What interesting things low spending people do, that others know nothing about? | Hacker News Reader

What interesting things low spending people do, that others know nothing about?

16 pointsevolve2k43 comments

A question on the home page is concerned with a similar question but for wealthy people. I’m interested in things low income and low spending folk do that others engaged in ordinary commerce maybe barely do or better yet never think to do of know anything about.

Keen to hear your stories. Sometimes the best things in life are free.

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Friends of mine really like spending time outdoors in nature, hiking trails, finding nice spots to just sit and be in nature.

Interestingly for me, they often carry a hammock with them and when they find the most beautiful of spots, they tie it up across a couple trees and just hang out. Once they had it slung across two trees at the water’s edge and hung there above a lovely creek. They picked it up second hand, and there no cost to head out in nature with it week after week.

I'm in a food buying club with a few dozen others. We mostly buy staples in bulk from distributors and divide things up. We'll get things like 50 pound bags of rice, 5 gallons of oil, etc. A side benefit is less plastic waste since everyone bring their own containers. An even better side benefit is that acquaintances become friends.

Love this idea! Does the group coordinate manually or is there an app/service that helps organize this for people near you?

Manually. Its an old group, it predates widespread use of email. Nowadays it uses Google Sheets to coordinate.

I'm doing this with apple picking once a year. 10-12 of us go to pick apples, we pay for the wholesale price, and have fun while at it. We each end up with 10-15kg of apples, gives us a fun day out in 'nature' (we're mostly goofing around than working).

You are your own Costco, smart idea, bulk discounts too.

Oh, this is such a great topic for a frugal person like me. Sure, I’ll occasionally splurge on a gadget I probably don’t need, "For Research", but most of the time, I try to live simply and frugally.

I try to DIY everything. In my head, every piece of hardware, broken furniture, or random screw has a future use. My default mindset is always repair before replacing. And even if I can’t fix something, I’ll go on a mission to find some other way to use it and look for a used replacement. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad trait, but I do know it drives my wife a little nuts at times!

Still, I take pride in being the guy with the only 20-year-old Toyota on the street, rust patches and all.

>In my head, every piece of hardware, broken furniture, or random screw has a future use.

For me, this mentality has lead to a sort of hoarding, in which everything I own has a potential future use, but little of it has been used, even after years of being in my possession. This is partly due to the fact that the quantity physically obscures many of the items and I forget that I own them. It is also because many of the items have near-zero use-value; I can imagine a use for almost anything; I can only actually use a small fraction of that.

Recently, I have been aggressively throwing away possessions; if I see it and I can't remember using it (or I have replaced it with something I use more frequently), then I throw that thing in the trash ASAP. I don't care how much it's worth; space, time, and labor; every possession has mental load.

I totally get where you’re coming from, and you're right to flag the risk of this mindset turning into hoarding. I think your approach is good advice for many. I realize my original comment may have unintentionally encouraged that, so thank you for pointing it out.

In my case, I’m a bit obsessive about labeling, organizing, and keeping an inventory. I like having everything within arm’s reach because I hate wasting time searching.

That said, I might also one day change that habit and I fully recognize it’s not practical (or healthy) for everyone. I agree that space, time, and mental load are real constraints. I’ll be more mindful about how I frame these things moving forward. Appreciate your comment.

I’m totally the opposite. If I don’t use something for a couple of months I just throw it out. I can rebuy it on Amazon if I really need it and that almost never happens.

Utilize your local public library. Reading is a great hobby and can be done for free at any local library.

Well, my local library has not only books, but also video-games, movies, series, board games, toys, pressure washers, popcorn machines, parachutes (!!!) and even a chess club.

several local libraries near me also have "maker spaces" with 3D printers,laser cutters, and other DIY stuff.

And magazines, via Libby. Like the New Yorker, the week, and many others.

You don't have to go to a library for that. Kindle and other ebook readers are dirt cheap, and you can have as many books on them as you want.

I wrote my own media application to generate a media player with static playlist for the browser with dynamic sorting and filtering so that I can play media on my phone from a media server I own instead of paying for streaming.

I drive way across town to go to a wholesale grocery stores to buy produce in bulk. This is what I look forward to on the weekends. I have to pass nearly a dozen supermarkets to get there, but its worth it. I can typically get a 30 pound box of tomatoes for $19. Sometimes I can get 40 pound box of bananas for $20 or less. I can sometimes get a giant 10 pound wheel of Brie from France for $7 or a 40 pound wheel of Asiago for $19. Last week they were selling 12 6-packs of flour tortillas for $1 and 40 pounds of high quality dog food for $29.

I have a tiny yard, but I also have multiple fruit trees. I get several dozens pounds of grapes off one grapevine (pink Iona) and this year expect to get thousands of figs off my large fig tree (florea) and several dozen persimmons. For my persimmon tree I ordered a mini-chocolate persimmon, which is like an Asian Hachiya persimmons that are just a little larger than American persimmons with deep brown fruit, but immediately after I planted it the tree genetically divested a second trunk producing American persimmon leaves and American persimmon fruit. Next year I am also hoping for dozens of pounds of cherries off a Lapins Cherry tree. We also in the past grown cabbage and broccoli, but by far the most productive salad crop is okra.

I bought my second Kia Soul for $17,000 and still drive it 8 years later. I have never had a mechanical failure on it. I am on my third battery and only gone through a flat tire once. I don't need any security package because it is a manual transmission, and of course who wants to steal an old Kia Soul?

Cooking for yourself. I make hummus at about 1/10th the cost of buying it. It’s healthier because I don’t need to preserve it and I use less salt. I bake and a can.

I’m not poor but I grew up poor and learned a love of doing these things manually. It’s a way of remembering my mother, connecting with the realities of everyday life, deepening my sense of appreciation and taking pride in a craft.

My friends all cook for each other. I’m not sure really wealthy people still take the time to enjoy preparing food for themselves and for others.

I started volunteering at the local food bank. There are no restrictions on who can use the service. Some of the food availability is pretty good. I could see a $100 a week savings if I used the service.

Some of my most innovative workarounds in life have come about as a result of the handicap of having to spend less money. Keen to hear similar stories from others here.

There are thousands of _great_ books on gutenberg.org (classics, ancient Romans/Greeks, etc.). You can read for 100 lifetimes and spend 0 on (e)books

I got a laptop that I bought in 2015 and I took care of it nicely so it works great! I got my phone (new) from a pawnshop, for a fraction of its real price.

Cycling to work (to save on tickets (I don't use a 'monthly card') and squeeze in a 20km bicycle round-trip to work)

You can dilute soap and shampo (if you have regular men's hair) 3:1 with water and it will still work fine.

They make a budget and stick to it.

Link to presumably the referenced thread on the inverse topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44022215

- Grocery shopping.

- Ride public transportation.

- Everyday sorts of maintenance (Home/auto).

They are not necessarily "interesting" but I (a low spending person) hove done, enjoyed, and gained from these activities.

There are usually tons of free or low cost things on Craigslist or FB Marketplace. Some of the stuff you could even flip for a profit if it's not useful for you.

Do you actually engage in this practice, or are you just spitballing from the sidelines, based on what you've read?

Because most people can relate horror stories of finding some janky "free" listing and they show up to the place and it's not as-described, and often gets weird. Or, they list something for "free" or cheap, and a stream of takers comes by, and again, gets super-weird because they don't seem to understand/care about the "seller" terms.

Perhaps there are "pickers" with a temperament for sorting through the dross and finding diamonds in the rough, but most of the "free stuff" seems to be like "come pick up this white elephant we can't be arsed to transport", and I can see a lot of wasted weekends and occupied storage space just holding crap.

I brought it up with my mom again yesterday -- she said her best friend's granddaughters love to "go thrifting" but thrift stores just ain't what they used to be. Due to Antiques Roadshow and eBay and Etsy and retail arbitration and American Pickers, every thrift store and "free stuff deal" is picked clean by some professional, before an amateur can put his boots on.

I actually do this and haven't had any real issues. You occasionally get someone who made a mistake or misrepresented something, but it's not too often. What does happen pretty often is having buyers flake. Sometimes you can weed them out by the types of messages they send. If on FB Marketplace, any profile created less than 2 years old, or if their rating is low, or if they send a pre-written message gets automatically ignored by me.

My biggest haul was a piece of 3/4" plate glass 4'x9'. I've never even seen them listed, but I would guess it costs thousands new. I got it for free.

Coincidentally my sketchiest buy was also when buying glass. The guy looked like he was on something and had the stuff on the 3rd floor of some kind of scrap warehouse place. Nothing bad happened and the glass was as described.

Look up what's available under the local Parks & Recreation department. They often have cheap classes and activities, local pool schedules, park info, etc.

I don’t spend much money on clothes. But bulk cotton t shirts in grey and dark grey. Three pairs of jeans.

Lasts me forever. Presentable for all occasions

What brand of jeans? Every pair of new jeans I buy wear out within a year. Even Levi’s.

try military grade pants, they're expensive, but last forever. U can find them in casual, more civilian appearance, even jeans-like.

I was wearing out jeans in a month or less and started buying Carhartt pants and it was much better. If I was working as much on my knees as I used to I would also try sewing patches on the knees.

Depends on what you're doing with the jeans. I've never worn my normal jeans out I'm just a year. I also only wash them if they smell or are visibly dirty. If I'm doing something particularly messy or rough, I use my older jeans. It's similar to the old wisdom that two pairs of boots used together will last longer than two pairs consecutively, because you can "rest" the wet ones which puts less wear on them.

Someone else mentioned Carhart. I have some Duluth cool max pants that are also highly durable.

Dry your clothes on a line instead of a clothes dryer and they'll last twice as long.

How often are you washing your jeans?

Every week or two. And machine drying, on the lowest heat setting possible.

Jeans used to stand up to that. Maybe I’m washing them “too much” (wars have been fought over the Right Way to do denim care) but since they used to handle it just fine, I know it’s possible for new jeans to do it...

I’d suggest you not wash your jeans so often. If you think they’ve gotten some gross stuff on them just hang them and spray some disinfectant spray.

I wash my jeans every couple months, I just use a bucket and then hang them to dry for a couple days.

You probably have the stretch jeans which are popular but wear out. Get pure cotton. The dryer is also hard on them.

Levi’s lol.

Thanks for your contribution.

What brand do you recommend?

I also wear Levi’s.

To me they’re an iconic brand and will always be cool. Build quality wise it’s all right for the price, but I’ve also never really bought any other brands so I can’t compare.

We picked up our last two cars from Enterprise Auto sales. Former rentals. No complaints.

Spending more time with nature. hiking, spending time with family members.

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