With a little help from NWA*, Auntie Griselda brings you the most savingest list straight outta Compton:
(1) Instead of purchasing towels, weave new towels yourself from dryer lint.
(2) Do not accept the stated price; haggle with prostitutes.
(3) Shoplift.
(4) Stage a slip-and-fall accident at a large corporation.
(5) Seek inexpensive entertainment; for example, the children's section of the Library often has free story times.
(6) Write your own legal documents and press releases explaining why you were arrested whilst skulking around the children's section of the Library.
(7) Commit a crime which requires DNA matching; leave clues as to who you are at the crime scene. Confess to the crime, and then refuse to give DNA. In an effort to coax you to leave a DNA ‘sample’, the police will tempt you with free food, drinks, and cigarettes. Depending on how long you keep pocketing your cigarette butts, eating your pizza crusts, and using the same cup, this may carry you through several free meals. BONUS: Includes free dinner conversation with detectives, which is a lot like watching Law and Order. Or dinner theatre.
(8) Invest your money in purchasables that offer continued returns: Don’t buy clothes; instead buy sheep and a loom. A book of wallpaper samples and a stapler are clothing investments which rate an A+ from Frugal Auntie Griselda! Trendy patterns change too frequently to make cloth a wise investment, and today’s ‘fun’ patterns are tomorrow’s fashion mistakes—instead, pull out a sample and staple it into a cool top or pair of pants! Similarly, why buy shoes when there are so many free phone books around? Just tear out a few pages, secure them to your feet with twine, and decorate them to match your frugal ensemble! This works especially well if you have children, who grow too quickly to make any kind of footwear a sensible outlay of cash.
(9) Don’t be shy about picking something out of the trash…or other people’s handbags, strollers, cars, or homes.
(10) If you can’t quit smoking, at least stop buying. Bum cigarettes off everyone, and don’t be shy about raiding the ashtrays to collect the butts and roll your own. And remember: phone books are free—rolling papers aren’t!
(11) Waste not, want not: keep a supply of razor blades on hand to scrape out the last of the peanut butter, mayo, etc... And remember that pica is always a low-cost alternative to eating out. Or eating.
(12) Before your health coverage runs out, get prescriptions for popular street drugs (e.g., Oxycontin), and sell the pills; use the profit to pay COBRA to keep those pills (and the cash) rolling in!
(13) Heard of Snakes on a Plane? Play Snakes in a Grocery Store! Let loose a few slithery buggers and start screaming in panic. Then make off with your shopping in the confusion…all free, except for the cost of the snakes.
(14) Capture your own snakes. This can be done safely—Frugal Auntie Griselda is just sure of it. Just keep in mind that mnemonic: If the nose is yellow, it’s probably frostbite. Or however it goes.
(15) Try sucking out the poison yourself before splurging on an antivenin kit, and remember—if it’s black and/or blue it may be a bruise, not the results of snakebite; bruises will eventually go away. Frugal Auntie Griselda bruises her entire arm or leg and cannot remember how she did it all the time—no need to be an alarmist about it. No one likes hypochondriacal whiners, dear.
(16) Get your freak on…inexpensively. Try developing a fetish for less-expensive substitutes. For example, leather is just a stone’s throw away from the much more affordable Naugahyde, and you’ll have the benefit of knowing that no Naugas died for your pleasure! Why patronise expensive ‘adult’ stores when you have just stolen a refrigerator full of produce (see Tip # 13)? Why spend money on ‘adult’ magazines when you can draw stick-figures? Use kids’ ‘dress-up’ shoes instead of the more expensive ‘fuck-me pumps’—they’re cheaper, and you don’t really need to wear them out, or even stand up in them. Why buy a $75 fetish dog collar, when Target has the real thing on clearance for $1.75?
*Please note: Frugal Auntie Griselda is not responsible for what may ensue should law enforcement come to your home to discuss #s 6 and 7 with you and you open the door dressed in Naugahyde, wearing a dog collar, and holding a Barbie shoe in one hand and a Vaselined stalk of celery in the other. Auntie Griselda did NOT tell you to do that.
(18) Sell lesser-needed body parts on eBay.
(19) Set your thermostat to ‘OFF’.
(20) Wash yourself, your clothes, and your kids (and/or pets) at the same time…in the same bathtub. This can help cut down on laundry products as well—no need to buy powdered oxygen when you and your children can make your own oxygen by blowing bubbles. Or whatnot.
*the rap group, not the tacky airline.
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1 comment:
Ha! I especially like No. 15.
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