Comments on: Words of Wisdom from the Frugal Zealot http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/ personal finance that makes cents Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:01:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Debra Taylor http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-104574 Debra Taylor Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:22:15 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-104574 Washing out ziploc bags makes no sense when we are in the middle of a drought. Washing out ziploc bags makes no sense when we are in the middle of a drought.

]]> By: JenK http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-97047 JenK Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:00:54 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-97047 Heh. The books themselves say that most of the "tips" are examples of how to solve the problem of not spending money. You're paraphrasing the article on calculating hourly wage. :) Heh.

The books themselves say that most of the “tips” are examples of how to solve the problem of not spending money.

You’re paraphrasing the article on calculating hourly wage. :)

]]> By: Matthew Glover http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96922 Matthew Glover Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:48:41 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96922 Lynda Says: ------------------------- Oh, please, you could wash a whole year’s worth of ziplock bags in a hour. Do you throw out dishes because they take to long to wash? Somewhere is one of the Tightwad books there is a study of the time versus money saved in reusing bags. ------------------------- I think you're either missing my point or avoiding it. If I spent an hour washing ziplock bags, re-flattening used tinfoil, making children's halloween costumes out of cardboard boxes and spare parts from the garage, mixing my own granola, or most of the other *literally* nickel and dime hints in this book, I'd certainly save myself a few bucks. Let's say I somehow manage to collect a whole bunch of tips out of these books. Some save more money, some save less. Let's say I pick good ones, ones that on average take a minute to do each (including the time it takes to switch between tasks, putting away the last one and getting out the next, because we aren't going to spend all day washing ziplocks). Let's say these good ones average me ten cents saved each time I complete a task. That's the same as ten cents *earned*. Not bad, right? Ten cents a minute. Sixty minutes an hour. Six bucks an hour? What kind of wages is that? Man, I need better tricks. How about some tricks that earn me *fifty* cents a minute? That would pay me... thirty dollars an hour. Not bad, I guess. Are there a lot of tricks in there that average out to fifty cents a minute? I didn't see them. The next part is an exercise for the reader. Ask your friend the freelance web designer how much she charges per hour. Ask her if she'd earn better money doing an hour of contract work, or spending an hour on two dozen ziplock-washing-type tasks. Somebody higher in the thread mentioned the 4 Hour Work Week. I haven't read it myself, but I'm familiar with it. I don't have solid numbers to back this up, but I have a hunch that if I squeezed Tightwad Gazette dry, I'd have ten or twenty hours worth of stuff I could do each month to save money and I might save fifty or sixty bucks. If I spent *one* hour freelancing I'd make more than that, and I'd have the rest of the time to spend on... well, not washing ziplocks, you can be sure. Lynda Says:
————————-
Oh, please, you could wash a whole year’s worth of ziplock bags in a hour. Do you throw out dishes because they take to long to wash? Somewhere is one of the Tightwad books there is a study of the time versus money saved in reusing bags.
————————-

I think you’re either missing my point or avoiding it. If I spent an hour washing ziplock bags, re-flattening used tinfoil, making children’s halloween costumes out of cardboard boxes and spare parts from the garage, mixing my own granola, or most of the other *literally* nickel and dime hints in this book, I’d certainly save myself a few bucks. Let’s say I somehow manage to collect a whole bunch of tips out of these books. Some save more money, some save less. Let’s say I pick good ones, ones that on average take a minute to do each (including the time it takes to switch between tasks, putting away the last one and getting out the next, because we aren’t going to spend all day washing ziplocks). Let’s say these good ones average me ten cents saved each time I complete a task. That’s the same as ten cents *earned*. Not bad, right?

Ten cents a minute. Sixty minutes an hour. Six bucks an hour? What kind of wages is that? Man, I need better tricks. How about some tricks that earn me *fifty* cents a minute? That would pay me… thirty dollars an hour. Not bad, I guess. Are there a lot of tricks in there that average out to fifty cents a minute? I didn’t see them.

The next part is an exercise for the reader. Ask your friend the freelance web designer how much she charges per hour. Ask her if she’d earn better money doing an hour of contract work, or spending an hour on two dozen ziplock-washing-type tasks.

Somebody higher in the thread mentioned the 4 Hour Work Week. I haven’t read it myself, but I’m familiar with it. I don’t have solid numbers to back this up, but I have a hunch that if I squeezed Tightwad Gazette dry, I’d have ten or twenty hours worth of stuff I could do each month to save money and I might save fifty or sixty bucks. If I spent *one* hour freelancing I’d make more than that, and I’d have the rest of the time to spend on… well, not washing ziplocks, you can be sure.

]]> By: Lynda http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96917 Lynda Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:20:25 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96917 Oh, please, you could wash a whole year's worth of ziplock bags in a hour. Do you throw out dishes because they take to long to wash? Somewhere is one of the Tightwad books there is a study of the time versus money saved in reusing bags. Oh, please, you could wash a whole year’s worth of ziplock bags in a hour. Do you throw out dishes because they take to long to wash? Somewhere is one of the Tightwad books there is a study of the time versus money saved in reusing bags.

]]> By: rhbee http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96914 rhbee Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:32:38 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96914 It seems to me that attitude is more important than content in regard to the Tightwad Gazette. It reminds me of the 4 Hour Work week in this regard. If you are aware of what your time is worth and the task at hand is wasting money then don't do it. On the other side of the coin, maybe occasionally doing something that you thought would be wasteful just to find out the truth for yourself couldn't hurt either. It seems to me that attitude is more important than content in regard to the Tightwad Gazette. It reminds me of the 4 Hour Work week in this regard. If you are aware of what your time is worth and the task at hand is wasting money then don’t do it. On the other side of the coin, maybe occasionally doing something that you thought would be wasteful just to find out the truth for yourself couldn’t hurt either.

]]> By: Matthew Glover http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96906 Matthew Glover Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:47:39 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96906 This is pretty funny, but I swear to Chad, no joke, on my honor: Two weeks ago I visited my parents, who, along with some friends, just painted their house and saved a ton of money on it. To prepare for the trip, I replaced my brake pads. :D Those were the sorts of things I hoped to find in The Tightwad Gazette. I didn't find enough to keep me reading past the first third of the book. :( This is pretty funny, but I swear to Chad, no joke, on my honor: Two weeks ago I visited my parents, who, along with some friends, just painted their house and saved a ton of money on it. To prepare for the trip, I replaced my brake pads.

:D

Those were the sorts of things I hoped to find in The Tightwad Gazette. I didn’t find enough to keep me reading past the first third of the book. :(

]]> By: Daiko http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96905 Daiko Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:38:39 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96905 OK. So it seems the site refreshed and published my content before I was finished. Anyway, there are a ton of ways to not spend money, and only some of them involve reusing tinfoil and washing plastic bags. Some of them are big, like painting the house instead of having it painted (save $2.5K), some are medium sized, like replacing your own break pads on the car (save $30-60), and some are small like reusing tinfoil and plastic bags (save $3-10). If you follow the 80-20 rule and go for the 20 percent that spends 80 percent of your money, you will be significantly better off... ______________________ Wishing you a prosperous future, Daiko OK. So it seems the site refreshed and published my content before I was finished. Anyway, there are a ton of ways to not spend money, and only some of them involve reusing tinfoil and washing plastic bags. Some of them are big, like painting the house instead of having it painted (save $2.5K), some are medium sized, like replacing your own break pads on the car (save $30-60), and some are small like reusing tinfoil and plastic bags (save $3-10). If you follow the 80-20 rule and go for the 20 percent that spends 80 percent of your money, you will be significantly better off…
______________________
Wishing you a prosperous future,
Daiko

]]> By: Daiko http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96904 Daiko Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:28:25 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96904 It is interesting to contemplate that The Tightwad Gazette was mostly about doing things to save money, but Amy Dacyczyn said that the biggest savings were in what you don't do. Just think of it this way: if you don't buy a new BMW for $40k, instead buying a used Honda for $10K you've "made" $30k in an afternoon. It is interesting to contemplate that The Tightwad Gazette was mostly about doing things to save money, but Amy Dacyczyn said that the biggest savings were in what you don’t do. Just think of it this way: if you don’t buy a new BMW for $40k, instead buying a used Honda for $10K you’ve “made” $30k in an afternoon.

]]> By: Matthew Glover http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96891 Matthew Glover Wed, 05 Sep 2007 14:07:59 +0000 http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/04/words-of-wisdom-from-the-frugal-zealot/#comment-96891 I checked out a copy of The Tightwad Gazette from my local library and tried to read it. I gave up about a third of the way through. All of the techniques and recommendations seem so nickel and dime, so small potatoes, that they seem practially inconsequential. I have no doubts that if you implement *all* of them, you'll save yourself a lot of money. I can't help but feel that doing so would take a *huge* amount of time. An hour I spend washing out ziplock bags and flattening out tinfoil may save me a dollar, but that's an hour that I can't bill to a customer for web development. You can bet I'll earn a lot more than that dollar I would've saved. I appreciate that these tips may work better for a mom who's primary job is raising kids and managing a household, and I respect that, but I don't have kids and my wife and I both have a full-time day job as well as both doing freelance consulting and web development on the side. We'd lose more money than we'd save if we tried most of these tips. I also returned the book to the library two days late. I'm sure that somewhere out there, Mrs. Dacyczyn is grinding her teeth over my wasted thirty cents. :D I checked out a copy of The Tightwad Gazette from my local library and tried to read it. I gave up about a third of the way through.

All of the techniques and recommendations seem so nickel and dime, so small potatoes, that they seem practially inconsequential. I have no doubts that if you implement *all* of them, you’ll save yourself a lot of money. I can’t help but feel that doing so would take a *huge* amount of time. An hour I spend washing out ziplock bags and flattening out tinfoil may save me a dollar, but that’s an hour that I can’t bill to a customer for web development. You can bet I’ll earn a lot more than that dollar I would’ve saved.

I appreciate that these tips may work better for a mom who’s primary job is raising kids and managing a household, and I respect that, but I don’t have kids and my wife and I both have a full-time day job as well as both doing freelance consulting and web development on the side. We’d lose more money than we’d save if we tried most of these tips.

I also returned the book to the library two days late. I’m sure that somewhere out there, Mrs. Dacyczyn is grinding her teeth over my wasted thirty cents. :D

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