You Think You're Frugal? You Ain't Frugal.

Filed in archive Buying Stuff on November 30, 2006

If you ever read any other personal finance blogs other than mine (and you don't, do you?). you would find that a common theme is how to live frugally, especially among the many twentysomething bloggers whose decent-earning years are still to come. To be honest, I don't generally read these posts because I've already lived them and am happily no longer scratching for every nickel. (See? There's advantages to being in your 30s.)

But then I happened upon this---the ultimate frugal living post. Actually it is more than a frugal living post, as its title makes clear: Nourishment on a Desperate Income:

During one month, I was reduced to only spending $10.71 total on food...

Trent gives some tips to those who won't look back on their poor days as the "good old days" but will instead look at them as the "bad old days when I almost starved to death." Some of the tips are obvious, e.g., eat at home versus going out to eat, but some of these are truly inspired and/or bizarre. My favorites:

3. Keep a hen or two. This seems somewhat silly, but female chickens are very good at producing food. You can unabashedly feed them whatever scraps you have and they produce eggs very regularly. If you're careful, you can keep them in a small cage in your own apartment; a friend of mine kept one in a pet porter for several months. Just be aware of the smell; you should line their living area with paper and expect to clean it a lot. You can do this by using scavenged newspapers and rotating them daily, but leave the papers that the chicken scratches together for a nest alone.

Spoken like a man who's kept a hen or two. There's more:

9. Join a church. Quite often, congregations will have a free meal right after church and then another meal on a weeknight, usually Wednesdays. Even if you're not a believer, you can get away with two free meals a week. If you attend two churches, you can sometimes score as many as four a week (Sunday breakfast and lunch and two weeknight dinners). I usually felt bad about this, so I would volunteer to do some minor work around the church (cleaning, etc.), but that's up to you to decide.

I told you this was beyond frugal. Next:

11. Have friends over for a potluck dinner. Make something inexpensive for your dish for the spread. Most of the time, people will leave their leftovers behind, not wanting to deal with them, and you'll have a wide variety of food that will last for days for the cost of only preparing one dish.

Personally I find that sneaky, but that's not to say it isn't clever. But wait, there's more:

13. Ask for leftover bones at a butcher shop. A good excuse is to claim that they're for your dog. Expect to hear a lot of "no," but boiling these bones for a long time can provide a good deal of protein, particularly from the Marrow.

I don't want to for one second give the impression that I would make fun of anyone living below the poverty line, but I could never in a million years imagine myself asking for leftover bones at a butcher shop. I'd hit up the church for a meal, maybe even keep a hen, but I draw the line at the butcher shop.

Trent has other ideas, too, like hanging out at store grand openings to try to win shopping sprees and other more practical advice.

So, now I ask you: You think you're frugal? You ain't frugal. Trent---he's frugal.