I'm cheap to a point. Slickdealings in my blood. I love the thrill of hunting deals. It's become like a drug and a little side hustle. Last week I bought 3 tools that were on clearance, flipped them already and made $130. I mean its not much but for a couple hrs total of work I'll take it. I always look for coupons, I rarely pay retail, I wait for sales, if I see stickers on items at the grocery store or any store I usually buy it, if I dont need something right away I set alerts when I can on items.
Like today for example I was going to cook dinner. Went to the store and walked the isles to check for the yellow stickers they put on meat & seafood when it's a day or two before expatriation. Found 1lb tubs of fresh crab for $7.50 50% off that expire tomorrow and ground chuck meat for $1.50lb. I bought a few lbs of the meat, made burgers with one and froze the rest. Tonight I made crab cake sandwiches which cost me $5 with the corn and tater salad. That meal eating out would have costed me $30 with tip at the local place. I cook a lot which saves me tons of money. There is a store called Aldi in my area. That place is my go to for saving money.
I don't tip at places where the employees get paid hourly or don;t rely on tips. Sounds cheap but back in my day they didn't have tip jars every fukn where. It's like tipping everyone became a thing along the way which is horse chit. They look at you with anger if you dont tip them. MOfo I used to do the same job and never took tips, asked for tips nor had a tip jar. It's like society magically put tip jars everywhere! It's like everyone wants a hand out these days.
I don't waste my money on things I don't need. I don't buy expensive clothes, shoes, jewelry, watches, or anything flashy. I drive a car so beat up my friends are embarrassed to ride in. I just dont give af cause my car is paid off, insurance is $34 a month. I set up price alerts on sites to notify me when items I pick go on sale.
I've listened to some billionaire talk about saving money. One of them said something that immediately made me think he was talking about me. He said if you had $10,000 to invest in the stock market, you'd be lucky to make 5-10% in a year or possibly lose it. You're better off not taking the risk and learning how to save money on all the things you buy. That you would save way more than that $1000 you might have made or even lost in the stock market.
I will say it takes a long time to understand how the system works. Took me years to be where I'm at and i'm still average at best. The ones who make out like a champ are computer programmers who write scripts to auto buy items when they reach their desired price or when a hot item comes back in stock. I mean within secs of an item coming in stock it's gone. Writing script is where it's at but also takes away a lot of the fun for people like me. It's a massive advantage and I mean massive advantage to use scripts. Theres a guy on FB with a deals page. He throws bread crumb deal to bottom feeders like me. The good stuff he keeps for himself like last week he got an Ipad for $5.