Comments on: Kicking Myself Out of the Frugal Hack’s Club

By: Kymm

Kymm — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:32:12 +0000

I’ve completely abandoned my budget the last several days while my Mom has been in the hospital. I’ve had other, more important things to think about than money and have probably already blown twice my normal weekly food budget this week. Sometimes ya just gotta unclench, and sometimes it’s just fine to splurge, even (gasp!) on a regular basis. You enjoy your TV–it’s a whole lot better than sitting around in a hospital!

By: Ewokgirl

Ewokgirl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:13:58 +0000

Don’t beat yourself up over it! Being frugal means carefully choosing how your spend your money, rather than just throwing it around. It allows you to spend on what truly matters to you.

We went 8 years without cable, then decided to sign up for it again last year. I’m glad we did. I’ve been enjoying all kinds of shows I’ve missed out on without Sci-fi Channel or BBC America. I guess you could say that’s a splurge for us. We rarely go to the movies, so I guess it’s a bit of a trade-off. In fact, I realized that we hardly ever rent videos anymore now that we have cable again.

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:45:09 +0000

We kicked the cable habit a couple years ago and only missed it when our hometown team went to the World Series and we couldn’t watch it…. My big budget splurge is dining out.

By: jane

jane — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:22:47 +0000

Oh how I love me some sushi! We can cut out fast food. Done. Cut out cable. (We live in a big city so we still get quite a few channels without it.) No problem. I can skip the mall without blinking. But, to give up sushi would really hurt. It’s close to $50 or more each time we go and we go about once a month. Still worth it.

By: Melinda

Melinda — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:37:38 +0000

Do you know what’s really sad, is when you feel too guilty to enjoy a basic human pleasure.
I remember when I finally splurged after years of being frugal and how FANTASTIC it felt.
I’m almost ashamed of saying what it was because it was so minimal.
DEEP BREATH!
A can of COCO COLA at a local Milkbar (full priced) instead of drinking water from tap!
There I’ve said it – that’s pretty woeful however I’ll remember how uplifted and delicious that COKE was to my dying day!

By: Livingalmostlarge

Livingalmostlarge — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:48:44 +0000

Being frugal is choosing what to spend your money on. It’s being wise with your money.

Besides Cable means you don’t have netflix, many people watch movies instead of tv. My DH would freak if I cut cable mostly because of background noise.

I have to admit my non-frugal behavior…I have HD-DVR and high speed internet. The shame. Oh well.

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:49:32 +0000

For my husband and me, it’s good whole bean coffee… we are both coffee snobs.

Oh, and we would find it difficult to live without high speed internet.

By: Kathy@brazoscowgirl

Kathy@brazoscowgirl — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:15:23 +0000

I cannot judge you when I do the same thing. My dish is something I don’t think I could do without, much less hubby. I think Hubby would give up an arm before the dish. We did that before when he lost his job. This is a snag of our wealth situation, so all I can say is I am giving it up.

Yes there are wonderful channels we all enjoy, but when you work shift as my hubby does, the dish is the only thing that delights him at 3 AM.

By: So

So — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:04:53 +0000

dont be so hard on yourself. Being frugal is cool, but also living!
My biggest splurge in our family budget is FOOD. good quality food. I have a delivery home service which is great and unexpensive (the expensive things are actually the veggies and fruit, not the service). I dont like to be frugal on fresh high quality food.

By: Liz

Liz — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:43:26 +0000

Frugality for frugality’s sake is miserliness. We are all frugal so we can enjoy luxuries. SAome are frugal so they can save up for a wedding or overseas holiday. Some are frugal so they can bless others with their wealth. Some are frugal so they can enjoy the blessings of multiple children and/or a stay at home mum. If you don’t have enough money to go by, that’s not “being frugal” either. That’s “just scraping by”.

If your frugality enables you to enjoy paid-for tv without being a financial burden on your family (putting you further in debt) then GREAT! If paid-for TV does it for you GREAT! Personally, my/our luxuries are giving money away, being a SAHM who homeschools and good food.