This post has been written by Mike from Green Panda Treehouse. He is a financial planner and runs several finance blogs within his online company.
I must admit it right away: I’m not frugal. I actually hate to save my pennies. I do however, totally understand people who pursue their quest to live frugally and strive to cut their expenses. Most of the time, they are doing it because they don’t have any other choices. I’m more the type of guy that will concentrate on making more money (through my online company for example) than trying desperately to cut into my lifestyle. What I really can’t deal with, is the feeling of frustration. I hate to feel that I am preventing myself from something nice just for the sake of saving money.
However, I also have a hard time when I feel that I am wasting money for nothing. This is when I tend to become more frugal and start thinking about reorganizing my spending habits instead of cutting into them. It’s like a company that make a decision to become more productive instead of cutting their expenses.
Recently, I have thought about how I could save money at work without cutting my expenses. Here’s how a non-frugal guy was able to save money:
#1 Talk to frugal people
I work downtown in a major city. I also made a conscious decision to drive to work since I wanted to live in a community away from the city (I really enjoy having a lot of land and space to move about!). Therefore, each morning, I have to pay $10,50 for parking (plus gas obviously!). I have been doing this for some time without really finding a better way to come to work. The bus would be cheaper but would take me forever to go back and forth from work. This is why it wasn’t a possibility for me (I told you I didn’t want to penalize my lifestyle, right?).
However, I have discovered that you can get a lot of tricks by talking with frugal colleagues at work. Here’s what I have learned;
- My frugal assistant told me about a free parking spot nearby work. It is about 5 minutes walk from the office and it’s always empty early in the morning (I come in early since I go to the gym before work).
- My frugal commercial director taught me that putting supreme gasoline in your car will help you save money on the long distance. In fact, since I do a lot of highway, superior quality gasoline is consumed much slower than regular gas.
- There is a frugal cashier who doesn’t brown bag her supper but just brings fruits and veggies. We get paid an extra $7.50 at work when we stay for the late shift to compensate for the fact that we have to eat twice at work (for lunch and supper). At 6pm, you only feel like having fast food so you pay more than $10 and you are in a deficit every week. Instead, just bringing a few things to munch on with a bowl of cereal once home will do just fine for supper and you will save money while reducing the extra fattening foods too!
#2 Working 4 days a week
For those who go to work by car, working 4 days a week is a blessing. You cut down significantly on your car expenses (parking, gas and ultimately car maintenance). I was able to make a deal to reduce my pay check by 12% and work 12% less hours.
You can also try to cram your 37 – 40 hours of work in 4 days but this may be too harsh. I have found that you are not only savings on your travel expenses but you are also becoming more productive, less stressed and benefit from an additional day of “vacation” per week to start a side line and rapidly make up for your 12% income lost. I have been working 4 days a week for the past 11 months and I really enjoy every week!
#3 Discuss work related expenses
As a financial planner, I work with clients all the time. So if I want to go out to eat in a restaurant, I make sure I go with a client and have my boss pay the expenses 
. This is a nice way to cut out the brown bag routine without having to break my son’s piggy bank
Do you have any other tricks frugally challenged people like me?
As I said before, I hate cutting back on my lifestyle to save money. However, I enjoy I doing things differently to save money. I find this way of being frugal more motivating . Do you have any other “money productive” tricks like these?
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Being Frugal is Sometimes Just Around the Corner: Confessions of a …
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I asked this yesterday, but wanted to add/change some information. I’m very torn. It’s long, but please read.My family is so dysfunctional and holidays always seem to go wrong. Someone’s feelings get hurt or someone is pissed off…It’s just always something. Finally, this year 7 of us are going out to a formal buffet. We are the 7 people who never have other places to be, like all the others. Everyone is happy with this first time decision.I want to invite a very close family friend because he does not want to participate in Thanksgiving at his home and he’s having a rough time right now. My uncle has insisted on picking up the tab. We have offered to split it and he won’t hear of it. Money is not an issue anyway, not for him and not for the family friend.My mom says he cannot attend because it would make paying the bill akward. She’s frugal and trying to be thoughtful of my Uncle’s money. We are all adults and even though I know my uncle will pay the whole check, the family friend doesn’t expect this. Because the friend is so depressed and doesn’t want to spend the holiday with his family, it seems natural he would spend it with ours. He’s practically family anyway. Mom insists he not attend. In the spirit of being thankful, inviting him seems like a kind thing to do.Now, mom is upset with me for even asking; not that I need to ask, I was being polite. She says we had everything perfect and now I’m ruining it. In turn, I’m a little upset because this is a 20 year friendship between him and our whole family and she knows he’s in a bad place right now.I don’t want to upset her by bringing him anyway, but I think she’s being selfish. Or, am I? I don’t see the big deal about asking for a separate check, even insisting on one. But ultimately, my uncle has a dominant personality and will win the battle to pay. Again, money isn’t tight. Someone gave me the idea to pre-pay the server and therefore his dinner won’t even be ON the tab, which I think is a fine idea. Mom now disagrees with that idea saying that since my uncle is paying/hosting the dinner that the check doesn’t matter. That it is an issue of me being rude by ‘inserting” an extra guest. She even said that “it could very well be my uncle’s last thanksgiving with his mother” who is 81. I love my grandma and she is not ill or in poor health at all. Would this guest really be an imposition? My uncles lives out of town, the rest of us live near each other. So, my uncle knows him, he has attended many holidays with us, but isn’t close to the friend like the rest of us.Any ideas on how to handle this? I already brought it up to the friend, never dreaming anyone would care, but plans aren’t set in stone yet. Now I’m going to feel bad if he goes or doesn’t go, now that I have already brought it up. The worst part is, I know my uncle is laid back and would not care. He is always doing random acts of kindness toward strangers. But mom doesn’t want me to even ask.Meanwhile, I have a friend who is working in Iraq and isn’t due home until christmas. His mom is dying and may not make it and he sits over there wondering if he should leave now or wait, scared to death he will get home too late. Yet my blessed family bickers about one more seat at the table! So when people wonder why I hate holidays, it’s this kind of crap. We can never, ever, EVER just have a nice time and not disagree. I don’t get it. I’m so sad that holidays are like this.Any advice?