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I saw a house covered in TP today. Whoever did it, did a fantastic job because they were madder than hell about whoever lived there. On their stoop, the offenders had spray painted "FETH YOU!" and left trash all over the yard. I stopped by to clean up just a little bit because I didn't know the situation but Idk, I'm MNice, so I did it anyway.

Regardless, someone else was there, pulling off whole rolls of TP from the tree, he asked me if I lived there and I said no. He replied, "Ah, well neither do I, but I was on the way to the market and I was going to get some, so now I don't have to."

I thought he was kidding, but he was serious, he had a wad of TP the size of a beach ball and wasn't even making a dent in the yard. We got to joking about what they'd do if the vandals returned - eggs were mentioned - and in good humor, he said he'd come back for them too. So even if the second one was a joke, though I'm still not sure if it was - he sounded hopeful, he was serious about the first, because as I was leaving, he didn't throw away his collection of dirt stained TP, he started stuffing it into his bag like a gleeful elf from the North Pole.

I laughed to myself the rest of the way home, but it got me wondering, when does being frugal just become being cheap?

When you shop at the goodwill when you can afford other nicer places for clothes and electronics.
When you make you kids share a cookie and a glass of milk.
Quite Frankly, it when you can afford to do something with no consequence to your budget, but dont. Like if you can afford a nice sit down place, but you go to Mcdonalds.

When you're broke there's no such thing as "too frugal"

When it starts to affect other people. Nothing wrong with trying to spend your money efficiently.

Id be concerned with the pre-stained TP, sanitary issues and all.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
When you shop at the goodwill when you can afford other nicer places for clothes and electronics.

Why buy 5 shirts when I can get 10 for the same price?

Mattman154 wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
When you shop at the goodwill when you can afford other nicer places for clothes and electronics.

Why buy 5 shirts when I can get 10 for the same price?

Exactly.

If you have money, you should spend it wisely.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

Mattman154 wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
When you shop at the goodwill when you can afford other nicer places for clothes and electronics.

Why buy 5 shirts when I can get 10 for the same price?

Exactly.

If you have money, you should spend it wisely.

Indeed, A lot of my friends and even my girlfriend have this "I have money so I must spend it" mentality

Mattman154 wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

Mattman154 wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
When you shop at the goodwill when you can afford other nicer places for clothes and electronics.

Why buy 5 shirts when I can get 10 for the same price?

Exactly.

If you have money, you should spend it wisely.

Indeed, A lot of my friends and even my girlfriend have this "I have money so I must spend it" mentality

burning holes in pockets

 ENOZONE wrote:
when does being frugal just become being cheap?

When your clothes line looks like this:
---Boxers---Shirt---Shirt---Jeans---Used Teabag---T-shirt---Socks---

I don't know, but I consider myself cheap I'm not really into many of those trendy brands that you always see hip kids wear and I occasionally buy second hand clothes although I'm willing to pay a little extra if it's something I really want and can't find it anywhere else.

I would guess it becomes an issue when you cross the lines of sanitation... nothing wrong with shopping at Goodwill, especially for nice clothes that are insane prices elsewhere.

I think it goes past being frugal when the effort involved makes no sense compared to the amount saved.

So, for instance, my wife loves finding out where petrol is cheapest and going there when she needs to fill up. Nothing wrong with that, a ten cent saving can save about $5. But that's only if she's filling an empty tank, sometimes she's topping the tank up because she expects to do a lot of driving in the next few days, so if she's only getting a fifth of a tank or even less then at best she's saving about a dollar. Driving ten minutes out of your way to save a dollar is way past frugal and into cheap, so much so if you factor in the extra driving time she's probably spending more than she's saving.

That's where it crosses the line, to me, when the brain switches off about how much you're actually saving and whether that's really worth the effort.

That toilet paper one is a good example. You can get a roll of cheap toilet paper for like 20c, if you buy in bulk. Picking up unrolled toilet paper you'll maybe get half a roll. And then you'd have to sit there folding it back onto the roll. Is that really worth 20c?

 sebster wrote:
I think it goes past being frugal when the effort involved makes no sense compared to the amount saved.

So, for instance, my wife loves finding out where petrol is cheapest and going there when she needs to fill up. Nothing wrong with that, a ten cent saving can save about $5. But that's only if she's filling an empty tank, sometimes she's topping the tank up because she expects to do a lot of driving in the next few days, so if she's only getting a fifth of a tank or even less then at best she's saving about a dollar. Driving ten minutes out of your way to save a dollar is way past frugal and into cheap, so much so if you factor in the extra driving time she's probably spending more than she's saving.

That's where it crosses the line, to me, when the brain switches off about how much you're actually saving and whether that's really worth the effort.

That toilet paper one is a good example. You can get a roll of cheap toilet paper for like 20c, if you buy in bulk. Picking up unrolled toilet paper you'll maybe get half a roll. And then you'd have to sit there folding it back onto the roll. Is that really worth 20c?

Uh... unrolled toilet paper? Say what?!

I doubt people are lazy enough to throw sealed packages of toilet paper at houses. If they are they're probably doing it wrong.

 sebster wrote:
I think it goes past being frugal when the effort involved makes no sense compared to the amount saved.

So, for instance, my wife loves finding out where petrol is cheapest and going there when she needs to fill up.

I have the same situation. My wife is acutely aware of who has the cheapest gas, whereas I just stop at whatever is the most convenient and rarely pay attention at all to gas prices unless it's obviously some outlandish figure.

Going back to the first point you raised:

A month or so ago, my Skullcandy headphones started doing that garbage where they started only working on one side if you wiggled it. I was going to get a replacement pair, but I thought about it. I like Skullcandy headphones for their styling, but their build quality is awful. I've owned 3 - 2 I bought and one that was a freebie with one of the paid for ones - and every single one broke fairly quickly in some way. I decided I'm not buying from them anymore, and moreso, I can fix this. I'm capable of soldering on a new jack, right? I already own a soldering gun FFS, I'm going to save $30.

I ordered a set of 4 replacement headphone plugs from China on ebay for $6. I then waited for them to arrive, about 2 weeks ($6). I try soldering them on, no go. The wires inside are, like, freaking invulnerable to solder. I presumed they were probably coated with nylon or something, but nothing, I mean nothing, made the solder stick to these strands. I tried burning it off. I tried scraping. No success. The best I could get was it sort of working but flaky on one side; i.e. the original status.

I ordered some flux on Amazon ($6) and some more solder since I was running low ($6). Tried again. Same nonsense. I had them pretty much working, but the wires were super exposed, so I tried adding some superglue to insulate them, then screwed the jack back together. That messed it up anew.

At this point I've wasted 3 weeks of waiting, 2 hours of actual effort, and $18 to salvage a freaking pair of $30 headphones. All I have to show for my effort is a shiny, garish gold plug on the end and they only play on both sides if you wiggle the cable.

Why the hell didn't I just work a tiny bit of OT? I worked 60 hours this week, I wouldn't even have noticed it, FFS.

Yesterday I ordered some Grado headphones. They were the most expensive headphones I've ever bought - $100; and I'm not an audiophile by any definiton - but I suspect they won't break after 6 months. This make sense due to the theory of boots.