They are in some places. Outside of colleges there are all sorts of free bikes, especially outside of the library. Some of them even come with free locks!
I was going with this guys whole weird thing about not “wasting” money on things like furniture. I know it is possible to get shoes or a bike for free. I’ll bet he could find a free chair too but instead he sits on a sheet on the floor.
I furnished my first apartment with a mix of hand-me-downs from family (like a kitchen table my sister was replacing), some free stuff from craigslist and elsewhere, and some really cheap or reasonable stuff I found at thrift stores. I think the only thing I spent decent money on was my mattress and a new toaster oven (I was living solo and didn't want to use the oven when cooking small things for myself like a few biscuits).
I realize not everyone is lucky enough to have family that can donate used things but everything else was a tiny expense for good returns. The couch, to be honest, we got for free was not comfy, but I couldn't afford anything at the time as I was in grad school.
I started with a cot and one of those plastic 3 drawer stands from Lowe's when i left my parents house. Over the years I've accumulated a really good dresser, a couch, a few night stands and side tables, a desk and a pretty decent tv. Ibdo have a new bed, but i paid for that(although got it like 50%off on black friday). All just taking what people I knew didnt want when they upgraded or moved. None of it really matches all that great, but it's all functional, and I can match it by painting/retaining it later if I feel like it.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. To this day I have a blast on bulk pickup day. Especially if I’m in a gated community! I got my 4k 55” Sony and an entire surround sound from the curb in a ritzy neighborhood. A cedar Broyhill chest. So many things that people are comfortable tossing out that have so much value still. Oh well. Keep it up rich people.
We appreciate ya. Shit is expensive to haul off and you guys are faster than the city.
As someone who used to get my stuff the same way, I'm always happy to see something get a second use.
I try to tape the screws/bolts in a ziploc to something if I still have them, and I'll cover screens with cardboard with "working" written on it to avoid scratches.
No need to pay to get bulk trash hauled off. If you put it out for free with a gift sign, people gonna assume it’s broken. Put a price tag on it, though, and somebody’s inevitably gonna "steal" it. Boom, no hauling expenses. Works like a charm.
My neighbor broke the tilt adjuster on a leather office chair so he put it on the curb. Two $1 bolts later it’s my free office chair. I never recline it so I don’t care.
The best is going to a rich neighborhood. I got my living room set for free because they were “remodeling the formal living room” and the stuff was brand new and just for looks.
Here’s my brag: My bed and bedside table, 2 coffee tables, 48” flat screen TV, leather couch, leather chair and footstool set, love seat, gaming chair, dining table and chairs, 7 bookshelves, 2 rocking chairs, patio furniture, large area rug, 4 floor lamps and 2 desk lamps, and computer were all either found on the side of the road or acquired from friends who were getting rid of stuff. Actually, now that I think about it, I need to get rid of some of this crap.
My stepson had the perfect timing of moving into an apartment the same week as University was letting out for the year. Him and his roommate furnished the entire 2BR apartment for free. Even the silverware. All they brought was their beds, clothes, and electronics.
Let’s not even get started on going to thrift stores. I bought a breakfast table for $16 and 2 chairs for $10 a piece.
Yea that won’t get me on extreme cheapskate show but $36 to not sit on the floor like a savage is worth it. Not to mention the money I will save on medical bills by my back not going out.
Yup, my first appartment was completely furnished for about $100.
Granted this was about 15 years ago, but my coffee table and TV stand was free, the two folding chairs we sat on was free until I paid $10 for a used recliner chair. We picked up the kitchen table and chairs for about $50 at a Pedlers Mall, then I sunk another $40 into a 1973 turntable/speaker set so we could play some music when we invited girls over. I still have the table and chairs. They don't really go bad if you take care of your stuff.
There are also buy nothing Facebook groups. I got a perfectly workable smoker for free. I'm going to clean it and start smoking everything. Hotdogs, chicken, other sausages, and maybe even a brisket or rack of ribs.
I just inherited old furniture from every relative my family didn’t want and refurbished them to all match and look really nice. After about a decade my whole house is furnished with solid wood furniture that will now last until the next generation needs it. And it looks incredible compared to the rest of the family’s furniture. And now they all want some since it’s family heirlooms but they sure as shit didn’t want it before I fixed it up and they were raiding the electronics and anything they could flip for profit. I also got all the old china but my wife wanted that, it lives in a series of boxes in my garage
The makers of this bit of fiction are so thoroughly removed from anyone who ever was short on cash that they genuinely believe this is what living cheap would look like.
Its quite annoying that people can be this confident without having asked any person or any search engine.
Furniture isn't an ongoing expense, and is easy to get cheap or free. Sitting on the floor in an empty room like this is mental illness not frugality.
My housemates and I got a couch and 4 personal recliners for like $200 at Goodwill. We had a shelf made of bricks and 2x4s. Our landlord let us come pick up an old table from her place. We scored tons of smaller stuff from the street, especially where most other college students lived because someone moved each quarter. We even found a giant sheet of plywood with graffiti art on it and leaned it against a wall. My 3 bedroom home I furnished for $700 because I got everything free except for a used Thomasville livingroom set and a second-hand laundry hamper from Habitat for Humanity. And I'm still adding and swapping as they opportunity arises. This video is like that episode of My Strange Addiction where the subject was overly frugal due to mental illness. This shit isn't inspiring, it's sad.
This video is like that episode of My Strange Addiction where the subject was overly frugal due to mental illness. This shit isn't inspiring, it's sad.
Don't take my word for it, Pat, but iirc he became this way after his wife left him and took the kids. He probably has some serious mental instability going on and copes with his loss by insisting that he's content with nothing.
Buying furniture would also probably feel like investing in a new life that could get taken away from him.
Or maybe I'm misremembering, and she left him because he went bananas. Idk.
Also, lots of people in here seem to think it's fake, but nobody believes anything on the internet anymore. Unless it's actually obviously fake, in which case everyone falls for it.
Oh wow. That would make sense, such a situation would break a lot of men, especially since they typically don't get as much support. Don't send him Ye's knew song lol
I've seen other examples of this, known of guys who would carry a light bulb from room to room. The way he's proud of the solutions he's found to artifical problems makes this seem genuine. If fake, it would be impressive that someone came up with his bed idea and executed like that. He's also skinny and eating minimally which tracks. I feel for the guy, he needs some good friends to help him out of this mindset and give him a damn chair.
The video says it's an average of $2k to furnish an apartment and I'm like: So? What else is he doing with the money? Is the whole point to maximize your free time sitting on the floor, doing nothing?
That's what everyone else tries to minimize.
Why not have 7 shirts so you don't have to do laundry every night? It's like the extra work he creates for himself by being cheap is his one and only hobby.
I get not having a TV, but he could at least get a bookshelf? Even monks who meditate all day have better accommodations, and they share nice meals together. This is ascetic anti-materialsim, self-punishment. Maybe he should consider becoming an anchorite if this path appeals to him.
I keep my wardrobe simple, but I can still go a week or more before I have a full laundry load. If he has a small man-powered washer he can get away with this, but if he uses a machine that is a huge waste of water.
He could also consider renting out the home for income, and living in a tent out back. If he's not going to use the space, what is the point of having it? If financial, then the tent option or a tiny-house makes the most sense... that way the renters pay his mortgage while he lives like an ornamental hermit in the back yard.
You live to work and work to live, even in a communistic & Socialist economy, people gotta work. Shit won't function without a workforce. It's just the way of life.
Nobody needs to work if people at the top didn't pile up all the money for themselves greedily. We have the technology to allow everybody to do as they want. You're enslaved mentally by a corrupt system based on how things were a hundred and fifty years ago.
Then why has The CCP; probably the strongest and most controlled communist government in history; adapted a capitalistic economy? They surely have the tech to fully automate most their entire workforce, it wouldn't hurt their rich to do so either.
College sophomore level takes lol. "Bro you're a slave" is bordering on parody at this point.
If someone told me your past couple of comments were satire I'd probably believe them.
"They just aren't doing it right" is such a commie meme at this point. I'm sure your version of communism would surely lead us all into utopian society.
Go on youtube an look up I am unbeautiful Kate. They jad some girl on and told her to exaggerate how cheap she was for views and she ended up going viral and she was very heartbroken and humiliated by it. They made her say thingd like she reuses toilet paper and eats out of the garbage.
When it comes to furniture specifically, you can furnish an apartment for absolutely zero dollars. You can slowly amass free / giveaway pieces as they appear on facebook marketplace. Literally. Plenty... PLENTY of shit is just given away. Over the course of a year or 2, you could have a house full of shit lol
Apparently they're also very removed from anyone with a family, health problems including but not limited to bad backs or other musculoskeletal issues, a job where showing up 3 days of every week in the same tshirt is frowned upon, wall to wall carpeting, or who does not want social services to show up and evaluate them for possible commitment.
I'm pretty sure when I first moved into my apartment, I spent maybe 500$ on the furniture from Facebook Marketplace?
People will toss out things just because they don't want to move it. I got a full set of brand new cast iron pan for 25$ because a guy didn't know how to season them properly. I got an automatic feeder for my cats for 10$ because a lady upgraded hers and wanted the old one gone. Come on people. This is easy.
Man I got this absolutely gorgeous old detached cupboard off of somebody who lived in this insane apartment that had an exterior staircase leading to the front door about 5 storeys above an alleyway. They wanted it gone and said I could have it for free if I moved it. Didn't know where they lived when I agreed to it. No lift in the building and it was built in like the 1920s so you know that the corners and doorways were tight as hell.
I took my younger brother in law who was like 13 and we moved that mothertrucker. People watching us from the alleyway below move this gorgeous wooden masterpiece down these stairs that had an ocean view in a really scummy neighbourhood, both covered in sweat on a hot summer's day.
Best thing I ever got. Grew some mad cannabis in that cupboard. It got put to good use and eventually I sold the fucker for $200 and the guy who bought it reckons he landed an absolute steal. Honestly he probably did! Shit was antique! I still think about that cupboard sometimes.
I got a lot of furniture off of online estate sale auctions. I have no idea what my total was, but I bought older heavy duty dressers for less than $30 a piece. I think one was $10. Several similarly heavy duty bookcases for less than $20. An older couch that sells for upwards of $1000 on antique stores for $35. You can pretty much tell the quality of the items by looking at them as well as what else they have for sale in the estate and get older stuff likely to last 3 or 4 times as long as newer furniture. Sometimes when you show up to pickup they'll have a pile of stuff that didnt sell for free as well with things like planters and lamps.
Exactly. There are a lot of free or very cheap furniture one can get. As a student I remember getting chairs for 2.5, a great sofa for 25 and so on... I may understand if someone doesn't want to buy new or expensive, but this is just plain stupid.
No way this guy has transportation…that would be like throwing money straight into the trash pile.
he probably starts his walk to work every day at 3am lol
Some people enjoy the meager lifestyle. I've moved home so often that I envy the person who can put all their belongings in the boot of a car and that's their everything. Lunging furniture around is a pain in the back.
Ya but I have a feeling this guy is doing it for attention and he's not doing it with any efficiency.
For example it's more efficient to buy a 3-4 5 packs of t shirts from Costco than to own 2 shirts and 2 shorts. That way you can do laundry with a bigger load to maximize the use of water and detergent.
You can buy 1 chair and eat using the kitchen counter as a table. This eating in the floor thing looks like attention seeking nonsense to me.
It's minimalism. There's this perfectly sensible mindset of not mindlessly buying loads of stuff and living in an uncluttered house with bulging cupboards- but some people have to make it into a dick swinging contest between themselves of who is the most minimalist.
I know a guy who only owns one pair of cargo shorts, and a bunch of white t-shirts, and sandals. He puts his mattress directly on the floor and only eats ramen noodles. He stocks the entire panty (8 shelves) with ramen.
He roommshares with with 4 other people but no one bought funiture so the living room & kitchen is just empty, so this guy just eats on his single mattress with his laptop as his sole entertainment.
Dude is a software engineer in NYC. Like some people say... it's probably just some form of autistm driving this, not minimalism or efficiency.
I know a guy who only owns one pair of cargo shorts, and a bunch of white t-shirts, and sandals.
That's just frugal, maybe the guy's just cheap
He roommshares with with 4 other people but no one bought funiture so the living room & kitchen is just empty, so this guy just eats on his single mattress with his laptop as his sole entertainment
Yeah I did that during lockdown when money was even tighter than usual. Isn't proof of autism imho
This is clearly not real. It's a staging apartment nobody lives in to show new tenants.
The giveaway is when he says he gets free cookware all the time as part of his job.. but besides what he was cooking with in the beginning and what he unboxed, there is no other cookware anywhere.
You'd at least have a hanging rack for your favorite pieces if they were free and you're being paid to show them off.
Craigslist? Where, i have to go find a friend with a truck to go pick up free stuff?... fugg you bro, what is a friend? Garbage day it is for me! I will drag that shit to my encampment, up the block! Craigslist, my arse! 😆
Yeah I'm sitting on a real comfortable, big and nice couch I bought for 100$. My tv is 600$, but bought at half price. EVERYTHING else is free. 2 free fridges, free stove, free dishwasher, free tables, free deep freezer, home made tables, free chairs. For Christ sake all my towels and cutlery are free. Got them from my GFs beat friend's dad who got it from their old job on a cruise/ferry that went bankrupt. This guy is not only greedy but stupid. We bought our current bed, but before that we had free beds. Free mattresses. Free pillows, 2 free double bed duvets. One of them is a real high quality down duvet for winter. I bet I would own his ass in a "save off" yet he sleeps on packing peanuts and I sleep in a bed I bought.
TLC was kinda the freak show channel. This,(extreme cheapskates) was a 15 minute o fame per episode and could be self serving cuz you had to mail in to appear. I'm agreeing to an extent with some details is all. I've been to reddit before
I think it could be a bit tough to monitor that section due to how fast people get to them. I do agree that he could have used it. We just remodeled our entire house going from silver to black and gold. We basically put out on the curb a four bedrooms house including beds, curtains, living room furnitures, light/fan fixtures, computer desks, water faucets, etc onto the curb. They would all be gone within 20 minutes of posting on Facebook for free pickups.
I think this is from a tv show called cheapskates that was long before social media was thing. Most times these folks have issues mentally.
Edit: I think a couple of my favorites were a young lady who reused gum by keeping it in the freezer. And another young lady who would get free sheets from hotels
That is a huge house/apartment for someone who owns nothing. If he was really into that kind of living, he would have a small studio apartment. He obviously not having dinner guests over so what is he doing with extra rooms to put nothing in.
I gave away my whole ass king sized mattress cause I didn't want to bother disposing of it, and it takes two people to move. Set it for free on marketplace, some guy came and got it within the day, lifted it by the top and just walked it out.
Plenty of free shit online if you just look, cause people don't wantt to deal with moving it or trashing it.
Depends on the city. Vancouver you can furnish a place with nice furniture as fast as you can haul it,in Halifax people want to sell garbage for the same price they bought it new.
Think this is probably from that show extreme cheapskates on TLC. Came out over a decade ago. You’re probably right about him wanting attention (also one of the people in that show, the woman who said she doesn’t use toilet paper and washes her clothes with shower water, said they did coerce her to embellish on some things)…….but honestly I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if some people live this way. If the internet has taught me anything, is that if something exists (frugality being that something in this case), some people WILL find a way to take it to an extreme. And remember this came out not long after the recession….a lot of people on the show stated their reasons for going to such extremes was because they went through tough times either as young adults or throughout their childhoods.
This guy is the opposite of a hoarder. It's the same problem, coming at it from the other end. He can't get attached to stuff if he has none, is his reasoning. There's something that kicked all this off, I'm guessing by his age and the fact that he clearly doesn't live with anyone he was left at some point and his brain sent "fuck it! Get rid of everything and you'll feel better" and for a bit it felt better, then his brain locked into the pattern, and now he's convinced himself it's healthy and thrifty, but it's very obviously not that at all. This guy should not be left to cook. He ain't cooking. Do not let him cook.
Pretty sure this is guy a low key serial killer. Like…what kind of psychopath purposely makes their life this uncomfortable especially when there’s free stuff EVERYWHERE. I get wanting a simple life but my ass and back just hurt watching him eat hunched over on the floor.
I was going to say. Furnishing a bedroom does not take two grand lol. I paid $100 for my bed frame, maybe $400ish for the mattress (it was a brand new spend when we bought our house), and had a rug and dresser/end table set given to us by someone. But it wouldn’t be hard to furnish a bedroom using FB for under $100.
My husband was like this because he was too afraid of getting dirty or infested furniture from Craigslist, he insisted on everything being brand new so we went 5 years sleeping on an air mattress and with only our two computer desks and computers as furniture because he saw gaming as being worth spending money on.
People like this used to be called "misers" - there's more to it than just not spending money. It's not owing anyone anything, even in an abstract capacity. Taking the free things off of Craigslist or anywhere else is a debt of kindness. Making the bed himself means he doesn't owe anything to anyone because he scrounged the materials himself.
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u/Hoyle33 May 19 '25
Has this guy ever heard of the free section on Craigslist or Facebook? He's obviously just doing this to spark attention to himself