George Kamel - 20 Minutes of TikTokers Being Too Frugal

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! When it comes to spending money, I will almost always go out of my way to save a buck. But let’s bereal, there’s a fine line between frugal and financially feral. So today, we’re diving headfirst into the wild world of frugal TikToks to see just how far people are willing to go to save money.    Next Steps • 🎥 Watch my video Frugal People Share Their Best Money-Saving Habits. • 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.   Connect With Our Sponsors: • Get up to 20% off Cozy Earth with code GEORGE. • Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. • Save money on your phone plan with Boost Mobile. • Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle!   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to spending money, I will almost always go out of my way to save a buck. I'm that guy asking for the manager at TJ Max because of a scratch on a decorative gnome, and I believe that's worth at least 10% off, if not more. But let's be real. There is a fine line between frugal and financially feral. So today, we're diving headfirst into the wild world of frugal TikToks to see just how far people are willing to go to save money. Will I be impressed? Will I be horrified?

while I see someone who reuses dental floss and sleeps on bubble wrap? There's only one way to find out. And special shout out to our new channel sponsor, Delete Me, for whom we have created a very fancy poster in the background, and a special little cup. I think that's nice. I'm frugal, and we'll do anything to save money, so welcome to an episode of Extreme Cheapscape,

where I'm going to show you everything I did to save money last week. We have been getting so much rain lately, so I decided to wash my car. I'm honestly shocked that people pay money for car washes when you could just do this for free. Not at the gutter. But it worked out well. Finally removed the 3-year-old screen protector off my phone.

It's actually not even a screen protector. It's the factory wrapping from when I bought it brand new. And instead of buying a screen protector, I just use Packers tape. I know this sounds insane, but I actually did it. Yeah, it's insane. When it's still worked perfectly, and I didn't have to replace the screen. I definitely learned a thing or two from survival mode. Got a discount on my Mother's Day gift because the box was damaged.

I'm glad I asked because I got $10 off. That's a good one. Unbox it on Mother's Day, the umbrella was perfect. Trimmed my hair because I try to space out when I get haircuts. I can't say I did the best job, but it'll give me a little more time before I have to go get a hair. We can tell. You did it yourself. Fortunately, the Frugal Mobile had some lights pop up.

Instead of paying for a diagnostic test, I just went to an auto shop. Lend you the code reader for free. All you do is plug it into your car and then they'll print you out a report of what the issue is. It's finally time to say goodbye to my toothbrush because I went to the dentist, so I got a new one. And speaking about teeth, I don't buy whitening strips or anything like that. I just used baking soda. Mining strips are very expensive and they used to do this back of the day. So it works for me.

There was a meeting at work that had food catered. These were all the leftovers, so you know I took some to have dinner and for lunch for lunch. I'll give you that. And I took some napkins to use this toilet paper if you know, you know. Honestly, always bring Tupperware to work because you never know if there's going to be food catered. My dinner was free. Took a shower at the gym. It's not something I normally do.

But sometimes I will because why pay for a hot shower when you could just have it at the gym? At water pressure though, oh my God. All I was working out, I just charged some of my stuff. I don't do this often, but every now and then I'll bring stuff to charge. If there's an outlet, I'm gonna use it. Anytime I use paper towels, I'll rarely throw it out. Like at work or at my parents' house, I'll usually take it home with me. Unless they're really messy because I feel like they're good to reuse.

Not those sad cardboard ones. As you see, my stash has grown. Yeah, holding onto paper towels, I don't need to buy any paper towels. I don't know if this is true, but when I pump gas, I don't clench on the lever all the way down. I heard you let a lot of air in when you do that. Is that true? If you fill your tank slowly, you put less air in the tank, so you get more gas. Parents go out to eat a lot, so I ask

them to hold on to any sauces they get. Instead of them getting thrown out, I could use it for my meals. Not only does it help me save money, but it's also less wasteful, which makes me really happy. And that's all the ways I saved money last week. Okay, hope he's okay. He ended up in the hospital at you in there. Don't know what happened. Really left us with a cliffhanger, baddy Brad. Uh, you really, I mean, what a roller coaster. Some of those, I was like, that's a reasonable, wise thing to do. And then the man's using the same toothbrush for an entire year until his next Teeth cleaning. I don't have the time to explain how bacteria works,

but I hope that's not how you ended up in the hospital. That's all I'm saying. I gotta just see what the general zeitgeist is in the comment section. This person sums it up. First one, Chee-Chi, Who is forcing you to do this? That's exactly.

Someone's got to be paying this guy, or he just gets a bazillion views, so he keeps making, you know, outrageous content for people like me to react to. That also works. But why pay for a gym membership if you could work? out at home. They got you on that. Maybe not everyone can afford all the equipment that you use at the gym, and some people

like to have a different space to move their body. But yeah, saving newspaper towels, that's a bridge too far, as Amy said, especially the sad brown ones. That's barely a single use. I mean, I wouldn't use that on my worst enemy. I think that's a torture device more than anything. It's coarse and rough and irritating. But okay, a strong start from Badi Brad.

This man, I've seen some of his videos, and I don't know if the show Extreme Cheapskate still exists, but if so, let this man be your featured star for a whole season. Moving on. As a frugal dad, I don't order food for myself anymore. I got my kid this Spacidia. I got my wife, this chicken pesto sandwich. My wife's going to eat three-fourths of that.

My kid's going to eat a quarter of that. So combined, that's a full meal for me. That's how you save money right there. All right, the leftovers are ready for me. My wife ate about three-fourths of her chicken pestle sandwich, so I got a quarter. And then my kid actually didn't eat her meal at all, so I get a full meal. She ended up eating a pouch. So lucky me, let's go.

Oh, now we're going to watch him eat it. Oh, he's rating it now, 8.2. Okay. Oh, 6.7 on the old space idea. Two members of the Clean Play Club and three happy people. That's how you do it. The real hack is the business that decided. they can cut off most of the cassidia and give you way less for the same price because it's in the shape of a spaceship. That's good marketing. But the fact of the matter is I really like this one.

I did actually this morning. I took my daughter out to breakfast knowing she's not going to eat the $9 kids meal. So instead I get my breakfast meal and I just scoop off a bunch of my stuff. And like he said, she barely ate it and I knew that was coming. So I didn't waste $10 on a meal for her. and we all left happy. I like that one a lot. Way to go, dollars with Drew? Let's see if the comment section was vibing with him. Oh, Kung Fu Panda said life's too short to live like that.

M.K. said not the three bites of sandwich covered in saliva. Who is covering their sandwich with saliva? Okay, if my wife takes a bite of something, it's not gross. I mean, you procreate with these people. Golly. Get a grip! Must be a homeschooler. Continuing on.

Frugal hacks that nobody does, but I do because I'm a freak. When my mascara runs out, I dip the brush in a little bit of water. Last so much longer. I order off the kids' menu. I roll my windows down in 100 degree weather instead of using air conditioning. Ooh, I only buy generic brands. I keep my house at 78 degrees in the summer in Texas to conserve energy. I always take home my leftovers.

If I want to go out to eat, but I make the choice to stay inside and stay. I put the amount of money I would have spent going out into my emergency fund. I ration my toilet paper. No. I fill up my laundry detergent with water. Works just as well. Also works for shampoo and body wash. Only thing I ask for for birthdays or Christmases is skincare products,

so I never have to buy them myself. We bring homemade tea to bars so I won't have to buy alcohol. I always check the price per ounce in grocery stores so I can make sure that I'm buying the cheapest option. I only buy Getsk. Yes, Monday through Thursday. I mean, she's extreme, but it works for her. She seems very happy, well-adjusted.

I think about half of those are things that are reasonable that I think we should all be doing, like taking home leftovers and only buying generic brand. There was a few others I liked in there that I want to give her a shout-out for. We had the, I don't know about the mascara. I've never used mascara. I don't know if you can tell. I'm no JD-Vans, but I get the job done every morning or ring off the kids' menu. I often do that because I don't know if you're not.

you've seen just how much food is being served at American restaurants. It's simply too much food in most cases. And so sometimes I'm out of Chick-fil-A, I go, I can survive off five grilled nuggets and fries and a drink and ice cream. That's already a thousand calories plus. We can live on that. The kids menu I like. There was a few others I really thought were in good taste. Not rolling the windows down 100 degrees. Keeping the house at 78 is maniacal. If it is 71 in my house, I'm angry. I'm happily going to pay the extra utility bill to keep it comfortable in my own home. That's a wild one. If you stay in instead of going out, you're like, well, I would have spent $20. I'll put that. That's good, but it almost feels like a, I guess, over the top. I'm like,

just put money in savings because you made a plan to put money in savings. I don't think you need to like punish yourself or reward yourself for not going out. Have a good time. Bringing tea to the bar, okay. I mean, I don't know. There's rules. I guess. against bringing your own drinks into establishments, but I would just go get like a water or a club soda or just buy tea at the bar. It'll cost you close to nothing. If they have tea, I don't know.

I don't know if bars serve tea. Never thought about that. Bars serve tea, you'd get more customers. All right, overall, good stuff from Cat on the Money. I like her energy, she does not seem deranged. Already hate his vibe. It's extremely unhealthy to try to save money all the time. It's a privileged assumption to believe

that you're going to live to be 65 or 70 years old and potentially reap the benefits of saving three or four dollars a day on a cup of coffee. Reality is when you're putting yourself in a financial stress situation that is unwarranted or making decisions every single day based on frugality and how much you can save, you're unironically lowering your life expectancy because of the damage

that you're doing to your mental health every second of every day. Watching that video did damage to my mental health. I don't know what, vibe he's going for, but it's giving limp biscuit meets E.T. Why? Why just a head popping out of a... The hoodie is just too small. It's just simply too small. Goodness gracious. Being frugal will kill you is this whole thing. I don't know if he... I don't know if he's a satire account. His bio says real talk and he's wearing a chain

giving a smoky-eyed kind of blue steel look. But that one took off. Four million on that one. I'll give it to him. He went viral for that. Oh, here we go. They, Shout out Bradley on a budget on the in the comments section. Bradley on a budget ticks me off so bad. He has hundreds of thousands of dollars saved. He's now just cosplaying being poor at this point. I unfollowed his. Okay, watch your language.

You know, that's going to follow you, unapologetic queen. Your next employer is going to find this TikTok comment and go, I don't want to hire her. It's the kind of language she uses among strangers. He creates a scarcity mindset, which is not good for expansion and growth mindset. First of all, an expansion mindset, calm down. You're not a goldfish. Okay.

Do I think frugality can cause a scarcity mindset? Yeah, there's a spectrum from the extreme cheap skates to, if I can save money and be intentional, I'm going to do that. And the money I freed up, I can now use for other things that are more important to me. That's all it is. You're trying not to overspend. If you're making every single decision through the lens of, well, is there a more frugal way to do this?

And if not, I'm not going to do it? Then that is toxic. Well, do I think it's going to kill you and shorten your life expectancy? I'd like to see data on that. We need to follow frugal people versus overspenders and see who dies first. Science, where are you at, bro? Oh, thank you, Bill Nye. Now, being frugal will not kill you.

But you know what can lower your life expectancy? The stress of dealing with spam calls, sketchy emails, fraud, and creepers who found your info online. And that is why I use DeleteMe, a sponsor of today's video. Delete me scrubs your personal data, like your name, phone number, home address, and way more from hundreds of data broker sites that are out there buying it and selling it without your permission. And DeleteMe handles all the heavy lifting, and they send you a detailed report every few months so you know exactly what they removed. And you can check it out and get 20% off by going to join DeleteMe.com slash George or just use the link in the description. And before we get back to more frugal clips, I'll give you one of my favorite money saving tips.

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And you can make the switch today, no contract necessary, at boostmobile.com slash Ramsey, or by using the link below. All right, back to the frugal hacks. Oh, I love this guy. I love this guy. I have another great way you can save on your water bill. What you do is you take this back cover off the toilet. You fill a two-liter.

It could use a one-liter full of water. You set it in here. It takes up a lot of space for water, but still is a great flush. It saves you a lot of water. And, of course, saves you a lot of money. Wow. Thank you, Bizarro Jerry Seinfeld. I appreciate it.

It's like Timu Jerry over here. Jerry! Jerry! Now, I got to ask a plumber if that's, like, safe to do. I don't know. But, yeah, the idea is you're displacing some of the water, and so that each flush you're using less water. And apparently, you still get a great flush,

which is not a sentence I often want to hear. But if it saves me money, I'm open to it. I want to see if there are any plumbers in the comments. Let's see, I did the math, assuming you flush four times a day, that would save you about 75 cents a month. Is it worth the $9 or $10 a year? None of my business.

Am I going to go do that tomorrow? Probably not. I'm okay. I'm happy with the current flush status of my home. Someone else said it saves you 21 cents a year, enjoy your free piece of gum. I feel like gum. Gum costs more than that these days for a piece of gum. Just adjust the adjuster on the fill valve.

Adjust the adjuster, that doesn't sound official. I'm just going to put it out there. The toilet is adjustable. If you're that cheap, just lower the float. There you go. Another comment from Matthew, we'll end on this one. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.

Unrelated, but good advice in general. That's a way to save it. money. And Mr. Pete said Seinfeld from Wish. We were on the same page. I went Timu. He went Wish. I think Wish was a better joke, to be honest. So Mr. Pete, you win again. All right, moving on to Sam's wallet. Let's see what they have to say. Here's five frugal things I do to save money as someone who took out $160,000 in student loans and he's trying to pay it back. The first one is I don't turn on the heat. I'll really bundle up at home and I have two comforters, which I wrap myself around when I sleep at night. Next, I only have cost.

at home and I kind of do like a double espresso which would cost me about eight cents a cup which is a lot more affordable than Starbucks. I also don't really buy any drinks and mostly just drink water from my Brita picture. So no canned soda or fizzy drinks at all. Next one's pretty obvious but I try to cook most of my meals instead of eating out and I try to make things that are very cost effective such as chicken or eggs or potatoes. Cheap to buy but filling and nutritious. And the last thing is I don't pay for gym membership. I sort of have a setup at home already with adjustable weights and appellant. There was some upfront costs about four years ago, but it was worth the investment. Gotta wonder, does the man pay for the Peloton subscription?

That's how they get you. Overall, I mean, he's doing some great things, and it's all very reasonable. He's not like... Now, never turning on the heat, that feels borderline dangerous. We're going to freeze to debt. But as a single guy, apparently he can stomach through just about anything. But he's 160K in debt. He's trying to pay it off.

And so let me couch this by saying, if you are in a huge pile of debt, you need a huge level of sacrifice to get out in your lifetime, in a reasonable amount of time. So I think it's wise that he's going a little bit extreme without sacrificing too much. He's moving his body, he's eating well,

he's drinking well, he's not even drinking soda as a crispy boy, so good for him. And he seems to be happy making great content that's helping people. So I got to say, Sam, other than the heat, you get, you know, two thumbs up. Let's do one more, shall we? Controversial things I do as a frugal millionaire according to real comments I've gotten. Wearing nice brands like Patagonia or North Face.

People seem to think that being frugal means being cheap or that you can't own nice things, but it's about being mindful of what you buy. And personally, I enjoy having a high quality coat when I live in the rainy, windy, and cold Pacific Northwest. People also ask why I hire a nanny once a week because frugality isn't about deprivation and not being able to enjoy luxuries that add value to your life. I budget for a nanny because I value being able to have time for myself to focus on my passion projects, and it's within our means.

Another comment that caught me off guard was buying clearance and how by me taking advantage of clearance, I could be taking away from someone else who really needs it. And while I understand their sentiment, having wealth doesn't disqualify you for using smart money habits still. Being frugal and shopping clearance and saving money is exactly how we got here in the first place. And I'm always mindful of how much I take. That way I'm not hoarding everything. Two for 98 cents. And similarly participating in my local buy nothing group.

This comes down again to that sentiment of taking from others who really need it. I give far more than I request or take in those buy nothing groups. And sometimes I use them just to borrow something instead of having to buy it. I never try to claim essentials like diapers or food because I know that would better serve other families. But for non-essentials or things that I've gone unclaimed, then I will ask to be considered. I really like her energy. She seems like just like a really thoughtful, kind, sweet person. I have very little notes here.

I mean, she's a frugal millionaire. She's doing everything intentionally. She lives her life. She delegates things that she doesn't want to do or wants to make time for other priorities like her hobbies. She's getting name brands when it matters to her, not as a flex, but because she appreciates the quality. Love the Buy Nothing groups.

I did a whole video on that. That's a great one. The buying clearance. said, people roaster for saying someone else could, listen, there's like food pantries and a lot of resources for someone who's really a need. The clearance section at TJ Max, it's not it. So, I don't know how people are throwing shade at that. That is wild behavior. And then use by nothing groups. Love it. And truthfully, people are going, well, you didn't get to a millionaire that way. But listen, the principles got her there. The principles of living on lesson you make, being

intentional with every purchase, not buying crap you don't need to impress other people. people. That will make you a millionaire. Buying something on clearance or buying two for 98 cents chips a hoys, that's not it. But the principle underneath it, I so appreciate. What a great one to end on. M, big shout out to Hey Friends. I don't know how all our content is, but if it's like this, I'm in, I'm hooked. Honestly, this is the least angry I have felt after doing a React episode. I don't hate most of these ideas. In fact, there's a lot of good ones in there. Yes, some are over the top and probably meant to get clicks. But the truth is, the frugal life isn't one size fits all. There is a wide spectrum and it's all about being intentional

and getting creative with how you save because those small wins really do add up. And the principles behind it, like I mentioned, living on lesson you make and being intentional with every purchase, that will cause you to build wealth. So if you have a frugal habit that I didn't cover, let me know in the comments. The more unhinged, the better if you actually do it. And if you like this video, I bet you're going to love this one where I react to even more frugal people habits. You can click here to check it out or click the link in the description. As always, don't forget to hit like on this video, subscribe to the channel, and share this with a friend who is cutting their own hair to save money. And just know,

we can all tell, Brad. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.