The O.G. of Minimalism: Frugal Tips from My Father

Mar 114 min read

I share these frugal tips from my father with pride. My father is the most frugal person I have ever met, and my frugality stems from him. After all, our money stories originate from our childhoods.

Before reading on, please understand that living a frugal life does not mean living a life full of limitations. It just means choosing to limit your spending on the things that matter least to you.

We can live lives full of deep and meaningful experiences and still be frugal. Take, for instance, the three-week vacation he took my brother and me on when we were approaching high school age.

The O.G. of Minimalism

My father is a minimalist at his core. He set a goal of starting life with no debt—zero—no car debt, no mortgage, not one penny in debt. To reach his goal, he took a two-year job in the Bahamas that provided room and board. Moreover, he paid no income tax. After two years, as he would say, "Mission accomplished."

Fast-forward a decade and a half, and his frugality continued while he had a family. Take, for instance, the cars we drove.

A used Vega was around $500. The engines were crap, so he transferred a Jasper-rebuilt engine into the Vega. The Jasper engine was a good engine. He moved this engine from car to car after the car rusted out. He did this five times.

We also drove the Malibu pictured below. And yes, that is duct tape over where the handles should be. The handles rusted off, so he drilled in hooks and ran wires through the inside to engage the doors. The speedometer didn't work. Neither did the gas gauge. The floor was rusted through at our feet. It was hilariously awful.

Spend with Purpose

The lesson isn't always how to be frugal but how being frugal allows you to spend money on what you value most. Take, for instance, our college education, which my parents paid for in entirety. Another example is our trip overseas.

We spent three weeks in Europe, experiencing some of the world's most beautiful and recognizable sites. He could afford to do so because we camped for the entirety of the trip and cycled the full adventure: 800+ miles in total.

Much of the list he compiled that follows is full of smaller, easily implemented ideas that we can apply in our lives now.

Practical Suggestions for All of Us

Fellas, cut your own hair. He uses a $10 electric shaver.
Fix it with duct tape instead of buying anything new.
Reuse kitchen baggies.
To avoid washing dishes, eat out of the container.
Buy your clothes at Odd Lots.
Never throw a bar of soap away, no matter how small.
Buy generic, everything.
When any food container is almost empty, add water to make it last longer (e.g., mustard, ketchup, and salad dressing)
Add water to toiletry items to make them last longer (e.g., hand soap and shampoo)
Wear Walmart clip-on sunglasses.
Use postage stamps that the post office neglected to cancel.
(My dad, brother, and I also reuse holiday cards by crossing out our names and recirculating them to each other)
Heat your home with a wood-burning stove.
Avoid buying new suits. His only suit is over 20 years old, and he'll be buried in that suit.

I got a kick out of these

My oldest son enjoyed shooting the BB gun when he visited my dad. He used a plastic 5-gallon bucket to cut a hole in the side and put a target over the hole, allowing the BBs in the bucket to be recirculated.

My father owns rental units and mows the lawns. As he was putting my lawnmower away, one of the neighbors who lives next to the apartments came over and asked if he could mow the lawn. My dad told him he was too cheap to pay him. The fella responded, "You don't understand. Every hour I spend on my lawnmower is an hour away from my wife. I'll mow it for free."

He Went Too Far

If you scuba dive, you can hydrostate an out-of-date fire extinguisher and use it as a scuba tank.
Eat food way beyond the expiration date. Of note, when I was in high school, I landed in the hospital for a few days with salmonella poisoning.

With all of that said, he may be cheap, but he doesn't buy cheap beer.

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