I love money-saving tips as much as the next frugal person.
However, there’s a point where convenience and other factors actually outweigh the savings.
Here’s some of the frugal tips I’m not into:
Frugal Tips I Avoid
- Cloth Diapers. We have two in diapers right now and we plan to have more children in the future. When I saw the math that Trent at The Simple Dollar did comparing cloth diapers to disposables [1]… I was sold. However, my husband (who does the laundry!) vetoed the idea when it meant it would add some loads of wash to his already busy laundry schedule.
- Bring a lunch to work. Getting away from my desk and when possible, away from the office for lunch really keeps me going during the day. Sure it would probably be cheaper, but there’s a lot to be said about eating with friends, discussing things outside of work and giving the mind a break.
- Excessive couponing. I stated in my guide to couponing [2] that I gave it up last year. Way too much work and since I did it to the extreme, I made us eat really weird food!
- Subject friends and family to Brring. After a reader told me about Brring, I wanted to give it a try. It was really annoying [3] and while I am frugal, I’ve decided not to subject people calling our house to advertisers.
- Go without a home phone. With small children I don’t care if we never use our home phone, it’s a great piece of mind to know it’s there in an emergency. Cell phones are great, but as long as we have kids, a home phone is a safety issue. However, we do use Vonage [4] to keep our costs down on the home phone.
What are some of the money savers that you won’t do?