You have got to run over to Budgeting in the Fun Stuff’s very entertaining post, Going Too Far to Save Money! She’s found the perfect Hallowe’en frugal tip. It’s very strange and very funny. While you’re there, leave a record of your own weird frugal habit.
It reminded me of SDXB, the most accomplished cheapskate I know.
SDXB does not eat in restaurants. The de jure reason he gives is that when he was an investigative reporter he did a series on what goes on in restaurant kitchens, which caused him to lose his taste for eating out. The de facto reason, however, is that he hates, loathes, and despises having to pay for restaurant food and (worse!) having to tip the servers.
So, when he travels—which is a lot, because he loves to travel—he carries a camp stove, a Teflon frying pan, a large aluminum camp kettle, and an array of camp dishes and utensils. As soon as he arrives at a destination, the first order of business is a visit to the nearest grocery store, where he buys a canister of propane and enough food to prepare full meals.
I mean, full meals: typically pork chops, potatoes, and vegetables, with a bottle of wine to go with.
He trots these back to his motel room, where he sets up a “kitchen” on the bathroom counter—or, lacking enough room, in the bathtub or in the middle of the floor—and prepares three meals a day.
You think I’m kidding, don’t you?
When he was in the active duty Air Force Reserve, he would go TDY from one to three months a year—basically, it amounts to accepting a handsomely paid temp job. This supported his Bumhood, which he launched before he was out of his 40s. In addition to a salary and free lodging in the base’s non-com officers’ quarters, the Air Force pays workers on TDY a per-diem to cover food and transportation. The expectation is that these folks will subsist on restaurant food and take-out, and that they’ll rent a car while they’re on base.
But of course, SDXB wasn’t eating out. He was cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner in his quarters! Not only that, but he never rented a car. He’d borrow a bicycle from a friend or pick up one cheap at the base thrift store and ride that around the base. At the end of his tour of duty, he would pocket a nice chunk of change in the form of the unused per-diem. His salary and his per-diem combined helped to support him in full bumhood for the rest of the year.
I once spent an entire month with SDXB at Robins AFB. We never once ate in a restaurant or mess hall. No, I take that back: one evening his colonel took all the office staff out to eat at a nice place in Macon.
Weird…like a fox.
Thanks for featuring one of my frugal heroes, SDXB. While I wouldn’t create such an elaborate set-up in a hotel, we try to picnic as much as possible when we’re on the road. Restaurant food is generally unsatisfying anyway–not all that good.
How’s his health situation?
Excellent! SDXB seems to have recovered fully from the surgery. He headed up to Boulder to hang out with New Girlfriend, then flew over to Portland and loafed at his sister & BiL’s house in the Hood River, and then it was back to Boulder for another few weeks. Last night he went dancing, having managed to stay happily out of the heat most of the summer.
When NG arrives back in town next week, they’re taking off for a cruise down the East Coast, all the way to Colombia.
LOL…that’s funny. I went to nursing school with a jewish guy who showed me how to eat and drink for practically free. There is a difference between cheap and frugal. He was frugal. And between him and my Muslim friend, I learned frugal is the place to be.
🙂
Okay yeah, that’s just weird. It’s funny how many people have that filthy restaurant kitchen story to buttress their argument against eating out. I’ve been in lots of restaurant kitchens that were so clean they put mine to shame.
I can’t imagine any hotelier being thrilled to have a cook stove set up in the bathroom! 🙂
It’d be interesting to see how much ‘saving’ really happens in this situation, especially when you look at the time required. Not all hotels offer refrigerators, and based on some of the meal samplings, I’m guessing that at least one trip to the store per day is required, plus how do you handle leftovers? Also, those little bottles of propane are a couple of bucks each, so even if they last the length of a trip, I’m sort of guessing that these were just disposed of even if they weren’t emptied, which isn’t the most frugal thing I can imagine.
I can see the benefit here for sure, but to me, it’s a tad bit on the extreme side. Just my opinion, though!
@ Money Beagle: LOL! “Extreme” is definitely one of the words that springs to my mind, too.
In fact, though, it’s pretty cheap to eat this way. SDXB is a master of grocery shopping…the man is astonishing. He eats like a king but spends very modestly on food.
You can’t carry a propane bottle on a plane, and so, assuming you had a scrap of ethics and concern for safety, you’d have to leave it behind. When he went TDY, though, SDXB would spend upwards of a month on assignment, and so he generally would get his money’s worth out of the gear he purchased. NCO quarters usually provide kitchenettes: a microwave, an under-the-counter fridge, and often a sink.
I don’t recall that we ever had leftovers, but to the extent that we did, they would go into the little fridge.
Much of SDXB’s travel food consisted of camp fare: he’s an accomplished back-country hiker. So he would carry dried foods and cereal, which of course need no refrigeration. I spent three months in the outback of Alaska and Canada with him and went into a restaurant just once, at my insistence. That trip, air and bus fare included, only cost us a few hundred dollars apiece.
That has to be the besy frugal story ever – good food and he got to save most of the per diem! Win-win! I love it! I wish I had thought of bringing a camping stove on my California business trip a few years ago…the $30 per day allowance is laughable when your coworkers pick the restaurants…
Thanks for the mention Funny!