I think I'd rather have someone else spending my money after I'm dead than to be going to to food pantry or working as a walmart greeter trying to live of SS when I'm 80.

You dont have to have a million dollars saved up to enjoy retirement comfortably.

Is getting your food from a food pantry/working at Wally World when your 80 the only option to not saving like that lady has done?

There are many different life situations and her chosen path is not even remotely realistic for most of us.

Im impressed by her frugality, but she wont get to enjoy as much of her efforts as her heirs will. Maybe she is OK with that. We are all different.

I skipped around and didn't watch the entire video, but guess I watched half or so, and really didn't see anything that extreme. I buy my meat on clearance when possible, ditched cable for roku, hang my clothes instead of dry, etc. We bought a house we'd be able to pay off quickly (and have) and pay for our vehicles with cash. We don't have solar but our electric bill is still much less than hers, so I don't really see the need for it. Oh and I don't wash my hair every day (not to save money but because it dries it out too much). I DO buy toilet paper though, lol.

She claims to be poor yet brags about her income,,,,,,,and who buys cat food to donate to the needy? I dont get it?

To paraphrase Dave Ramsey, "there's a difference between poor and broke, poor is a state of mind and broke is a financial status"

she is living on I would guess on about 1/4 of her income and saving the rest clearly she spends it some times

when you have a savings you can buy good deals when they happen along like that 4K dollar car she bought when it was a good deal

the 2019 she bought clearly shows she has more than 10K a year to live on and she buys them cash from her savings.


I thought she spent a lot of time talking about TV options , TV is not that important to me , if I didn't have a wife and kids I might not even have netflix. I was 40 before I bought my first new TV and it was 150 dollars at Walmart but I do enjoy having a second tv for those times when the wife and I want to watch something together and not have to fight for space in the living room with the other TV

my new vehicle is 2004 my next is a 2000 and an 1988 that my son drives

my taxes are 2400 a year on the house

I have been below the federal poverty line before when we were on one income and my wife was home schooling the kids we qualified as a family of 5 for things like free school lunch which is funny since not only were we not taking the free education we weren't taking the lunches either. Nor did we take food stamps or food bank or anything

we did eat some road kill the wife has rules about road kill.
it is also amazing who is giving away roosters and old laying hens all you need to do is go pick them up for soup birds.
plenty of fish my dad gave us and about 2-3 deer a year that we shot or family shot and we cut them all up ourselves.
we even saved up and bought a pig a few times that having money makes a difference at the time a pig was 100 dollars for a big one if you have someone who lets one get over market weight you can get them for the same price as the ones at market weight often.

I do have a mortgage it is 500 a month basically the rent on an efficiency apartment for a 4 bed room 1 bath house , 5 people sharing a bathroom builds character.

that Dave Ramsey is a smart guy , if you follow the steps you find yourself living better than you were in not too long . you do have to have money to save money in many cases.

it also helps to have time.
I had to pass on a 400 dollar running 2004 olds alero 2 weeks ago not because I didn't have the money , but because I didn't have the time , the catch on that car was it had no brakes , well it had a rotten brake line and had been parked at my dads friend's house for a year they were about to donate it to rawhide and it started ran had working air in very nice shape , but it needed front and rear brake lines I was going to have to drive 2 hours and tow it home on a trailer. then put 100 dollars in brake line into it

also helps to know how to use some tools.

Jeez!! It's like we were twins separated a birth! I'd love to know her.

I don't see the need to equate or compete with others to be happy with how I live, people are all different and live differently, I don't care what others really do with their hard earned income, I do care how the government continually finds ways they feel they must have a bigger bite out of it !

Though when others tell me I must live this way or that way, then I tend to come unhinged, it's not like I am hurting them living my way, LOL

She wishes to advertise her skill at being cheap, or modest as most would say politely with her income so be it, in this day and age she won't live to see those fancy savings go any where but to some one she don't wish them to have.

Happy and content is a mind set, not an accounting ritual !

I like that,

goes well with something my grandma used to say " rich or poor it's nice to have money.

Because she lives cheaply she is not poor.

But dose she really think she is helping out the poor buying them cat food? My thoughts. Are if you can't afford cat food you can't afford litter or vet bills. Maybe just maybe they should not have the cats?

Her efforts would be better served teaching them finances.

I wouldnt do the cat food thing but if that's how she wants to donate and it makes her satisfied, more power to her.

based on her 23M Youtube views and current payouts for finance ($18/1k views), she would have made $415,489 in YT revenue from 2004 also...not too shabby..

I don't agree with everything she does or spends money on, but she had some great points and advice...check out her channel

~40 millionaire with no debt, and financially independent, not too bad!

What you are describing is not the "Normal American" though

avg credit card debt is $17k or something, 4 to 7 cards a family

Neighbors have about $100k in new financed or leased vehicles in the drive. House payment up their ears...this is "Normal" today.

"Debt is normal, Be weird" --Dave Ramsey

I don't know, but I would think long and hard about my lifestyle if people were sending me unsolicited bars of soap. She seems to have it together but that statement caught my attention.

I'm not against saving and investing at all. Been dumping money into a 401k for my whole career. While it is a good thing, it is also a future tax problem. Real estate has been a thrill, but caused tax & family problems too, because everyone gets jealous when you see an opportunity that no one else sees and grind away to make it pay off, instead of learning how to do it themselves. So I wonder, am I really doing heirs a favor by giving them a lot of easy money in an estate? Or will that be enabling poor choices? And many of my older friends are struggling with that question too.

If you need cat food donated to you you do not need a cat!

Bessie Smith sang "I've been rich and I've been poor; I think rich is better."

Being frugal is a good thing. I see a sensible gal there. What ever she's doing, or done, to plan her finacial future.....it must have worked in spades if she was financially independant and retired at 38! As far as what happens to her loot after she's gone........in 40-50 years(?), hopefully she has some favorite neices and nephews to help out.

She didn't spend any time on her pistol sitting on the night stand. I would have liked to see it out of the holster. I wonder if she is ex-military?

Some people are very comfortable in being alone. I suspect she has where her money will go after she dies. Maybe she'll endow an domestic animal shelter or something else. She doesn't live in metro Phoenix or metro Tuscon or pricey amenity places such as Flagstaff.The AZ Colorado River counties are pretty cheap to live in, especially getting away from being able to commute to Vegas area. I doubt she selected this town by accident...

Swamp Wolf, do I detect a little bit of jealousy?

I live pretty frugally also, But I do think this woman may be a little too anal about it. I kind of get the idea that her lifestyle IS her life.
I sort of enjoying thinking about ways to spread my estate around after I leave this planet.

Better hope she don't get hit by a bus tomorrow.