45 People Share Which Frugal Choices Are Absolutely Worth It And Which Are A Waste Of Time

Er... not having children has become a very popular choice these days. To the point where people are worrying about population collapse!

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You are going to need a "next generation" to fund your retirement. Pretending children are universally unnecessary is the worst thing the human race can do. What we DO need to do is lessen our consumption. If we halve the consumption of every human on earth, we could environmentally and fiscally afford the next generation. People choosing not to have kids so they can afford cruises and flying around the world on holiday are the real selfish problem.

There are some advantages to be had when using a credit card, and in some countries where you don't pay a fee for them it makes perfect sense to use the. I do all the time, but have a direct debit set up to pay the full amount each month. and have been doing so for 30-odd years.

I pay for everything with my credit card for the airline miles and then pay it off at the end of the month. I also make some larger purchases with the card due to getting built in insurance/warranty through the card. Credit cards as a way to make ends meet is a bad idea but Credit Cards aren't completely useless. I get a couple free flights a year out of my miles.

I stopped using credit 22 years ago. I would guess that my credit rating is zero. LOL

I’m getting free loans from the bank every month, don’t pay any fees or interest, and I get. 2-5% back off of every purchase. Where is the downside?

Credit score is, yes basically a "i'm good for it bro" rating. It determines the amount of credit you're eligible to collect, more favorable terms and interest rates for loans, as it relates to your actual income. Not having a credit card, doesn't give you good credit....it gives you NO credit, making it more difficult to qualify for things like home loans, car loans or small business loans.

Fortunately, in the Netherlands, you can have an "overdraft" but not more and you have to fill it up every month. But, you can buy from internetshops. Your sport would be to pay first before you buy :). The OP here makes an essential good point!

I'm no banker but I think it's like proof that "hey, I'm good for it...look how many times I used money I didn't have on me at the time of purchase BUT paid it back" (=higher score) Which seems unfair to those who (like me) wouldn't buy something until I'd saved up enough to pay for it outright. I avoided using one for the longest time. Now I do, but use it as a "freebies card". There's so many kinds of credit cards out there, I choose the one with the best "bonus" for using, use it (groceries, gas, veterinarian stuff, etc) then pay (always pay, never carry a balance!). No cost to me and I get cash back or free groceries (ex spend $10,000 on card, get $100 in 'free' groceries). I was going to spend the money anyway, so it's a bonus for me.

The trap is having a credit card that you keep a balance on without paying in full every month. With a good rewards card you're better off using the card for everything and paying it off in full. Credit cards are only dangerous when you use them to buy something you can't afford to pay for in cash now.

You can have a credit card and be responsible with it. I never think of my credit card as borrowing money I don't already have in the bank. Instead, I think of it like a debit card: I never spend money I don't have. It's just safer to use a credit card for some kinds of purchases, like online stuff or at the gas pump. (These are places where it's easy for others to steal your credit card information. With credit cards, if somebody steals the info and starts using them, you can contact the credit card company and get those charges taken off your account. But if someone steals your debit card info and takes money straight out of your bank account, you are never getting that back. So they recommend that you only use credit cards for certain things.) Then you never have to worry about going into debt for the credit cards, and then you pay them off every month, and you ALSO have a good credit score! win-win!

Yeah. Paid off everything and closed my accounts when I was young. My credit tanked. So I follow the OP’s advice. I never carry a balance. I make a charge and I do an online payment once the charge clears.

I'm an American with NO credit cards at age 30 and I gotta say it's pretty great. Coworkers my age are always talking about paying off their credit card debts or paying for clothes/shoes/vacations with credit, and I'm just happy having no debt owed to anyone. This "frugal lifestyle" has let my partner and I own a house with decent property in a major city, while we have friends of the same age who make as much or more than we do who live in a tiny apartment but drive a *brand new* car, have all the recent apple shít, etc ... Spend wisely, is what I'm saying. I may drive a '98 Dodge ram that I paid $750 for from a junkyard but hey I bought my own house at 24. ETA the point of my comment was to say yes I agree don't have a credit card in the first place 🙌

I'm in the US. It's not as difficult as some people think it is.

You still need one for traveling to buy plane tickets and car rentals. Also safer than carrying a lot of cash in foreign countries.

Even setting aside credit scores, there are definitely advantages to using credit cards. I have a J.C. Penney Mastercard. When I use it, I earn points. When I get 200 points, I earn $10 to spend at J.C. Penney (as long as the purchase amount is at least equal to the amount of money I earned). They call them CashPass Rewards. So if I have, say, $60 in CashPass Rewards, I can buy a $65 dress and only pay $5. It’s awesome!

Yeah, I hate having to accept card payments, usually try the best I can to get guests to pay by direct bank transfer or the Swiss free phone-to-phone payment method of Twint. Unfortunately none of these, like Venmo in the US, work internationally, and as many of our guests are not Swiss I'm pretty much obliged to accept card payments.

Outdoor blinds/shutters ARE more effective than indoor blinds in cooling a space.

Shop online. No crowds, no noise (except normal noise in your house), no long lines, no hassle. I stopped going to Rick and mortar stores to Christmas shop decades ago, and turned to mail order (pre-home computers), then online shopping once I got my first computer. You have to time it right because of the shipping, but man it sure does relieve the hassle of physically going from store to store.

Leftovers are always from dishes you chose yourself, not just what might be available on a restaurant menu.

My leftovers are healthier and taste better than most items you can get on a lunch menu.

Upvoting your comment simply because of your awesome name alone

Most employers do but provide lunch. That's restaurant cost. That's on the low end for a lunch in America. It costs so much to eat out now and the employers don't even pay their staff enough. We have to add 20% to that price or we're the a-holes.

I worked in a tomato canning factory. In morning, we did a national brand. Tomatoes were from top of truck , still firm, not much rot. Later, we did a local brand. In the end, the tomatoes were squished, lots of bad spots, we were tired and the line ran faster. This was for black and white label. So the only difference is a slight reduction in quality.

True. I work in food industry. Just yesterday we make food for two different brands. One was pretty cheap, other very expensive. Food was exactly the same, we just changed packaging.

But some of those items are 'too cheap'. Learned the hard way that cheap tea bags (UK here) just aren't worth it.

Preach.

And sometimes they are foul sewage with a different label.

A lot less true than it ysed to be. Everything is being monitored and data crunched to death now, suppliers charge according to the quality of ingredients in far more subtle ways than they used to.