailer for $300 that needs a few things instead of one that doesn't at 5x the cost.
-Cricket: service not nearly as good in our home vs Verizon, but 1/3 the cost for our family
-Aldi's

[fasteddie911]

My spouse and I share a car, I do most the driving. We live close to where we work, her parking is 2k/yr which is nearly what spend annually on car ownership, and my parking is free. Our work hours is somewhat flexible and it requires some planning, sometimes going early, staying late, waiting around, using uber, etc. We're used to it so the inconvenience is minimal, plus my spouse doesn't really care to drive either.

[UpperNwGuy]

I drink inexpensive wine.

[investingdad]

never understood this.

if you have the financial staples in order, hell you can hit Starbucks every morning and be just fine.

life is too short to pinch frugality like that.

I agree.

My parents like to go on cruises, as do we. Over Christmas, my mom commented on how much she liked a certain drink I made.

I told her the umpteen bar tenders on the cruise ship can make them for her as well. She was genuinely surprised by this. Apparently they won't drink anything that's not free on board.

I mean...really. They're spending thousands of dollars for a cruise but won't spend $8 a few times for a couple of drinks to enhance their enjoyment.

[Watty]

I can understand not replacing a battery and a lightbulb out of laziness. But disguising laziness as frugality in these examples is a little much.

+1

You will likely replace those sooner or later anyway so you are not really saving any money.

[bungalow10]

Curious to see some examples. No judgement!

Some of mine:
-Haven't replaced car battery for few months so instead of having keyless entry/start, now I have to take out manual key from keyfob and insert keyfob that happens to be under the center console every time. A real hassle when you have full hands or raining
-Haven't replaced bedroom light bulb that's been out for a while now. Now instead, I just use this "annoying" yellow light that I despise instead of my preferred white light

This seems more lazy to me than frugal.

Not judging, just observing.

[BogleMelon]

I rent a small apartment instead of buying/renting a nice single house. I am sometimes inconvenienced by my neighbors, specially when they become active in the midnight and stomp over my head!

[acegolfer]

I use RedPocket voice and FreedomPoP data service in my dual-sim phone. My total cellphone bill is $4.50/month. When FreedomPoP sim reaches its monthly quota, I replace with another one.

[jharkin]

You'd feel right at home over at MMM if changing your remote battery seems a bit spendy.

+1000 A $0.50 fob battery??? If you are trying to be ultra frugal sell the new car and buy a cheap used car that doesn't have keyless entry. That will make more of an impact than 10 lifetimes worth of cheaping out on button batteries.

Remember, dont be "penny wise and pound foolish"

[Colorado13]

I don't have an iPhone. My smart phone is 2 years old and works fine, but it certainly doesn't provide the functionality that an iPhone does, which is occasionally inconvenient.

[Stinky]

I love my Brooks walking shoes, and average over 20,000 steps per day in them (including treadmill time in the morning).

After a few months, it seems like the foam in one particular spot in the back of the right shoe wears through, and a hard piece of plastic pokes through and irritates my ankle.

I find that if I tape a small piece of cotton ball over the piece of plastic, I can make the shoes last about 2 months longer and defer the $120 cost of replacing the shoes.

My wife says - "Just buy new shoes" - to which I respond - "I'm cheap".

[randomguy]

I don't have an iPhone. My smart phone is 2 years old and works fine, but it certainly doesn't provide the functionality that an iPhone does, which is occasionally inconvenient.

Other than not running some iPhone specific app what are you missing? 2 year old android and iPhones aren’t exactly missing features.

These race to the bottom threads are useless. There will always be some people more extreme than you and willing to spend 100s of hours to save .50. Drinking cheap wine isn’t frugal. A frugal person drinks water. A really frugal person drinks rain water since tap water is so expensive. Why pay for something you get for free? Buying 1 ply toilet paper instead is f 2 ply isnt frugal. Frugal is making sure you you only need to go during work hours so you can use theirs for free.