Mustachian things you do that "ordinary people" think are strange...

[Eric]

Had two home births. Under two thousand per kiddo. I think the hospital ones start in the 10k range.

Wait, what? You have to pay to give birth?

I mean, I knew you had to pay for medical treatment, but it never occurred to me that this extended as far as giving birth. Surely this just encourages poor people to give birth without medical supervision?

Oh yeah, it extends to all medical treatment.  You're in a hospital, you're paying out the wazoo.  Births can be very expensive.  Of course, private insurance coverage varies wildly, so it's hard to estimate.

Welcome to America kid.  That'll be $15K.  USA!  USA!  USA!

[fantabulous]

Oh yeah, it extends to all medical treatment.  You're in a hospital, you're paying out the wazoo.  Births can be very expensive.  Of course, private insurance coverage varies wildly, so it's hard to estimate.

Welcome to America kid.  That'll be $15K.  USA!  USA!  USA!

How awful. There's already a kid coming out the wazoo.

[NumberJohnny5]

•our thermostat was set at 55 most of the winter (I live in the mountains in Idaho) though I don't think it ever got that low because our apartment neighbors are crank up the heat kinda people and our walls aren't that thick.

We were staying in Fairbanks Alaska in a long-term hotel. We were boxed in (people above, below, and on three sides). At first I thought the signs warning that you were to not open the outside windows, else you'd be responsible for damages (i.e. to water pipes), were hilarious. Everyone else just had it so hot that it was a virtual sauna in our apartment. Ok, maybe not THAT bad, but it had to be high 70s or 80s.

WEIRD: Wearing clothes, especially shoes, until they're so beaten that a thrift shop wouldn't take them.
WEIRD: I car camp instead of booking a hotel.

Heh, I've spent more patching my $10 pair of Nikes (shoe glue) than they cost. One of the times they wore out, I bought a decent replacement pair for ~$130. Didn't last a year before wearing a hole in the sole. Still wearing the Nikes nearly three years later.

We car camped in the back of our station wagon. Family of four at the time. Just about enough room for a queen airbed. Front seat could be used too, except that's where the luggage ends up. Now with a third kid, not sure how well that'll work out.

Other somewhat weird things that we do:

- Make my own dandruff shampoo. Well, something similar to Nizoral. Buy the active ingredient (prescription medicine, but don't need a prescription if it's bought to treat aquarium fish), mash it into a powder, mix it into some conditioner...that's about it.

- Make a lot of food-stuff, such as yogurt and buttermilk.

- "Only" spend ~$80/wk on groceries, family of four (now five). I think it could be lowered a bit as there's still lots of waste, but nothing like when we were spending $150/wk (which apparently is viewed as pretty frugal).

- Reuse plastic bottles. Kids kept "losing" their water bottles at school, bit better now that I label their bottle (could have been a water bottle, or soda, or tea...) with their name.

- We travel so much. Even in Australia, we seem to travel more often than normal.

- Walk the kids to/from school. Been offered rides multiple times, keep saying "we got a car, left it at home." Their school is less than a kilometer from our house.

- Wife rode a scooter to work. Cheaper than a second car, used less gas/petrol, and free parking!

[MoneyCat]

1.)  Bought my hybrid car in cash and only use it for my ten mile commute (which is unavoidable due to my profession and since we bought our house within bike riding distance of my wife's job instead) or for trips out of town.  We ride bicycles for everything within town.

2.)  Grow our own fruits and vegetables.  This year has been especially nice because we found a large patch of strawberries just growing naturally on our property.

3.)  Been using the same reusable shopping bags for 9 years now, which saves us 5 cents per bag at the grocery store every trip.

4.)  Paid only $11.50 out-of-pocket for our last all-inclusive beach resort vacation.  I posted on "Share Your Badassery" about how we accomplished that.

5.)  Save the small pieces of soap left from bars of soap in the shower and mash them together inside an old pair of my wife's pantyhose to make a homemade "soap on a rope" so I can use every bit of every bar of soap.

6.)  Slice open tubes of toothpaste so I can get at the paste stuck to the inside of the tube when it is used up.  I can get a bunch of extra days out of each tube that way.

7.)  Watch Netflix and free Hulu along with network websites instead of paying for cable TV.  We have two TVs and a Roku box and all three were gifts.

8.)  Got an old bread machine off Craigslist and now make our own bread instead of paying for store bought bread and English muffins.  This saves us about $4 a week.

[biscuitwhomper]

You guys pretty much kick my ass.

Here is one mustachian thing I do:   When my company has sent me 'award' credits for 5,10,15 years of service, I choose the award that I can sell on Craigslist .   I take the proceeds and go right to Vanguard.     Shares of VTSAX beat a surround sound system any day of the week!

[midwifemustache]

I bike to work with my kid in the chariot year round...in alaska

[warfreak2]

Oh yeah, it extends to all medical treatment.  You're in a hospital, you're paying out the wazoo.  Births can be very expensive.  Of course, private insurance coverage varies wildly, so it's hard to estimate.

Welcome to America kid.  That'll be $15K.  USA!  USA!  USA!

How awful. There's already a kid coming out the wazoo.

This exchange gave me my knee-slapping laugh today, thank you.

[ambimammular]

Our house has separate heating/AC upstairs.  Instead of putting our two little kidlets into their bedrooms, we have two toddler beds and our queen all in the master.  It was an easy transition from co-sleeping and saves us a ton on utilities.  We keep saying, "maybe next year the girls will get their rooms...".  We're on year 5 now.

I forget how crazy having the whole family sleep in one room seems to others, really knocks them out of their comfort zone.  People in other countries do it all the time.

[dweebyhawkeyes]

I once bought out ~30 VO5 conditioners that were on clearance for 15 cents a bottle at the grocery store. The cashier/bagger were crazy condescending the entire transaction until I said, "Man, I have gorgeous hair though don't I?" They couldn't disagree. The attitude "ordinary people" give you is so bizarre at times.

Anyway, that was a year ago and I've used less than half the supply.

[1967mama]

This reminds me of the time we bought 75 full sized tubes of Crest toothpaste on clearance for 25 cents a tube. The clerk had to check if there was a limit, but there wasn't! YAY for us ... toothpaste doesn't go bad and we have lots of kids so it was used up within 2 years or so.

[Basenji]

Spent 2 days picking Juneberries from our trees, making jam, freezing some, infusing vodka. I offered all my Facebook peeps that they could come and pick all they want, only 1 person was interested. She's swapping homegrown raspberries with me. Free locavore, organic berries--instead I see everyone posting about being out at restaurants.

[CommonCents]

This reminds me of the time we bought 75 full sized tubes of Crest toothpaste on clearance for 25 cents a tube. The clerk had to check if there was a limit, but there wasn't! YAY for us ... toothpaste doesn't go bad and we have lots of kids so it was used up within 2 years or so.

Actually, toothpaste does go bad!  I recently learned this and tossed oodles of little tubes I had kicking around the house with crazy expiration dates long past.  It may not hurt you (although it may not taste good or be hard to get out of the tube) but the bigger issue is that the fluoride ingredient may be less effective, which isn't good for your dental health.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/science/18qna.html?_r=0

[Gin1984]

Spent 2 days picking Juneberries from our trees, making jam, freezing some, infusing vodka. I offered all my Facebook peeps that they could come and pick all they want, only 1 person was interested. She's swapping homegrown raspberries with me. Free locavore, organic berries--instead I see everyone posting about being out at restaurants.

I want!  :(  Wish I was closer to you than NY, lol.

[dweebyhawkeyes]

Spent 2 days picking Juneberries from our trees, making jam, freezing some, infusing vodka. I offered all my Facebook peeps that they could come and pick all they want, only 1 person was interested. She's swapping homegrown raspberries with me. Free locavore, organic berries--instead I see everyone posting about being out at restaurants.

I want!  :(  Wish I was closer to you than NY, lol.

Yeah that's what I thought! Your friends are crazy- this sounds heavenly.

[blackomen]

- Stayed at Hostels when I traveled in Europe
- I didn't have a TV until I moved in with my gf
- I sign up for a zillion credit cards just to milk them for their sign-in rewards and I even use Gift Cards to pay my mortgage (Google Bluebird and Walmart for how to do this.)
- I have more than enough saved up for a 2 brand new cars yet I still drive my 15 year old Honda.  I never fix the dents and cosmetic problems on this car as long as it's still working and safe to drive.
- I don't turn on the AC until it's over 80 and don't turn on the heat until it's under 70 (and even this isn't as extreme as many Mustachians)

[Nudelkopf]

With homebirths there are still lab fees and midwifery fees. I believe it is illegal to have an unassisted homebirth. Our homebirths had to be paid in full by time of delivery.

What if like, you just never went to the dr when you were pregnant? Having never been pregnant (or known anyone who was pregnant)... I assumed you only went to the dr if you thought something was wrong with your baby - like, it died, or you wanted one of those ultrasounds done. Or when it was ready to come out. What if it came out before you thought? Oh man, pregnancy sounds confusing. (I know this makes me sound REALLY dumb, but .. woah .. babies)

I still can't believe you have to PAY to have a baby in America!

[HappierAtHome]

With homebirths there are still lab fees and midwifery fees. I believe it is illegal to have an unassisted homebirth. Our homebirths had to be paid in full by time of delivery.

What if like, you just never went to the dr when you were pregnant? Having never been pregnant (or known anyone who was pregnant)... I assumed you only went to the dr if you thought something was wrong with your baby - like, it died, or you wanted one of those ultrasounds done. Or when it was ready to come out. What if it came out before you thought? Oh man, pregnancy sounds confusing. (I know this makes me sound REALLY dumb, but .. woah .. babies)

I still can't believe you have to PAY to have a baby in America!

There are people who never go to a doctor while pregnant.

However: if you work, you need a medical certificate for your maternity leave. If you don't work, you are likely to need proof of a live birth etc for your welfare. If you neither work nor receive welfare... you probably still fall into the 99% of people who want/need to see a doctor at some point during pregnancy.

You don't just go for ultrasounds or if something's wrong, either. There are a range of routine tests you have to do throughout pregnancy, including regular blood tests etc.

If/when you get pregnant, your GP will help you with all of this.

[deborah]

I give classes once a week teaching embroidery. One week, one of the ladies came and said that she had a new grandson. Her son had not known his wife was pregnant (neither had the wife), and she was admitted to hospital because she had stomach pains at work. The doctors were standing around, working out what to do, when a nurse told them she had nothing wrong, but they'd better get her to the maternity ward.

It was a huge shock for everyone. It was the husband's second marriage, and he had kids by his previous wife.

The wife had a lot of difficulty telling the husband. She had previously been told by doctors that it was extremely unlikely she could ever have a child.

[Basenji]

Spent 2 days picking Juneberries from our trees, making jam, freezing some, infusing vodka. I offered all my Facebook peeps that they could come and pick all they want, only 1 person was interested. She's swapping homegrown raspberries with me. Free locavore, organic berries--instead I see everyone posting about being out at restaurants.

I want!  :(  Wish I was closer to you than NY, lol.

I have three giant bags of berries in the freezer. I think Juneberries can grow up in NY too. Beautiful trees all year round.

[frugalnacho]

This reminds me of the time we bought 75 full sized tubes of Crest toothpaste on clearance for 25 cents a tube. The clerk had to check if there was a limit, but there wasn't! YAY for us ... toothpaste doesn't go bad and we have lots of kids so it was used up within 2 years or so.

Wait how did you use up 75 tubes in 2 years?   730 days in 2 years, so you used a full sized tube of toothpaste every 9.7 days?  That's insane. Mine last so long I don't even have an accurate gauge on how long they take to use, but it must be months.

[warfreak2]

you used a full sized tube of toothpaste every 9.7 days?

Not sure about the US, but over here, toothpaste tubes are 100ml each. You're supposed to use about 1-1.5g of toothpaste when you brush. Call it 1.3g because the density of toothpaste is 1.3g/ml, so a toothpaste tube is good for 100 brushes. A family of 5, each brushing twice a day, would use a tube every 10 days. Seems reasonable to me.

[MidwestGal]

I (very quietly!) root for gas/oil prices to go up.

This, but not that I would ever tell anyone I know my views on this either!  Unfortunately I think it takes a hit of this type for average folks to make changes in their daily habits.

Like many other folks on this thread, we have a TV that goes mostly unused with no cable service.  We bike and bus commute occasionally, with an eye on improving those stats as time goes on.  One gentleman at my work drives between 30-40 minutes EACH WAY for work!  We bag lunches, shower every other day, drive very moderately with the gas pedal and during off-peak hours, and take advantage of fun times with friends at our homes instead of the club or bar.  That last one is a HUGE cost saver.  Additionally, we live in a neighborhood where the majority of required amenities are a short walk, bike, or bus ride away.

Its' funny because some other posts mention way more hardcore mustachian activities then my household currently employs, but the more commonsense things that I do are considered 'strange'...

[frugalnacho]

you used a full sized tube of toothpaste every 9.7 days?

Not sure about the US, but over here, toothpaste tubes are 100ml each. You're supposed to use about 1-1.5g of toothpaste when you brush. Call it 1.3g because the density of toothpaste is 1.3g/ml, so a toothpaste tube is good for 100 brushes. A family of 5, each brushing twice a day, would use a tube every 10 days. Seems reasonable to me.

I think our tubes are larger.  100 ml would be 3.4 ounces, and I think mine are about 5-6 ounces.   That still seems like a short time though.   I have lived with my wife for 2 years and we have only been shopping for toothpaste 1 time.    Before that it was also very infrequently (I usually buy in bulk at costco, or maybe meijer or walmart).

[YK-Phil]

I (very quietly!) root for gas/oil prices to go up.

This, but not that I would ever tell anyone I know my views on this either!  Unfortunately I think it takes a hit of this type for average folks to make changes in their daily habits.

What? I thought we were promised we could continue to happily and cheaply drive to Walmart until the end of times! Did the White House lie to us about the shale oil miracle?

[homeymomma]

With homebirths there are still lab fees and midwifery fees. I believe it is illegal to have an unassisted homebirth. Our homebirths had to be paid in full by time of delivery.

What if like, you just never went to the dr when you were pregnant? Having never been pregnant (or known anyone who was pregnant)... I assumed you only went to the dr if you thought something was wrong with your baby - like, it died, or you wanted one of those ultrasounds done. Or when it was ready to come out. What if it came out before you thought? Oh man, pregnancy sounds confusing. (I know this makes me sound REALLY dumb, but .. woah .. babies)

I still can't believe you have to PAY to have a baby in America!

This may sound silly, but what is the alternative? You have to pay the midwife, or physician who attends your birth. The only way around having a professional would be to have an unassisted home birth, and I'm all for improved/less intervention maternity care, but for many (including myself), this is simply not an option. Would you have the government (your taxes) pay for all deliveries or would you have OBs and midwives work every case for free?
And yes, the prudent pregnant woman has regular checkups with a professional to monitor the baby's growth and development, as well as watch for any potential complications that may arise in pregnancy. These include complications that do not have symptoms the patient would feel/know about without medical testing (I had one- preeclampsia).
I do absolutely agree that hospital/medical care costs are insane and out of control in the US and would be greatly improved by greater transparency in pricing. But this is true across all medical disciplines, including maternity care. From my experience the hospital stay was the true unknown cost for delivery, no the chosen professional. Many midwives will not do home births, or if they do, they are not fully licensed, but are instead "lay midwives" who are trained by various programs in the country with no national or international standards for education. This is a route few are comfortable going, and even fewer are allowed to go by their provider (the lay midwives have a host of criteria that exclude you from their practice if you are not the right age, health history, pregnancy health, etc.).

[CommonCents]

Off topic, but...

One gentleman at my work drives between 30-40 minutes EACH WAY for work! 

I live in Boston, and that length of commute would be considered normal to short here...  My current commute on the train, door-to-office is about 45-50 minutes.

I do absolutely agree that hospital/medical care costs are insane and out of control in the US and would be greatly improved by greater transparency in pricing. But this is true across all medical disciplines, including maternity care.

It'd also be greatly improved by people not suing their doctor if their child is born with a defect, or capping recovery amounts, which greatly increase malpractice insurance costs.

Also - US costs are fairly high because we tend to pay more for technology, which other countries then piggyback on, using the technological improvements we worked out.  Helps to have someone else pay for the expensive part of leading the drive, figuring things out...

[frugalnacho]

the trailing edge of medical luxury

[warfreak2]

Would you have the government (your taxes) pay for all deliveries

Yes, along with other medical care. That's how it works in most developed countries. It's a pretty good system, and most of us will kick up a stink if our government inadvisably tries to get rid of it.

[Paul der Krake]

Would you have the government (your taxes) pay for all deliveries

Yes, along with other medical care. That's how it works in most developed countries. It's a pretty good system, and most of us will kick up a stink if our government inadvisably tries to get rid of it.

It's also very inexpensive out of pocket. Last summer when I went to visit family in Europe, I was able to see a dermatologist, a dentist, and an eye doctor for a little over 100 euros and paying everything out of pocket since I don't pay taxes there. The funny thing is that people there would balk at the idea of paying all that money; most of it is reimbursed by the state.

Since go there every couple years anyway, I can line up all my specialist appointments, pay everything out of pocket and still come light years ahead. Compare this to doing this the American way and dealing with outrageous specialist prices, their malpractice insurances and 6 figure student loan debts and the other dozen things that make the system so atrocious and innefficient.

[John74]

- We use neither heaters nor A/C
- We have no debt whatsoever
- We drive less than 1,000 miles a year
- When I was single I lived in a 165sqft studio apartment and loved it.

[Threshkin]

Off topic, but...

One gentleman at my work drives between 30-40 minutes EACH WAY for work! 

I live in Boston, and that length of commute would be considered normal to short here...  My current commute on the train, door-to-office is about 45-50 minutes.

I escaped from the California Bay area where an hour one way is fairly normal and 2 hours is not unusual.  Mine was never that bad but with traffic it could take me 45 minutes to do what would have been 10 minutes normally.

Now I work from home so my commute is about 15 feet.  Gotta love the bunny slipper commute!

[frugalnacho]

My commute is 30 minutes each way.   6 miles on the bike @ 12mph average.

[homeymomma]

Would you have the government (your taxes) pay for all deliveries

Yes, along with other medical care. That's how it works in most developed countries. It's a pretty good system, and most of us will kick up a stink if our government inadvisably tries to get rid of it.

I actually agree that we need a single payer system in the US. But because we don't have that, maternity care gets lumped in with all medical care, and the f-ed up system that it is. Not to say there isn't a better system in general, but I don't think there's any good way to separate out maternity from the rest of it. Obamacare already now requires maternity care be covered under all insurance plans. That was a huge step in the right direction.

[Christof]

This may sound silly, but what is the alternative?

Not silly at all... In many European countries we focus a lot less on individiual responsibilities and more on society's responsibilities. Since we consider kids to be to the advantage of everyone because they are the ones to pay for our very expensive social security system, we held society responsible for paying for giving birth. In German this means that the cost is shared by insurances, employers and tax payers, in this order.

[Christof]

BTW, that doesn't mean that giving birth is less expensive here... visits to the doctor, preparational course, hospital, after birth care and eight weeks of paid maternity leave totaled about $15,000 for our son. Our out of pocket expenses have been less than $1000, about $7000 have been covered by the employer, and the remaining cost by insurance companies.

[darkadams00]

In decreasing order of coworker perception of weirdness:

  1) Utility biking in winter (groceries, etc)
  2) Hiking/camping in winter
  3) Biking to work in winter (for #1-#3, coworkers just don't seem to understand the concept of winter clothing except for $1000 ski outfits they wear 5 days per year)
  4) Utility biking any other time of the year
  5) Biking to work any other time of the year
  6) Single-car family for two adults, one upcoming college student (10-year-old Nissan Sentra...."Paleo-Auto" according to coworkers)
  7) Son is living at home and bike/public transit commuting to college (I gave him choice of paying for on-campus living or equal money in his bank account at graduation. He chose the money. He'll be debt-free after college with sizable savings due to his hard work ethic--2 jobs this summer--and good choices, i.e. he chose to avoid car purchase/expenses for his college commute. Even 40-year-old coworkers don't understand these principles at all.)
  8) Not eating in restaurants on a weekly basis
  9) Buying clothes from thrift stores
10) Buying almost all more expensive items off Craigslist (furniture, electronics, bikes, etc) and actually owning and using said items 5 years later
11) No cable TV
12) Bringing lunch to work every day except 1-2 staff/manager lunch meetings per month

[DMoney]

So not as hard core as many of the previous posters, but thought this would give everyone a chuckle.

A few years ago when my husband's job moved closer to our home, we decided to sell one of our 2 cars.  We had purchased it new one year prior, put down a big down payment and then financed the rest at 0.9%.  (In that first year we aggressively paid down my husband's entire grad school debt, so was semi logical in our pre-mustache life.)  For ease, we just took it to Carmax and sold it. 

When it came time for us to get the check, the people helping us were stymied.  They had never had a transaction where someone owed LESS on the car than they were selling it for, and thereby should RECEIVE a check, rather than WRITE one. 

Crazy, right?  A quick phone call and it was solved. 

[Gin1984]

In decreasing order of coworker perception of weirdness:

  1) Utility biking in winter (groceries, etc)
  2) Hiking/camping in winter
  3) Biking to work in winter (for #1-#3, coworkers just don't seem to understand the concept of winter clothing except for $1000 ski outfits they wear 5 days per year)
  4) Utility biking any other time of the year
  5) Biking to work any other time of the year
  6) Single-car family for two adults, one upcoming college student (10-year-old Nissan Sentra...."Paleo-Auto" according to coworkers)
  7) Son is living at home and bike/public transit commuting to college (I gave him choice of paying for on-campus living or equal money in his bank account at graduation. He chose the money. He'll be debt-free after college with sizable savings due to his hard work ethic--2 jobs this summer--and good choices, i.e. he chose to avoid car purchase/expenses for his college commute. Even 40-year-old coworkers don't understand these principles at all.)
  8) Not eating in restaurants on a weekly basis
  9) Buying clothes from thrift stores
10) Buying almost all more expensive items off Craigslist (furniture, electronics, bikes, etc) and actually owning and using said items 5 years later
11) No cable TV
12) Bringing lunch to work every day except 1-2 staff/manager lunch meetings per month

There are only 2 people that bike here in buffalo during the winter, a man from Russia and man from Scotland.  Maybe none of us do either.  Care to share some links?

[YK-Phil]

In decreasing order of coworker perception of weirdness:

  1) Utility biking in winter (groceries, etc)
  2) Hiking/camping in winter
  3) Biking to work in winter (for #1-#3, coworkers just don't seem to understand the concept of winter clothing except for $1000 ski outfits they wear 5 days per year)
 

I am in Yellowknife and bike all winter (as well as the couple of months that neither qualify as winter nor summer here) and pretty much use the same clothes all year-round, adding or removing one or more layers according to the weather. All high-quality brands, all bought on Kijiji or our local trade board. Including the bike and all accessories (with the exception of my lights). In winter, I counted four cyclists (easy to count in a small town with one main road), which isn't bad considering the extremely low temperatures, and the size of our population.

[OddOne]

- We use neither heaters nor A/C
- We have no debt whatsoever
- We drive less than 1,000 miles a year
- When I was single I lived in a 165sqft studio apartment and loved it.

Yep, badass!

[rujancified]

So not as hard core as many of the previous posters, but thought this would give everyone a chuckle.

A few years ago when my husband's job moved closer to our home, we decided to sell one of our 2 cars.  We had purchased it new one year prior, put down a big down payment and then financed the rest at 0.9%.  (In that first year we aggressively paid down my husband's entire grad school debt, so was semi logical in our pre-mustache life.)  For ease, we just took it to Carmax and sold it. 

When it came time for us to get the check, the people helping us were stymied.  They had never had a transaction where someone owed LESS on the car than they were selling it for, and thereby should RECEIVE a check, rather than WRITE one. 

Crazy, right?  A quick phone call and it was solved.

REALLY?! I'm hardly badass enough to post on this particular thread, but holy shit that's surprising. I always assumed people went to Carmax to sell a car they would otherwise trade in. I really shouldn't be surprised by that, I suppose.

Note: I'm a bit of a vehicle industrial complex dummy, though. I bought my current (11 year old used) car after 6+ (blissful) years without one (I rode the bus/train or walked where I needed to go) and barely drive it 3k mi/year (wish it were less).

[darkadams00]

In decreasing order of coworker perception of weirdness:

  1) Utility biking in winter (groceries, etc)
  2) Hiking/camping in winter
  3) Biking to work in winter (for #1-#3, coworkers just don't seem to understand the concept of winter clothing except for $1000 ski outfits they wear 5 days per year)
  4) Utility biking any other time of the year
  5) Biking to work any other time of the year
  6) Single-car family for two adults, one upcoming college student (10-year-old Nissan Sentra...."Paleo-Auto" according to coworkers)
  7) Son is living at home and bike/public transit commuting to college (I gave him choice of paying for on-campus living or equal money in his bank account at graduation. He chose the money. He'll be debt-free after college with sizable savings due to his hard work ethic--2 jobs this summer--and good choices, i.e. he chose to avoid car purchase/expenses for his college commute. Even 40-year-old coworkers don't understand these principles at all.)
  8) Not eating in restaurants on a weekly basis
  9) Buying clothes from thrift stores
10) Buying almost all more expensive items off Craigslist (furniture, electronics, bikes, etc) and actually owning and using said items 5 years later
11) No cable TV
12) Bringing lunch to work every day except 1-2 staff/manager lunch meetings per month

There are only 2 people that bike here in buffalo during the winter, a man from Russia and man from Scotland.  Maybe none of us do either.  Care to share some links?

I don't think winter commuting is about clothing. It's about attitude (again, winter commuting is not hard when you're willing to spend 3 weeks on a remote trail in a tent in the snow, see #2). When I winter commute, the most expensive item on my body is still my helmet ($45). Down to 15 degrees this year, my maximum clothing was 1) old khakis that I've retired from work--free for biking purposes, 2) Smartwool socks--$8, 3) shoes--$22 bought off clearance rack, 4) SS wicking shirt--$8, 5) LS wicking shirt--$9, 6) pullover midweight Fila active jacket--$28 bought off-season in spring years ago, 7) reflective vest--$40 splurge since it also has zip-off sleeves, 8) gloves--$24, 9) head wrap/helmet liner--$4, 10) facemask if windy--$18 == $161.00. Most of these items are at least three years old now. Total "winter biking wardrobe" costs in the past two years = $258.00 and used for 80% of the winter. Some of the items are used in other seasons as well. A coworker two doors down paid over $360 for a new ski jacket to replace his "old" jacket of 3 winters--approx 25-30 days of use on the old jacket. The two jackets alone cost nearly $700, and the new one was completely redundant, bought because the old one didn't match his new skis/boots as well as he wanted.

And yes, I understand 15-degree temps don't compare to Yellowknife, Anchorage, Buffalo, Chicago, Fargo or <insert other cold town here>, and we don't have as much snow. I'm just saying that's what I use for what we have here. If I needed better for harsher conditions, I would buy better, i.e. my hiking equipment does cost more because the conditions are more extreme than 15 degrees and I'm outdoors for days. However, I would not skip riding. The cost is still cheaper over the years than car expenses, and the fun of biking can't be matched. (And in a 110-person office building, I'm the only winter biker. I welcome the "this is our resident crazy biker dude" intros by my manager to the new hires.)

[San]

My older neighbor thinks I am "quaint" for doing things like hanging our laundry, baking bread, making just about everything from scratch... and forget about preserving food. "What do you mean, you put up enough salsa for the year? Where do you store it all?"

We currently live in a space 550 sq ft with four people and two dogs. We're renovating a house which is significantly larger, but people get confused when we talk about wishing the house were smaller, and that we only want the land so we can do more gardening, put in an orchard and raise chickens, possibly bees and ducks. All of that boggles people's minds and I get the funniest looks.

If we're out with friends, and something recyclable is about to be thrown away, I ask to take it so I can recycle it at home. Most of my good friends get it now and offer it, or bring it home to recycle themselves, but sometimes people still give me flak about it. Which boggles *my* mind.

[JoyBlogette]

We have one car.  I also buy used things (including the car).  Gasp!

[mbl]

Some of these are things that we do others don't necessarily think are strange but are done as we have access and a lot of land and can do them easily and I guess we enjoy doing them:

-Use wood for heating our home, cost is limited to gas for chain saw to cut log loads.   Logs are split by hand.
-We have  various apple and cherry trees.   Raspberries grow wild as do blueberries. 
-Use laundry lines in summer.  Use drying racks on rainy days.   Use drying racks arranged around the wood stove in winter.
-DH has been brewing  his own beer for over 30 years.    He grows his own hops as well.
-We have our own ice skating rink in the dead of winter(got the local college rink to give us the rental skates when they upgraded.....there's always a pair of skates for anyone who visits and doesn't have their own)
-We have a bocce court that gets a lot of use in the warmer months.   Our family has played for many generations and the older ones love it.
-We can many different things and have done this as a family forever. 
-Out here where I live lots of people can, preserve, hunt, fish.     And for those more exotic things, there's always a good resource at the Cornell Cooperative Extension.
-I own a horse but board her at another farm.   If I lived near a larger metro area,  it would be unaffordable to be a horse owner.   Most owners up here have their horses on their own property.
-We often burn brush and cook over the open fire.   DH has devised a number of racks depending on what we're cooking/smoking/drying.

-

[EricL]

No television.  In the early '90s, I forget exactly why, I decided not to have a TV.  It may have been I couldn't afford cable.  I was unemployed at the time and desperate for a job.  But when I mentioned both subjects the lack of a TV is what garnered the most sympathy.  In retrospect I could have made a decent chunk of change pawning all the free second hand TVs I was offered. 

My theory is TV offers a shared cultural consciousness that people expect you to take part in.  I recall a similar thing happened in ancient Greece when citizens were expected to attend plays in the ampitheater.  I actually love TV now - it's better than ever.  But I buy shows from iTunes, am very choosy, and I don't use it as a time wasting opiate after a hard day's work. 

[Hedge_87]

I freeze blocks of ice in old ice cream containers and cool whip containers for packing coolers. Just break them up into chunks with an ice pick. Lots easier than ice cube trays

[Latwell]

Coworkers think I'm nuts when I say I do my own taxes.  ("Ever since I got married and bought a house, I have a guy that does them.") It's really not that hard. 


"You bought a house for eighteen grand!?"

1. I'm an accountant so people automatically assume I do taxes, even though I don't. Even though I don't do taxes, I know I'm capable of doing them. I have been doing my parent's, my brother's, my own, my SO's, and anyone else that happens to come along. My SO's sister keeps going to H&R block. The first year, I told her I'd do them for super cheap. But she had already gotten them done. So year 2, I tell her the same thing. The girl ignores me and has H&R block do them. She gets back afterwards and I say how much did they steal from you to do your taxes? She has two children, isn't married, doesn't own a home. She paid them over $200 plus an additional fee for some other nonsense. I immediately freaked out, "WHHHHAAAAATTTTTT??!?!?!!?!"  I then tell her that it would cost me nothing to prepare her taxes and I would be only charging her for my very limited time (like 20 bucks at most). She's like, "whoa really?" I smacked my forehead after that one.

2. I'm actually curious about you paying $18k for your home. 

[Latwell]

Lol love the convos about picking up change.

My SO makes fun of me for picking up change.

One time we were waking through a parking lot and a few teenaged were in front of us. One of them noticed a coin and pointed it out but disregarded to pick it up. So as soon as we passed that spot, I made sure to pick it up and they noticed and laughed but then they bawled at each other asking themselves why they didn't pick it up. It probably helped that I yelled that I was rich finally when picking it up.

Today we were in Best Buy chatting with the geek squad. While SO was arguing why some game was awesome, I was busy sneakily pulling a quarter on the carpet closer to me while thinking, " OMGGGG I can't believe there's a quarter on the floor!! How could someone leave this here!!" Lol.

[Latwell]

People find it odd that we don't have a microwave.

My SO thinks it's weird that I unplug our microwave. I pointed out that we use it once every 6 months, why would I keep it plugged in?