节俭的生活 Frugal Living

When people say that I'm cheap, I say, thank you. Yes, I am. This is the garage door opener. Every time you use it, it costs $0.12. So we only open and close only once a day. We are crazy cheap Asians. Now you owe me $0.12. I am beyond a bargain hunter. The wedding itself, I want to spend only $750. OK. I will find the bargain, and then I will bargain for the bargain. Can we pour this back in the bottle and then take the bottle with us? Anywhere that I can save a penny, that's exactly what I'm going to do. The iron that you plug into the socket is just drawing electricity. The skillet, it works the same way. This is absolutely beautiful. Oh my god, he is so cheap. So part of being frugal is also being creative. Oh, those are beautiful. Going to a funeral home, it's a great way to get free flowers. Dumpster diving is a lifestyle. You want to scare the rats. I do wish that we could be a little less frugal and, you know, more normal. I just saw a rat. Woo! This is our house, and we have a ton of projects to do on it. And I want to do it as cheap as possible. So I want this wall gone. Well, it's a load-bearing wall. It's not a project you could do on your own. I think I can do it myself. $19? What is the worst that could happen? We're going to have your wedding right here in a chiropractor's office. It won't cost us anything. Mom, stop. Mom, stop. Why? OK. Where is she going? This is all for you. That's ridiculous. You're ridiculous. It kills you to spend the money. Yeah. We've got to spend some money so that we can stay together. Stay married or just stay together? Tony, what are you afraid would happen? I don't ever want to get to the place to where we lose everything. This is too much for me. I am tired of not having an opinion about my own wedding. Whatever happens tomorrow, it's just a day. I don't want Shane's parents to come and see that this is how my family is. I'm Rosanna Trent, and I'm the queen of frugalness. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I think I see something already. Together with my husband, Danny, I have four kids, and we are crazy, cheap Asians. Last time we went garbage hunting, someone actually almost stepped on a nail. It's not someone almost. I actually did. You remember? Yes. But I didn't die, so. That's true. But in order to avoid any potential injury or pain, we have our shoe covers. We have wood, some metal, aluminum. So that way, we will be protected, and we have the string in order to keep them secure. My name is Elizabeth Tran. I like saving money. It's a challenge. It's exciting. And it's honestly a really fun activity that I get to share with my family. I hate rats so much. All right, guys. There has been a few instances with some rodents. So we have a siren, so that loud noise can kind of scare them away. So the dumpster is clear for us. All right. I think we're OK. OK. We live in a nice house, and we could afford nice things if we want to. However, I don't think it's necessary. Dumpster diving is a lifestyle. I really think we hit jackpot. OK, so you pull out the one that you want, and I'll start loading it. Let's get these two. The other ones are a little too heavy. OK. Why would someone throw something like this away? Oh, shoot. I was born in Hong Kong, and I came to the United States when I was 19 years old. My parents are not frugal at all. They choose to spend money on entertainment, like dining, clothing, and they have no money left. So that's why I decided to live a frugal lifestyle. Ooh. Let's see. What is that? It's huge. Growing up, I was a little bit embarrassed by my parents' frugality. A lot of other kids would go back to school shopping and get new supplies, new whatever. Instead, for my family, we would just make sure we could save every pencil. Now that I've gotten older, I'm really proud of my family and where they come from. You're like a Michelin man. OK, you're all clear. I don't think so. OK. I just saw a rat. Oh my god! When you talk about rats, I think it's rose. The only cute rat is in that one Disney movie. That's it. I don't think I see it anymore. Are you sure? Let's see what's in there. Ooh! Look how clean it is. How is there, like, no? Why would someone throw this away? I mean, of course, it's kind of gross. But there is a lot of things that we have found through dumpster diving, from jewelry pieces, trophies, furniture. But what is this? You could use those to create some shelvings for your home office. What if we use this shelf? And make it a desk. I could easily say we've saved over $10,000. Ooh! Wow. How do people not keep these in their pantries? OK. We don't need a door for anything, right? Why don't we just take it out first, and then we will determine what can we use it for. All right, we're good? OK, yeah, you can let go. OK. Are you sure? Yeah. Yes. My favorite part about going into garbage is when I see something that has real potential. Not exactly sure for what, but the opportunities are endless. Oh, thank you. Princess, come get your treat. Yes, now you're talking. We have three dogs and a cat, and they all have a lot of fur. Come on. I need some more hair. Yes, what a good girl you are. So whenever our pillows on our couches get a little flat, we just add some fur stuffing to it. Do you think the dogs know the difference between the dog hair that's in here or the cat hair? They don't care. It's a good pillow. True. My name is Shelly Watson, and I would rather die than pay retail or pay a full price for anything. When I was younger, I didn't know that my parents were frugal. It was just the way we were. My dad is a retired teacher, and they live in a very expensive, elite area in Oregon. But he was never a doctor or a lawyer or anything like the rest of the people who live there. It smells good. What's for dinner? We're having family pasta night. Tracy and I have been married for over 30 years. He is also from a bargaining family. His mother is the bargaining queen. I'm just a princess compared to her. Do you want to smoosh while I put the noodles in? I go to my neighbors to see what leftover pasta they have. They just save it for me. And I put them all into one pot. And so we have just a hodgepodge of all the different pastas. I've always been frugal, and I've taught my daughters to be the same way. Hello? Hello. Hey, Ash. Hi. Colby, we're in here. We're in the kitchen. I am the oldest of my family, which means my mom has taught me how to be cheap the longest. Do you want to take over the stirrer? Sure. I've almost got it all smooshed. OK. I am married to the love of my life, Colby. And we've been married for almost eight years now. Put me to work. What can I do for you guys? Do you want to get the Parmesan out of the refrigerator? Parmesan cheese? Sure. You know, Shelly just finds all these crazy ways to save money and to do things that people never think of. Like, I honestly have no idea what goes on in the brain of hers. But for new people, it's just the, it's almost like culture shock. It's done. It's done? Let's get the strainer. All right. Grab that. Ready? Yeah, be careful. There you go. My mom and dad have had that racket for as long as I can remember. Honestly, you could probably spend a couple of dollars and buy a colander. But it works just fine, and so that's what they use. Hey, hi, hi. Hey, we're back here. I never really noticed how cheap my family actually is until I introduced some of my friends or, like, my boyfriend to my family. Like, this is really weird. My mom, whenever, you know how, like, when you're in the shower and your hair falls out and stuff? Like, my mom would keep it, and she'll make her hair pieces with it so that she doesn't have to buy them. Hey, guys. Hi. What's up? Shane is my fiance. I was a little scared to actually bring him into my family and show him, like, OK, I know this isn't really normal, but here it is. Here, Shane, do you want to carry these? My parents are relatively cheap. With six kids, a lot of clothes were handed down to each one. But as far as being in the Watson's range, probably not even close. Yeah, if you want more tomato sauce, then just use the ketchup here. And if you want soy sauce, and then we have the Parmesan cheese leftover from when we got pizza the other night. Anytime we order out, we always ask for extra condiments, anything that they're willing to put in for free. All right, so Shane, why don't you go ahead and start? But remember to keep the plastic on your paper plate, because we're going to reuse the paper plates, OK? Arizona is a drought state, and we've had water bills before that have been $300 or $400. So we try to not use the dishwasher as much as we possibly can, and that's one of the reasons that we use the plastic wrap and the paper plates. And now, because we conserve water so much, we're down to under $100. Why couldn't you put the Saran wrap on the breakable plates? Well, because the paper plates cost less than the breakable plates. They're like, what, $0.03 to $0.05 a piece. And then the Saran wrap is only, like, not even a penny. And you're going to reuse that Saran wrap. So I'm saving, like, 500% just by doing it that way. And we reuse the paper plate over and over and over again. Can you hand me the ketchup? The ketchup? Yeah. Here you go. How many do you want? Do you still have your wedding pictures? Yeah, obviously. Because I wanted to look at them to get some ideas for the wedding. My mom planned our wedding for under $1,000. This is where we're getting married? Yes. There's a net on the ceiling. It's free, because my friends work here, like Ashley. I can't. No, I can't. You guys, it's going to be fun. No, no, no, no. It's going to be fun. But I honestly think it turned out great. We had it in a school gymnasium. We had Christmas flowers as our decor. We had cheese sandwiches. We did BYOB. I got to marry Colby. You may now kiss the bride. And our guests will never forget it. You know that we don't want our wedding like Ashley's. No offense, you guys. This was weird. Ours was great. Everyone remembers it. I just want to let you know that nobody, not one single guest, has forgotten our wedding. We are very different people. All right, tell us what you want. I don't know. I wanted, I don't know. Maybe like a country club. OK, keep going. No, keep going. What else? It's like fairy lights. I like those. Those are really cute. Maybe like rose petals down the aisle. That'd be really pretty. I want something that's pretty much just out of a fairy tale. Well, why don't we talk about the budget of what we're willing to pay? Yeah, do you even know the budget yet? I've only heard you guys say there was a budget. And I can only assume that's not great. You know how much we spent on Ashley's? $1,000. OK. And this time, I would like to do yours for less. I would like to do yours for $750. I knew it wasn't going to be a grand wedding as much as I want it to be. But $750, what the **** is that? Isn't that beautiful on her? So how much is this one? $600. The wedding itself, I want to spend only $750. That's for everything, including the dress. In terms of being cheap on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the worst, Shelly's an 11. Hangers are free. You can get them anywhere. You can get them in the dry cleaners. Friends and family are always giving them away. Heating is probably the most expensive part of living in a 100-plus-year-old house. So I take the metal hangers, and I hang them from all of the hot water pipes. And that makes the hangers warm. And then the hot air rises, and it keeps the first floor warm. I'm filling up some buckets with snow to melt and use it for water. Water from the sink actually costs money. Down the street, we have this really pretty creek. I would use the creek, but it's frozen because it's freezing out. That heat is used to heat the house. And I'm going to use that heat to heat the buckets so that we can have warm water. My name's Becky Guile. I am the most frugal mom in America. You can take anything in the entire world, and I can figure out a way to get it for 80%, 90% off, or even free. Jay is my husband. We have two kids, George and Colton. And this little adorable guy is Gilbert. And he's a schnoodle, and he's one years old. Yeah. And just like Colton, you've got to close your eyes. When we were just friends, and we'd go out, we'd split the bill. It wasn't just like, OK, here's the card. Split it 50-50, right? If we ordered, say, mozzarella sticks, and there were four mozzarella sticks, and I ate three, she ate one, it's like, Jay, you're paying 75% of this amount. Hey, honey. I've always been a little frugal, but I think that when I had my first son, George, I kicked up my frugalness to the max. In that first year, I was able to save $30,000 to $32,000. And that gave me the ability to be a full-time mom. And I've been in that mindset for seven years now. This is our house. It is over 100 years old. And we have a ton of projects to do on it. We have been here two and a half years, and we have no furniture. And that's because I only buy things if they're cheap. This is the bathroom. Pam came over one night, and we drank a couple glasses of wine, and we painted. We are going to take these panes that we had, and we're going to put this. What? It's a pool float. Isn't that awesome? This is bad. The floors, I painted myself as well. Total, this whole bathroom cost me $60. If I paid someone to do all this, it would easily be $2,000. This is our kitchen. The dishwasher's broken. It's been broken for a little over a year. A bunch of our cupboards don't shut all the way, right? So that one doesn't, that one doesn't. This one I got so mad at that I super glued it shut. And the reason for that is because there is about a two-inch slope on our floors. This is my laundry room, and I do my dishes now in the washing machine. I rinse the food off in the sink, and then I just take the dishes, and I put them right in the washing machine, right with my clothes. The clothes actually soften the dishes going around, so nothing gets broke. The reason I put my dishes in the washing machine is because it saves money. It saves money on water. It saves money on electricity. And I'm not going to spend money on a dishwasher, and I'm not going to spend money on a plumber. So heating this house is our biggest expense. So we collect old newspapers, and what we do is we crumple them up. And we put them in here. And this goes probably almost up to the roof line, and it works for great insulation. And it's free. This is our bedroom. The one thing that I really, really love about our bedroom is this wallpaper. I actually found this in the trash by a local paint store. And our bed is not on a bed frame. Yet. I'm hoping to find the right bed frame at the right price, and I just haven't found it yet. This wall is the wall that's the bane of my existence. This wall breaks up the entire flow of the house. This wall just needs to come down. You can see if you just take this down, it would open up everything. I think in Becky's head, when she sees that opportunity to save some money, any rationality involved in the process of getting to that, out the window. I just know that I want something a certain way, and I just do it. I just get it done. We want to take down that wall? Mm-hmm. We could just do it ourselves. Or me, because I know you're gonna get busy. No, no, no, no, no. No taking any walls down, okay? Please. That's insanity. It's a pointless, pointless wall. To hire a professional to do all the renovations would cost us about $100,000. I could save a ton of money if I just do this wall myself. I was thinking, why don't we get a contractor to look at the wall that could help you out with this stuff and probably save a lot of time? I just really don't want to spend a bunch of dollars. Well, you know, washer and dryer, they consume a lot of electricity. This saves energy and saves money. And Alex swims here all the time. This is the garage door opener. And as you see, I put the memo here to remind everyone, every time you use it, it costs 12 cents. So we only open and close only once a day. Now you owe me 12 cents. Through all these years, I believe that we save thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. When people say that I'm cheap, I would just say, thank you. Yes, I am. Look at this rug. We got it from the dumpster. You can't tell. It looks brand new. We try to live frugally and also sustainably. We have a beautiful floral arrangement that we find just on the neighbor's sidewalk. Whether it's furniture, office equipment, cooking supplies, equipment, perfectly fine microwave oven from the dumpster. The list goes on and on. We never throw away our receipts. We use it as sticky notes. I put sticky notes everywhere, like the fridge. Don't open it if you don't have to. It would cost like 13 cents every time you open it because it's using more electricity than you have to if you open it. It's not just like looking for bargain and then buying the cheapest thing. It's actually you have to go above and beyond what other people do. I got this swim spa from the internet when someone don't want it anymore. Well, you know, washer and dryer, they have limited shelf life and consume a lot of electricity. This save energy and save money. And I like to swim here all the time. He enjoys it and I do my laundry. I got this idea from my childhood in Hong Kong. We would take a shower with our clothes on. So at that time, we save money. We wash ourselves and we wash our clothes. I would say we save at least $600 for a year for not using the dryer. So we use our dryer as a wine rack instead. Who needs a dream membership when you can jump on the trampoline and do all your drying? Our garage is where we store everything. This is where we have the items that we've collected in dumpster diving, in different yard sale events. Can you carry one more? Yeah. I'm Charisma. I'm 13 years old. My mom and dad have sort of encouraged me to be frugal, but I do wish that we could be a little less frugal and, you know, more normal. The door, like on top of the pink can. So should we lay the pink can? Let's lay them up right here. The pink can is like... Me, my daughters, we all do pageants. We started when Elizabeth was a preteen. And Charisma started her first pageant at two months old. She won while sleeping. We always have so much fun doing pageants together. Pageants are a huge part of my life. And I think because of me, I've kind of put Charisma in that direction of pageantry. And I think she's going to be a superstar one day. You have to make it align, balance. We find a door from the dumpsters. And I decided it's like use the door as a runway to practice for Charisma's next pageant. I think it looks a little strange. We find pink cans as the base. A trellis from someone else used it for their wedding, I think. This runway cost me absolutely nothing. Zero. Elizabeth, can you go ahead and take Charisma to go get changed? No problem. Change to your gown and we'll see. Charisma is wearing a prom gown that was from Elizabeth 10 years ago. And we actually get that dress for free when Elizabeth models it for a bridal shop. I think there is a misconception about living frugally that you cannot look fabulous. But that is not true. Like instead of going to a hair salon, we always just use rice water. Like when you cook rice, you take out the water and then use it to condition our hair. You know what we call like cheap and chic. So we're going to try the runway. Work it. Look at the judges. Yeah, when you do the eye contact, instead of like looking to the side, you actually turn your head. You want to do like actually show your teeth type of smile. Don't be afraid to put some of your hair to the back. I feel like a lot of it's covering your pretty face. Now you can walk back. Thank you. Contestant number 267, Charisma Tran. Should she wait till like they finish saying Charisma Tran to walk? Ah, yes, yes. Make her hold the pose as long as possible. Okay. Charisma is not giving her 100% as usual for the practice. We're done. Let's go. My mom, my sister and me are basically like the whole Tran family in the pageant world. But I don't really want to keep doing them. So what I was thinking is taking down a wall. If it's a weight bearing wall, if you take the wall down, you could cause the roof to cave in and collapse on you. I feel like if that really happened, that your wall would fall down, we would hear about it more often. Am I the only one that this is not common sense too? These are so pretty. So pretty. Silver sage. God, I want to marry a silver sage. Gorgeous. When we bought this house, it was very outdated late 90s. I am trying to redo all of it. And I am trying to save money as far as humanly possible. I know exactly what I need in order to do these DIY projects that I want to do. Blood shammers. Got a bunch of them. So what I was thinking is taking down a wall. Do you know anything about taking down a wall? Taking down a wall can be a little tricky. Something that I would feel comfortable myself without having somebody come in and take a look to make sure that I'm not doing a load-bearing wall. If I hire someone, it is going to cost me about $20,000. But if I do it myself, it's going to be significantly less. And I think I can do it myself. I'll just take a hammer and I'll just start hammering it. What is the worst that could happen? I don't think it's gonna be a big deal. So there's probably not like a YouTube video or a how-to video online? There could be. If it's a weight-bearing wall, if you take the wall down, you could cause the roof to cave in and collapse on you. If that really happened, that your wall would fall down, we would hear about it more often. Because I can't imagine that everyone in the world has heard of a low-bearing wall and a non-load-bearing wall. Am I the only one that this is not common sense to? Saving money is a borderline obsession. I'm always thinking about it. Always. And I just obsess over how to get it even cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper until I can get it for next to nothing. 19 bucks. For the last two years, we have been renovating and we always need tools. But I refuse to buy tools. So like if I need to screw something in, I just use a butter knife. And a couple times I've needed to hammer some stuff. So I just use a rock. I went to a garage sale and I saw a bread knife. So I just grabbed that and then I use that if I need to saw something and it works out just as well as a saw. It's like serrated just like a saw is. So it works perfect. And it was way cheaper. I really feel like I'm trying to find something to murder someone with. Hello, how you doing? Hi. Can I help you find anything? I was kind of thinking about taking down a wall. Everyone says that I shouldn't do it. Everyone says. So I'm waiting for that one person to be like, yeah, go ahead. You can do it. Do you think this is something I could do myself? Yeah, yeah. The only thing you got to be careful of is if it's a sporting wall. Everyone keeps telling me the same thing, but I just don't believe it quite yet. Can your house really fall down? Can it? I just don't believe it. So what's the budget for the dress again? The wedding itself, I want to spend only $750. That's including the dress. There's frugal and there's cheap. And I'm very respectful of frugal. But cheap is a little out there. I'm Shelly Watson. Oh, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Follow me into the showroom. This is such a beautiful place. Thank you. Come on in. Today we're going to go wedding dress shopping for Brittany. It's definitely out of the ordinary for me to take my daughters to a place where we're going to buy something brand new. But she has high-end dresses that have been deeply discounted. What's your least expensive dress that you have? Well, right here would be $400. Okay. Well, do you have like anything that maybe was a return that you can come down on the price on or maybe a consignment? Typically we don't do consignment and typically all sales are final. So there isn't any returns. I am definitely beyond a bargain hunter. I will find the bargain and then I will bargain for the bargain. Do you ever rent your dresses like just for a day? No. Okay. These dresses were all very high-end expensive dresses. This typically would have sold for about $2,000. Oh, wow. All right. So what's the budget for the dress again? The wedding itself, I want to spend only $750. So that's including the dress. Okay. So we've got to go with as inexpensive as possible. That may be a little bit hard to do. I can show you what we have and you can see where we go from there. I don't consider myself cheap or a cheapskate. I consider myself to be smart. Spending full price for anything drives me crazy. It gives me anxiety. Do you have anybody that's buying a dress that is getting married before my daughter that would let us borrow it from them? Maybe if you had names of people? It's not really part of my business model. There's frugal and there's cheap and I'm very respectful of frugal. But cheap is a little out there. I know where you're going and I'm doing the best I can, but I think we just have to show you what we have. With Ashley's dress, we went to a pawn shop that had a few wedding dresses to select from and found a beautiful gown. Paid $75 because in the back of it, there was a little rat pee stain. But it gave us a really good deal on a very expensive gown. Hello there. Hi. I'm sure you know this lady here. Hi mom. Hey. I'm so excited. Oh, this is so beautiful. This is really nice. It is nice, isn't it? This place is really nice. I didn't really expect this, especially not from my mom. I was half expecting a pawn shop. This is a lot nicer than a pawn shop. Why don't we just start on the right note and have a little cocktail. I have some champagne back here. So go ahead, take your little bag off and I'll go get you something. This is nice. It is nice. She has a great little setup here. And one for mom. Maybe we can get the budget up a little bit. I don't know about that. I'm really nervous. I don't know what my mom has in store. She always has something up her sleeve. She always has some type of cheap backup plan. I'm excited about all the pretty dresses I see, but I don't know what's next. So I have a couple of dresses that I think will look great on you. So shall we go try them on? Yeah, let's do it. All right, we'll be right out. Okay. Those are pretty. Yeah, this is a nice shop. Way nicer than the pawn shop. So we've got to be a little creative here. I'm just not sure that this is the price range for us. Are you ready for the first reveal? Yes. All right. This is, I thought would be a nice style for her, but I think it's maybe a little too revealing for her. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So how much is this one? This one's six. Oh, well, good thing you don't like it. In terms of being cheap on a scale of zero to 10, 10 being the worst, Shelley's an 11. Okay, are you ready to see your beautiful daughter as a bride? Come on in. Oh, I love that. Oh, now that's pretty. Isn't that beautiful on her? It is. It's simple, but it's lace. Because it's got a corseted back, requires no alterations. So how much is this dress? Unfortunately, this one is 600. Okay. So Brittany, that one is not in our budget. So I was thinking, since you do alterations. Yes, ma'am. Maybe we could have her put this dress on. Okay. This is... My wedding dress. Your wrappy wedding dress. Here, can you go put this on? Why? Because I want to see if it fits you, because then we could just have this altered to fit you, and then we don't have to spend $600 on a dress. I don't even know why we're here. Okay, come on in, Miss Bride. It looks great. Oh, she got it to cover up here. Yeah. I wonder how. I know that thing zips up. I'm gonna do it. Okay, so what if we did this? That's up way too high. It is. Okay, so what if all we did was just... Hold your boobs. Okay. So what if we just like brought it down just a little, and what if we like crisscrossed it so you have like nice cleavage? Do you see it? Push it down a little bit more. There, so there's like just a little. Probably just take it in right there. What about the back? Is it still... Not closed. It's not closed. Well, maybe we could put some netting or something there. What if we like safety pinned it to a bra? We could do that and then cover it with a veil. It's a wedding dress. You don't put pins on your wedding day. You need to feel gorgeous. You know what, if we make those kind of changes, it'll look like a completely different dress. True. I don't know if I want to reuse Ashley's dress though. Let's give it a try. See what happens. We can always come back and look at the dresses again here if it doesn't work. I was pretty sure going to a traditional wedding shop was not going to be within our budget. But I wanted to give Brittany the traditional wedding dress shopping experience. And even though we didn't buy anything, it was definitely worth trying because you just never know what you might find. Now, I have a question for you, Susan. We didn't drink all this. Can we pour this back in the bottle and then take the bottle with us? Can we do that? I'm going to try. Okay, thank you. And then we'll just have it for dinner tonight. Thank you. You bring me to a bridal shop and brought my sister's old wedding dress. This is my day. This isn't my sister's day. This is my day. I'm very scared for my wedding.