Thank you for visiting FrackingFrugal, if you have found my site I assume you have at least a passing interest in frugality. Full disclosure, I suck at money and my eyes glaze over when I think about budgets, see excel spreadsheets, or read about complicated formulas that folks use to calculate this and that. Many times these formulas are wrong or misleading, or they are not applicable to your life. The good news is, this site isn’t about budgets, spreadsheets, or formulas. This site is about frugal hacks that I have discovered and leveraged to my advantage with the ultimate goal of financial independence. I will also be posting some of my investment strategies as I go along as well. Many of you visiting have wonderful high paying jobs, you may not need to live frugal, you may choose to live frugal, or you may leverage frugal living with the ultimate goal of achieving financial independence because you hate said high paying job. This site is for you and those who have a mediocre salary such as myself.
A little about me: I have no formal education or background in finance, business, or economics. I’m currently 29 and am gunning for financial freedom by age 40ish. I do have a PhD in Communication which has all but ensured that I will have a mediocre salary for the rest of my life, but hey life choices right? I do love my job as an assistant professor but, to be honest, I wouldn’t show up to my job on a daily basis if I had the funds not to. Therefore, I consider myself fortunate that I have a flexible job that I love, but ultimately a slave to the desk and I crave the freedom that comes with financial independence. I currently live in Oklahoma (hence the fracking in frackingfrugal, and hey who doesn’t like a little alliteration. See what I did there?). What I promise to try to do is share what I learn about frugal living through experience and reading. One thing about graduate school, is that it makes you a voracious reader (also I don’t claim to be an amazing writer and I still don’t know how to use a comma correctly). I just got done buying up the finance section of the now bankrupt Hastings Bookstore, used books were 90% off. (I know what you’re thinking) Why did this idiot spend money on books that he could have got for free at the local public library? I told you already, I suck at money. I knew that was the right thing to do but I’m a pretentious ass about my personal library so I bought the books, at least they were 90% off, most I bought for .10 cents. Like many of you, sometimes I know the right thing to do but fall to my spending weaknesses, discussing these will likely prove useful.
If you prefer to live a more Spartan lifestyle than myself, there are many great blogs that will show you how to live like that, one blogger lives on 7k a year! This site is about making lifestyle choices, not all of which are appropriate for all individuals. Basically, this is a site about the frugal lifestyle compromises I am willing to make, and those I’m not, on my journey to financial freedom. I’m a big believer in collective knowledge so I look forward to sharing some of my ideas, tricks, and tips as well as discussing and learning those things from others.
Finally, I should note that I am a half-assed mechanic (technical term) and I spend some of my time “flipping” cars and I also have a few unique classic car projects I’m working on. Most frugal blogs talk about shunning vehicles (I do ride my bike at all costs) but for many owning a car is a major convenience if not a pseudo necessity. I would like to share ideas about making our vehicles more fuel efficient and I also want to start an e-hotrodding cult (only kind of joking there, I would like to see if there is more interest in the idea though). So my interests are very eclectic and I hope that some of the garbage floating around in my mind proves beneficial to others. Thanks for visiting, I hope it hasn’t been a total waste of your time.