The Frugal Hostess is Cheap!

Dear Cheapskate,

Today we're honored to have the famous Frugal Hostess write about being cheap! I ALWAYS read her blog. We're so lucky!!!!! Read her post below then go to her blog and read everything else!

Our guest blogger writes:
Don’t Waste Your Money
By The Frugal Hostess

Pre-Shredded Cheese, Pre-Sliced Apples, Pre-Cut Veggies: These products are a waste of money. Seriously, are you really that busy that you can’t spend three minutes shredding up some cheese? The cost is almost double the regular block of cheese or whole apple, and the product is sprayed with chemicals that keep it from sticking together or turning brown. How about you just slice an apple up when you want to eat it – or just bite it, you big baby – and hold the NatureSeal? (NatureSeal is the white powder made up of ascorbic acid and calcium salts that keeps pre-sliced apples from turning brown. Gross, right?)

Fat Free Half and Half. What a crock. Half-and-half is half milk and half cream. Take a minute to think about that. Does it make sense that it wouldn’t have fat? Of course not. Fat free half-and-half is really high fructose corn syrup dosed to taste like cream. How dreadful. This is obviously a product that is too good to be true. How about you just drink real cream like a normal hedonist? (Same goes for that flavored or shelf-stable kind. You must be kidding.)

Books. The Frugal Hostess wishes that books could replace dollar bills as currency, because she’s sure that this change would result in her being an instant millionaire. Books are so great and so worth having. However, if you read quickly, you could end up spending a hundred bucks a week on books. Try looking for reading material at the thrift store, where paperbacks are usually less than $2. Or go to the library and experience our tax dollars at work funding the free download of porn on the computers.

Flea Shampoo. Soap kills fleas. Like, any soap. So the idea that you have to get special flea shampoo for your dog is dumb. Just use regular shampoo or dish soap.

Unscented Products. Listen, TFH hates to break it to you, but an unscented product smells like crap. Unscented laundry detergent is one of the worst smelling concoctions you could ever smell. Unless you are allergic or something, don’t fool yourself into thinking that unscented equals lack of scent; it just equals lack of a good scent.

Bubble Bath. Dish soap. Better bubbles, lower prices, and you can multitask if you’re behind on dishes.

Flowers from the Florist. Get flowers from the grocery store. If you don’t like the mixture they’ve thrown together created, feel free to switch them around. It never fails that The Frugal Hostess wants orange and red flowers and every bunch has two purple stems. Just trade those out with the orange ones in the next bunch.

What are some other total and complete wastes of money?

The Frugal Hostess is the figurehead of a lifestyle brand for poor people. She writes about inexpensive entertaining and other things that are cheap but not easy on her irreverent food blog at http://www.frugalhostess.blogspot.com/.