Now that we know that supposedly frugal Newt Gingrich had two lines of credit at Tiffany’s, to whom can we turn for cash-saving tips?
To Reddit!
The link-sharing site’s Frugal subsection is a place for swapping ideas on how to live on less. You can crowdsource your penny-pinching, so you don’t need to get distracted from actually making money. (Or, Reddit being Reddit, get distracted from getting distracted.)
The subreddit has been around for three years, and has nearly 70,000 readers, so that’s still an awful lot of content to wade through. That’s why we at the Daily Dot took things one step further.
Below are six of the forum’s simplest suggestions.
So go forth, young tightwad, and spend no more than you have to.
1. Buy lunchmeat for 99 cents a pound by purchasing the “ends” at the deli counter. “Bottom line,” says poster kmarks2, “even if the price is higher in your area, you can very easily walk away from the deli counter with several pounds of meat for $5.”
2. Put electrical tape over the sensor on your laser printer. This will trick the (often dishonest) machine. “I’m still using the toner cartridge it said was empty six months ago,” says poster blankblank.
3. Turn “dinner and a movie” into “lunch and a matinee.”
4. At the grocery store, don’t put lightweight vegetables in a bag. Just carry them in your hand, or loosely in your shopping cart. “Four chilies in a bag = $0.85; four chillies carried in your hand and put on the scale bag-free=$0.30,” writes lenniebaby, who says he’s a grocery store clerk.
5. Don’t even bother buying soap, shampoo, detergent, Lysol, or other household cleaners. Instead, buy raw ingredients in bulk, and make your own.
6. Finally, if you need even more suggestions, check out this recent thread: “What’s Your #1 Tip For Saving Money” It’s loaded with simple, good ideas. The best resulting exchange for long-term money-saving advice in the wry spirit of the community was this one:
“Always wear a condom,” wrote redditor KillYourTV.
On Reddit, though, there’s always room for improvement. Eatingicecream replied: ”Speaking to this, don’t buy condoms, you can generally get them for free at your nearest campus from their sex/health office, or a similar place.”