My Best Moneysaving Lifehacks

#2 in The "Frugal and Personal Finance" Friday Series

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A 3-Minute Read

Frugal wisdom represents one's personal representation of gaining long-term value, at the lowest physical, mental, and emotional cost. It takes time, planning and based on the strategy and tactics involved, little or great effort. The frugal person critically evaluates the value of new experiences but is grounded in the reality that resources are finite, and choices must be made to maximize one's happiness, and contentment

The most common questions on Google about frugality are..

What is frugality in economics?

What is frugality in philosophy?

What is example of frugality?

What is the function of frugality?

I was surprised when a friend of mine explained this incredible new concept thrift and frugality she had discovered called Life Hacking. She explained to me that Life Hacking, life-hack (or lifehacking) referred to any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that could increase the effectiveness productivity and time efficiency, in all walks of life.

My face became lightly contorted. Life Hacking didn’t seem like that visionary, radical or ground-breaking an idea to me. It seemed to me that Life Hacking was nothing more than a combination of creative thinking, common sense, and basic problem solving skills, all combined an applied by an individual who owned and knew how to use all the Apps on a smart device and had been improperly diagnosed with ADHD.

After we went our separate ways I looked up the Life Hack on Google and realized that I was right and wrong. The term was primarily used by computer experts who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can accelerate their workflow in ways other than programming.

The very first Life hacker, though she never used the term, was one Heloise Bowles Cruse. The Heloise, often referred to as the “original” Heloise was born Eloise (with a twin sister Louise) Bowles in Ft. Worth Texas on May 4, 1919.  She began as a newspaper columnist in a small town offering money saving strategies, shortcuts and lifestyle tips.  Like any effective Life Hacker when her column was syndicated, she added the H because she thought it made more alliterative sense, thus Hints from Heloise! Was born.

The idea started fairly simply. Back in the late 1950s, just when the True Hackers were doing their research on artificial intelligence and linguistics at M.I.T.  Heloise decided that she wanted to write a column in a newspaper for to help housewives. So off she went to the office of the Honolulu Advertiser to pitch her idea. Offering to work for free for 30 days the editor gave it a shot. Her  “Readers’ Exchange” column began in 1959 and became so successful that  1961 that Time magazine did an article on Heloise.

The column was syndicated in 1961, and the King Features Syndicate convinced Heloise to syndicate the column as Hints from Heloise. By 1962 it was running in 158 newspapers and in 1964 it was appearing 593 newspapers in America and abroad.

As of 2017  Heloise’s daughter  Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans (born April 15, 1951 in Waco, Texas)  continues  the column under the  pen name Heloise and has expanded  lifestyle hints, including consumer issues, pets, travel, food, home improvement, and health.

Heloise (the daughter) took over the column in 1977 when mother Heloise died.  Most  Life  Hacker’s, especially  millennial males are sadly not familiar  with Hints from Heloise.  Though  it  was and  still is  often focused on housewives  many of the tips, techniques and strategies offered are equally valuable for men as they are for women. Unfortunately many millennials  likely spending much of their time blogging, “friending” on Face Book and texting rather than reading  Good Housekeeping  where Heloise (the daughter) writes the monthly column "Heloise to the Rescue”. In 1983, before the Mac computer and it’s graphic user interface was made available, and before the term Life Hacker was invented there was  an on-line database of "Hints from Heloise". This was one of the first on-line information products available to the public via the Mattel Aquarius computer system. Between the mother and daughter there are now over 16 books in the brand , and a national radio show.

The main distinction between what Heloise created and the concept I know as Frugal lifhacking is attitude. Heloise had a mastery of thrift and sensible frugality while the post-frugal lifehacker is really an investor,

Frugal Lifehacking is more than just shortcuts or saving money. It is actually a way to invest in yourself for wealth, success and freedom.

I want you to look at your life as a form of investment portfolio. You have many untapped talents, skills and experiences. Think of each of these as a stock you have purchased. In combination your time, space, information, social connections etc. form a type of mutual fund.  If managed properly this portfolio will grow in value just as a stock portfolio would grow. But here is the difference. An appreciating stock is unlikely to increase in value more than 25%  in a year’s time, yet a skilled lifehacker can invest a dollar and have it grown in value as much as a 1000%.

Let me give you an example. You may think it is small, even petty to see this “nickle and dime” approach as a form of investing but it is nonetheless.

Imagine you go to the store and buy a 32 oz. bottle of dish soap for $1.50 at a discount store.

   Now I am going to show you how to make that same 32 oz. of dish soap for about 4 cents. Here’s how I’m going to do this step by step.

1.  Next time to go shopping go to the local “Dollar Store.” Buy 3 - 5 oz. bars of unscented plain soap. When you return home take ½ of one of those bars of soap and grate it with a metal cheese or vegetable grater. Not enough time?  Just cut it into 3-4 pieces.

2.  Place  the  grated   or pieces of soap into  an old dish soap bottle and add 1 tbsp. of laundry detergent and fill with water.

3.  When the bottle is empty just add more water and another tbsp. of laundry detergent.

4.  Repeat this process three or four times.  Add more grated soap, soap pieces or water as needed.

5.  This formula will clean as good if not better than commercial dish soap.

Now take the  money you saved and use it for something you cannot easily hack; like…like…Gee you can really hack almost anything.

Lifehacking, in essence, is a creative investment strategy. Using game thinking to invest involves knowing how to strategize. Lifehacks are among the most widely applicable strategies.

Let’s explore further what it means to be an investor. To invest is to allocate money or resource, such as time, space, information or influence in the expectation of some benefit in the future. In finance, the expected future benefit from the investment is called a return (to investment). The return may consist of capital gain and or investment income, including dividends,  interest, rental income etc. The economic return on an investment is the appropriately.

Investment generally results in acquiring an asset, also called an investment.  The life hacker is a master at leveraging what I call the 25 Lifehack Resources (TLR) which include things like time, space, information and influence. If the asset is available at a price worth investing, it is normally expected either to generate income or to appreciate in value, so that it can be sold at a higher price (or both).

Investors expect higher returns from riskier investments. Financial assets usually range from low-risk, low-return investments, such as high grade

government bonds, to those with higher risk and higher expected commensurate reward, such as emerging markets and stock investments.

Investors, particularly novices, are often advised to adopt a well-researched and well-planned investment strategy and to diversify their portfolio. Diversification has the statistical effect of reducing overall risk.

The lifehacker who can invest in the ELR  can gain huge returns on investment with little risk. To be an effective investor there are many elements that is important to master however there are three elements that stand out:

1. Knowing how to connect the dots accurately: We live in an interdisciplinary world. And the factors that make something a good or bad investment are complex. If you are well read in a wide range of areas you will soon develop an expansive understanding of these factors and ask a wider set of questions. This will lead to better strategies and more effective, efficient, and productive hacks.

2. Information and Influence: If your financial resources are limited you can leverage qualities like time, space, and information to get you access to game changers, influencers and other “power-players.” The key element in this is getting information and merging it with clear critical thinking skills. You need to be reading the daily newspaper including specific columns. I follow the BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, Fox News, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and most of all the Economist. I also follow various news feeds such as Quartz and Digg. Once you have done this you can hack as necessary when the right opportunities arise.

3. Break out of you own Cognitive Biases. Cognitive biases are varying mistakes in reasoning, evaluating, remembering, or other cognitive processes. These often occur as a result of holding onto one’s preferences and beliefs regardless of questionable or contrary information. Cognitive biases will affect investment decisions because they relate to memory, reasoning, and decision-making. The more informed you are and the more you network among those with similar beliefs and interests the more cognitive bias is likely to influence your thinking. This means that in order to be an effective investor you must break out of the box and step out of the bubble into new ways of seeing the investing marketplace. The rugal lifehacker that is free of these biases is usually the most effective investment hacker.

Let me offer you another investment hack based on the concept of leveraging resources – Garlic Dill Pickles. That’s correct, Garlic Dill Pickles. This is an extreme example and a hack that integrates more of the Eighteen Resources than almost any other hack I know. It is simple and easy to do though it takes about 4 months of waiting. It comes from a course I taught a course decades ago called “How to Live Like a Millionaire on $17,000 a Year”.  This hack,  which is more easily done if you have a small garden or live in the country, costs virtually nothing and has a return on investment a couple of thousand percent. All it requires is patience. Again we will do this step by step.

1.   Get 3-4 bulbs of garlic. This can cost less than a dollar or barter for them.

2.   Each bulb may contain 5-6 cloves of garlic.

3.   Separate the cloves but leave the paper skin covering on them.

4.   Fill flowerpots with potting soil or old compost.

5.   Put each clove in the soil and cover with more soil. Water about once or twice a week.

6.   Go to a Seed Exchange.  There are many listed on Facebook. A seed exchange is where you can buy, sell or exchange seeds.

7.   Exchange for Black pepper, dill seeds, and Kirby seeds. Kirbys are pickling cucumbers.

8.   In a warm kitchen or in the spring after the last frost plant the dill and cucumber (Kirby) seeds). Both plants tend to be hearty and require little care other than regular watering. One cucumber plant, from one seed, may produce 4-5 cucumbers.  I use rain water I catch into barrels off my roof to water the plants.

9.   In about 6 weeks the garlic, dill, pepper, and cucs will be ready for harvesting. Of course, any of these can be bought at a food market. It all depends on how committed you are to the “hack”.

   Keep in mind that during the growth period of the garlic,  scapes will grow out of the garlic plants. Scapes are intensely tasting chive or scallion with a garlic taste. They are similar to green onions. You can nip them off with a scissor and use them in recipes that call, for garlic. Cutting them off now and then will actually help the new garlic bulbs to forms from the little cloves you planted. Garlic scapes are often sold in Chinese, Asian or International food markets The next step is to make the pickling mix. Vinegar is needed here.

10.   I make my own from crab apples I pick in the forest near my home. I juice these apples; let the juice sit and in a few weeks I have apple cider vinegar.

11.  If you don’t have the time or desire to do this you can buy vinegar. It is very inexpensive.

12.  When it is time to make the pickles it is best to put the cucs in ice water for about 3 hours – just short of frozen. This will keep them from getting mushy in the pickling brine.

13.  When ready; mix equal parts vinegar and water in a 32oz jar. Add black and white peppercorns, the garlic and dill, and salt. 

14.  Wait a week or so. The longer you leave them the better they are. After 3-4 week they might begin to get soft.

Final Thoughts

If you produce enough pickles you can sell them at a local farmers market or barter. Each of the steps I have listed here should not take longer than about 20 minutes.  This what I would call an extreme hack yet I want you to see how far you can take this if you have the right information, the creativity and the incentive.

The ingredients for the dill pickles probably all cost less than $5.00. The return on investment might be a few hundred dollars.

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The article is an excerpt from a seminar I taught based on my book How to Hack Your Life through Game Thinking: Short-cuts for Winning the Game of Life. Order the book here.

https://www.amazon.ca/Hack-Your-Life-Through-Thinking/dp/1542984084

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Author: Hey there. My name is Lewis Harrison, and I created this newsletter. I am a transformational coach, teacher, and prepper. I am a proponent of entrepreneurism and also a writer and seminar leader. The author of over twenty books, and numerous self-improvement, business success, and personal development courses, I am the former host of a talk show on NPR Affiliated WIOX91.3 FM.

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