No. of Recommendations: 17
Once upon a time, there was a man named Jeremy. Jeremy was a frugal person, always looking for ways to save money. But his frugality reached new heights when he decided to take the concept of "LBYM" (Living Below Your Means) to a whole new level.
Jeremy started by observing his neighbour's Wi-Fi internet, despite a fraction of the speed, was more than satisfactory to cancel his own service. Jeremy next moved on to fixing his own car using Youtube videos, instead of taking it to a mechanic. He then moved on to fixing his own appliances, instead of calling a repairman. Despite the occasional electric shock, Jeremy believed that he was going in the right direction and would WhatsApp, without cost, to his friends about each accomplishment. But as time passed, Jeremy's frugality became more and more extreme, and it would later became clear that he had taken his LBYM skills to ridiculous heights.
Jeremy had already for a number of years been bringing his lunch to work instead of buying it. But Jeremy realised that he could cut costs a lot further. Jeremy started to boil pumpkins in a low cost huge wok placed over his four stoves together, cooking the soup just once each month to save gas, and then keeping it frozen in the fridge over the month. He divided it, using layers of newspaper, into daily portions - before freezing. Each morning he calculated the exact time, almost to the minute, that a 'soup block' would take to finish thawing out, accounting for the air temperature, and Jeremy pre-arranged his lunch period accordingly.
Jeremy next started to radically increase his use with coupons for shopping discounts. As the number of coupons grew, Jeremy first placed them into a cabinet situated in the back seat of his car. Whether going grocery shopping, or visiting bargain warehouses for cheap electronic components, the coupons were always near. But soon afterwards Jeremy realised that having his own car was lavish, and sold the car, calculating the proceeds as enabling the purchase of 35 tonnes of baking soda in the future. Jeremy changed to carpooling to save on gas, and replaced the cabinet with a second-hand backpack to ensure that all of his coupons were still with him everywhere.
Jeremy worked out that instead of buying baking soda, which had become one of his last remaining supermarket products, he could instead order the sodium bicarbonate directly from a medical bulk wholesaler, posing as a researcher for his local hospital, and Jeremy found that he could easily manufacture the baking soda himself. This cut down the baking soda cost by almost 30%.
Jeremy stopped buying shampoo, and started using his own recipe, combining his own brand of baking soda with apple cider vinegar, which he later changed to a low cost vinegar to save more money. He also stopped buying laundry detergent, and started mixing baking soda with castile soap for the purpose. He even stopped buying toothpaste, substituting his baking soda blended with a small amount of coconut oil. Jeremy's new LBYM lifestyle was bringing better results than he had earlier expected with annual expenses already down by 89%.
Jeremy then realised that he could avoid cleaning costs altogether within his kitchen. For several weeks he switched to paper plates, but soon realised he could replace them with old CDs which he collected after surveying which of his friends were without a CD player. Jeremy figured out that the cost of washing plates could be completely eliminated using the free CDs provided by his friends. This inspired him to also stop buying paper cups, which Jeremy substituted with old light bulbs. Jeremy found it difficult to balance the light bulbs on the table at first, but solved this within days with the use of a used egg carton, acting as a stand for up to 12 cups at a time. Jeremy explained to visitors that whilst obvious in hindsight, solutions such as this were not intuitive initially, and difficult for many conventional thinkers to reach.
But Jeremy believed that he could cut down his expenses further still, reaching new LBYM lifestyle heights, and that step would be crucial for what he called "the non-mainstream financial breakthrough". It suddenly became obvious to Jeremy that toilet paper was completely unnecessary. Jeremy explained to a friend that it was merely a result of marketing. Jeremy understood that he could use old newspapers from a variety of friends who had no use for them, after reading, and Jeremy established a weekly bicycle pickup route. He found that low cost canola oil was sufficient for the bicycle chain.
After banning toilet paper, Jeremy soon stopped buying cleaning supplies completely, other than the wholesale sodium bicarbonate which now filled his hallway to up to ceiling. Jeremy alternated between vinegar and baking soda to clean his whole house. When his friends visited, he insisted on cleaning their car to demonstrate the effectiveness of the custom soda-vinegar-soda-vinegar rapid alternating technique that he had mastered.
Upon visiting Jeremy, many of his friends were initially taken back by his wild looking beard, but Jeremy assured them that he saving significant cash by avoiding razor replacements. Finally, Jeremy stopped buying deodorant, applying ample baking soda whilst rolling in the grass as a substitute. His frugality was so extreme, that his friends and family couldn't help but laugh at his strange habits.
But Jeremy didn't care, as he was breaking new ground almost every second day, and felt close to reaching the final financial break-through. Seeing his success, he boasted to friends about how much he was saving by not buying toilet paper or cleaning supplies, and he expressed his disparagement of people living a mainstream life. He was convinced that his frugal ways were the key to financial success, and Jeremy wanted to provide others with similar opportunities. Jeremy was on a wave, and began planning a path towards reducing his annual costs by 99.8%.
But one day, Jeremy's frugality caught up with him. He went to visit a friend, and they couldn't help but notice the strong smell of vinegar and baking soda coming from his clothes. His friend told him that he needed to start using proper personal hygiene products. Another friend soon afterwards told him that he needed to start using proper tableware, and that his frugal ways were not sustainable.
For several months, Jeremy remained largely resolute about his extreme LBYM lifestyle, but some doubts were starting. One day Jeremy returned home from work and was unable to enter his house, with the latest baking soda and vinyl record supplies having filled most of the rooms. As he pushed through, Jeremy became aware of his sofas and curtains stained white, and then he reflected on the water-filled light bulbs scattered everywhere. At this moment, Jeremy understood that his frugality had gone too far. Reaching his bedroom, and looking in the mirror at his wild beard and tattered clothing, Jeremy could suddenly see that things were not quite normal. Jeremy decided to make a change. He started buying toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and deodorant. He realized that sometimes it's better to spend a little bit of money, than to compromise his personal hygiene.
As the months passed, Jeremy also found himself gradually paying less attention towards collecting coupons. He next realised that repairing everything himself multiple times, and having multiple backup copies of alarm clocks that were each not working reliably, was causing more costs than paying to have some items fixed correctly, or occasionally even replacing them.
Nevertheless, Jeremy's earlier years of extreme frugality had become legendary, almost mythical in certain circles. Stories would be retold countlessly about what lengths Jeremy would go to save several cents, and his examples acted as the exemplary models for future LBYM extremists.
- Manlobbi
No. of Recommendations: 5
Once upon a time, there was a man named Jeremy. Jeremy was a frugal person, always looking for ways to save money. But his frugality reached new heights when he decided to take the concept of "LBYM" (Living Below Your Means) to a whole new level.
I should add that, whilst most of the humour absurd in character - when the story reached old CD as plates and expired lightbulbs as cups - much of everything else Jeremy was doing in the tale was perfectly reasonable. Repairing items yourself, avoiding the over-purchasing of unnecessary things, using basic effective ingredients such as baking soda or vinegar, are all completely sensible.
I am occasionally dismayed by how much over-production capitalism produces. Last week I had to fill out a printed form for a private business (in this case, a bank) and since I almost never fill printed forms I didn't even have a pen. Fine, I was in the city so I thought it would be trivial to purchase one, and I checked once place and they only sold them in batches of 10 wrapped in plastic; I declined, not wanting to throw the others out, and tried another store, then a third, and instead trying a fourth I went to a cafe and borrowed the waiter's pen.
We are trained to admire how competition increases efficiency. For example, 243 brands of milk compete for a spot in a supermarket, 74 survive their first ten years in business, and 15 reach the shelves, and the consumer having a confusing choice of 15 copies of the same product. But through that extra replication, lower scalability, something in the order of 243 times more marketing expense, the huge time wasting from the non-shared research and non-shared manufacturing infrastructure, the system as a whole isn't anywhere near efficient as it is made out to be.
- Manlobbi
No. of Recommendations: 2
And, no gym membership; cycling is great exercise.
Jeremy did sell the car later in the story to purchase his life-supply of baking soda. But I couldn't agree more about cycling. It can be very social also - if not a peloton, then cycling with one friend and stopping for cappuccinos (ideally near the top of a climb) and updating each other's week half-way through the ride. For exercise, nothing beats cycling, as it provides so much joy with the surrounding scenery that it is psychologically more sustainable (and even rejuvenating for the mind) than going to the gym. Most can continue training with cycling into their latest years also, when most other sports start to cause injuries. If only cycling, though, it is good to combine just a small amount of impact exercise (a perfect combination is probably some jumping up and down stairs, plus climbing an easy-to-climb tree occasionally, for example) to signal the body to develop the bone strength also.
- Manlobbi
