I think number 1 should be: Take care of your body!
Health - Eat real food - this is a tricky one with frugality, but important for long term frugality, diabetes and other diseases are more expensive ultimately. Minimize sugar. - Get plenty of exercise. - Stay flexible to avoid injury. Practice good posture, and figure out what this means. Do yoga, joint exercises (I did and still do "knees over toes" after a knee injury), etc. Avoid sitting for long periods. I play fiddle and have focused on how to play without hurting myself - i.e. focused on minimizing tension. - Don't consume stuff that's bad for you. I don't know for certain how bad these things are in themselves, but they cost money usually they or the products they come in have some kind of negative health impact, and I at least don't need them: sugar, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, any other drugs basically. - Ruthlessly avoid unnecessary medication or medical interventions. I had doctors try to sell me on optional surgeries (nose surgery to fix deviated septum, and jaw surgery to 'correct' overbite) when I was younger which I'm glad I rejected even though I was not super confident about it at the time. The problems these surgeries were to correct were fixable without surgery. Similarly, doctors have several times suggested antibiotics to me when not truly necessary, or people have offered me painkillers for things like headaches that I could survive without them. I have never regretted not taking these things. Since those times, we've collectively learned much more about the harmful effects of antibiotics and painkillers like tylenol, ibuprofen etc. - Figure out sleep - I had sleep apnea most of my life, I'd sleep 9 hours and feel tired still when I woke up and want an afternoon nap. Using a nose dilator and mouth tape I've been able to fix my nose breathing and now I can sleep 7.5 hours and wake well rested. It seems almost everyone I know has sleep apnea to some degree. CPAP machines can be great, but aren't necessarily cheap. I borrowed one once but didn't like it and now I don't need it. - Ditch the glasses if you don't really need them. This only will apply to a few people but is very interesting to me. I had prescription glasses in my early 20s. I quit wearing them and started spending more time outside. Three years after this, my vision improved significantly to where I can see things in sharp detail, and it's been five years now with these better eyes, they still seem to be improving even. I haven't been to an eye doctor in 10 years. That's money saved. No guarantee this will happen for anyone in particular but it worked in my case. Obviously if you really need glasses to drive, wear the glasses to drive etc. But some people like me have glasses when they're not really necessary and I might not be the only one whose eyes could heal/improve on their own. - Take care of your teeth! Brush and floss. Use natural tooth powder. Do not eat sugar. Rinse the mouth immediately after eating fruit or other sugary or acidic things. I know it's partly luck but not entirely so - that I had some cavities in my teens and early 20s, and I had a few cavities beginning to form around 10 years ago, but since then dentists have not found any cavities - i.e. the cavities that were starting to form must have unformed. !
Food - Don't eat out if you don't have to. 99% of restaurant food has poor quality ingredients and is way more expensive. Bring healthy snacks in the car, and/or learn to go without food for a while so you're never stuck and forced to eat stuff you don't want to eat. - Don't store vegetables or mushrooms in plastic containers or bags, they will go bad fast. Fresh food needs airflow to keep from spoiling. - Store food unsealed - airflow is important for slowing down spoilage. If food is slowly drying out it will keep longer than food that is moist but sealed up. - If food is going to go bad because it's been stored too long fresh, cook it - this resets the spoilage countdown. If you cook food thoroughly every 24 hours even without a fridge, it will never spoil. (Eventually it won't be appetizing but it's still food and safe to eat.) This is easy with soup, a little trickier with other things but still doable. If you have a fridge you can store food in it for ~4 days, then cook it to reset the clock and store it another 4 days. (If you haven't eaten it for some reason..) With these tips to prevent spoilage I almost never throw out food.
Technology - Don't use subscription media services. Once upon a time I had amazon prime and netflix. That was around $25 a month I was spending. It's been 8+ years since I paid for a subscription like that, which is.. $2400 + compound interest in my bank account now. As an alternative to spotify I have a phone with an sd card and all my music in mp3s on it, which I can listen to with or without internet connection. - Use an ad blocker. Firefox is better than chrome for this, other browsers like Brave might be even better I don't know. No idea how much this has saved by keeping me from seeing ads. - Avoid or block social media feeds. These can trigger FOMO of things that cost money, and also of course include lots of ads. I don't have the strongest willpower so I use apps and firefox extensions to block social media feeds and also block those horrible short videos that are everywhere now.
Hygiene - Don't use soap or shampoo. I use soap for cleaning my hands, and dish soap for washing dishes, that's it. I quit using shampoo in my hair 10 years ago, and after a month or two my hair smell stabilized, it doesn't smell like flowers, it smells like hair, but isn't bad. I could make it smell like flowers with essential oil or something else natural. Using just water on my body seems to be plenty to keep me clean and have healthy skin that doesn't smell bad. I use vinegar in the armpits when I need to kill a bad smell - it works instantly and the vinegar smell goes away after a half hour. When I used body soaps and shampoos I always stunk except right after a shower, and often had skin irritation and rashes. Now, I never have itchy / rashy / stinky skin. I simply wash in cold water every day, and once in a while take a hot shower or bath. - Don't get a haircut. I used to get a $15 haircut every three months, until I quit ten years ago. I keep my hair tied in a knot and brush it out every few weeks which takes 15 minutes. This is $600 + compound interest in the bank now. - Quit shaving. I used to have an electric shaver, I stopped using it 10 years ago and just have a beard. Once in a while I trim the unruly hairs with scissors, and I cut back the mustache every week or two which just takes a minute.
Clothing - Use wool clothing as much as possible. Wool resists smelling bad much better than anything else. I do laundry once every month or two. I wear a cotton t shirt under my wool sweaters in winter, and change the t shirt and wash it, but the wool I very rarely wash. Wool underwear, at least as a man, can go weeks without smelling bad, particularly if you just rotate it. It wicks moisture so it doesn't stay wet from sweat. I spend an average of maybe $30 a year on wool underwear but save a lot on not having to do laundry. - Any time I am in a thrift store I do a quick check for any wool sweaters, or jeans in my size. It takes some practice to learn to rapidly identify wool by look and feel in contrast to cotton, acrylic, etc. But once learned I can find the one wool shirt in a rack of 100 shirts in a minute, and it's often priced like everything else because the thrift store doesn't know better.
There are endless more aspects to living a rich, frugal life, to do with relationships, community, diy-ing things, choosing what kind of work to do, hobbies, etc, that deserve thought. These are just some of the very simple generic tips on things I've done in my day to day life that are less typical but have saved me lots of money and thus time that I have spent with loved ones and doing things I love.
Brain dump of frugality tips
Health
- Eat real food - this is a tricky one with frugality, but important for long term frugality, diabetes and other diseases are more expensive ultimately. Minimize sugar.
- Get plenty of exercise.
- Stay flexible to avoid injury. Practice good posture, and figure out what this means. Do yoga, joint exercises (I did and still do "knees over toes" after a knee injury), etc. Avoid sitting for long periods. I play fiddle and have focused on how to play without hurting myself - i.e. focused on minimizing tension.
- Don't consume stuff that's bad for you. I don't know for certain how bad these things are in themselves, but they cost money usually they or the products they come in have some kind of negative health impact, and I at least don't need them: sugar, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, any other drugs basically.
- Ruthlessly avoid unnecessary medication or medical interventions. I had doctors try to sell me on optional surgeries (nose surgery to fix deviated septum, and jaw surgery to 'correct' overbite) when I was younger which I'm glad I rejected even though I was not super confident about it at the time. The problems these surgeries were to correct were fixable without surgery. Similarly, doctors have several times suggested antibiotics to me when not truly necessary, or people have offered me painkillers for things like headaches that I could survive without them. I have never regretted not taking these things. Since those times, we've collectively learned much more about the harmful effects of antibiotics and painkillers like tylenol, ibuprofen etc.
- Figure out sleep - I had sleep apnea most of my life, I'd sleep 9 hours and feel tired still when I woke up and want an afternoon nap. Using a nose dilator and mouth tape I've been able to fix my nose breathing and now I can sleep 7.5 hours and wake well rested. It seems almost everyone I know has sleep apnea to some degree. CPAP machines can be great, but aren't necessarily cheap. I borrowed one once but didn't like it and now I don't need it.
- Ditch the glasses if you don't really need them. This only will apply to a few people but is very interesting to me. I had prescription glasses in my early 20s. I quit wearing them and started spending more time outside. Three years after this, my vision improved significantly to where I can see things in sharp detail, and it's been five years now with these better eyes, they still seem to be improving even. I haven't been to an eye doctor in 10 years. That's money saved. No guarantee this will happen for anyone in particular but it worked in my case. Obviously if you really need glasses to drive, wear the glasses to drive etc. But some people like me have glasses when they're not really necessary and I might not be the only one whose eyes could heal/improve on their own.
- Take care of your teeth! Brush and floss. Use natural tooth powder. Do not eat sugar. Rinse the mouth immediately after eating fruit or other sugary or acidic things. I know it's partly luck but not entirely so - that I had some cavities in my teens and early 20s, and I had a few cavities beginning to form around 10 years ago, but since then dentists have not found any cavities - i.e. the cavities that were starting to form must have unformed. !
Food
- Don't eat out if you don't have to. 99% of restaurant food has poor quality ingredients and is way more expensive. Bring healthy snacks in the car, and/or learn to go without food for a while so you're never stuck and forced to eat stuff you don't want to eat.
- Don't store vegetables or mushrooms in plastic containers or bags, they will go bad fast. Fresh food needs airflow to keep from spoiling.
- Store food unsealed - airflow is important for slowing down spoilage. If food is slowly drying out it will keep longer than food that is moist but sealed up.
- If food is going to go bad because it's been stored too long fresh, cook it - this resets the spoilage countdown. If you cook food thoroughly every 24 hours even without a fridge, it will never spoil. (Eventually it won't be appetizing but it's still food and safe to eat.) This is easy with soup, a little trickier with other things but still doable. If you have a fridge you can store food in it for ~4 days, then cook it to reset the clock and store it another 4 days. (If you haven't eaten it for some reason..) With these tips to prevent spoilage I almost never throw out food.
Technology
- Don't use subscription media services. Once upon a time I had amazon prime and netflix. That was around $25 a month I was spending. It's been 8+ years since I paid for a subscription like that, which is.. $2400 + compound interest in my bank account now. As an alternative to spotify I have a phone with an sd card and all my music in mp3s on it, which I can listen to with or without internet connection.
- Use an ad blocker. Firefox is better than chrome for this, other browsers like Brave might be even better I don't know. No idea how much this has saved by keeping me from seeing ads.
- Avoid or block social media feeds. These can trigger FOMO of things that cost money, and also of course include lots of ads. I don't have the strongest willpower so I use apps and firefox extensions to block social media feeds and also block those horrible short videos that are everywhere now.
Hygiene
- Don't use soap or shampoo. I use soap for cleaning my hands, and dish soap for washing dishes, that's it. I quit using shampoo in my hair 10 years ago, and after a month or two my hair smell stabilized, it doesn't smell like flowers, it smells like hair, but isn't bad. I could make it smell like flowers with essential oil or something else natural. Using just water on my body seems to be plenty to keep me clean and have healthy skin that doesn't smell bad. I use vinegar in the armpits when I need to kill a bad smell - it works instantly and the vinegar smell goes away after a half hour. When I used body soaps and shampoos I always stunk except right after a shower, and often had skin irritation and rashes. Now, I never have itchy / rashy / stinky skin. I simply wash in cold water every day, and once in a while take a hot shower or bath.
- Don't get a haircut. I used to get a $15 haircut every three months, until I quit ten years ago. I keep my hair tied in a knot and brush it out every few weeks which takes 15 minutes. This is $600 + compound interest in the bank now.
- Quit shaving. I used to have an electric shaver, I stopped using it 10 years ago and just have a beard. Once in a while I trim the unruly hairs with scissors, and I cut back the mustache every week or two which just takes a minute.
Clothing
- Use wool clothing as much as possible. Wool resists smelling bad much better than anything else. I do laundry once every month or two. I wear a cotton t shirt under my wool sweaters in winter, and change the t shirt and wash it, but the wool I very rarely wash. Wool underwear, at least as a man, can go weeks without smelling bad, particularly if you just rotate it. It wicks moisture so it doesn't stay wet from sweat. I spend an average of maybe $30 a year on wool underwear but save a lot on not having to do laundry.
- Any time I am in a thrift store I do a quick check for any wool sweaters, or jeans in my size. It takes some practice to learn to rapidly identify wool by look and feel in contrast to cotton, acrylic, etc. But once learned I can find the one wool shirt in a rack of 100 shirts in a minute, and it's often priced like everything else because the thrift store doesn't know better.
There are endless more aspects to living a rich, frugal life, to do with relationships, community, diy-ing things, choosing what kind of work to do, hobbies, etc, that deserve thought. These are just some of the very simple generic tips on things I've done in my day to day life that are less typical but have saved me lots of money and thus time that I have spent with loved ones and doing things I love.