George Kamel - The 10 Most Insane Frugal Hacks on Reddit

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!   Today, I’m ranking Reddit users’ most insane, can’t-believe-they-did-that frugal hacks. It’s a list that’ll have me saying, “I’m impressed,” but also, “You good, bro?”   Next Steps: ·   🎥 Watch my video 12 Rules for (a Frugal) Life! ·   📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.   Connect With Our Sponsors: ·   Get a $5 credit when you join Privacy. ·   Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. ·   Go to Boost Mobile to switch today! ·   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 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I'm reacting to Reddit users most insane. Can't believe they did that frugal hacks. But I'm not stopping there. I'm going to rank each one on the very legit camel crazy frugal matrix, where I'll judge it on two things. How much it actually saves, that's frugal, and how much it makes me question your life choices.

That's crazy. Who will be crowned Reddit's crazy frugal king? Stick around to find out. But first, let me take a moment to say how crazy thankful I am to delete me for sponsoring this channel. Let's get to it. First up, I found a pamphlet at my library.

First of all, a pamphlet? What is this? The 1890s? It mapped out all fruits and nuts on public land in my city. Didn't buy any that year. Close second was cleaning raw wool for crafts. Took all the finish off my table. Wow, you need friends, man.

Or woman, but this sounds like a man. I don't know, cleaning raw wool. What does that even mean? Okay. Well, I guess we'll mainly address the fruits and nuts here. That's a pretty wild thing to be just foraging on public land for fruits and nuts. I mean, I'm happy for you, but that feels like a lot of effort for a cashew. I mean, are they just out and about?

Can you just grab a cashew? I imagine they're like in the ground or something, but I guess this guy's got a good shovel. Close second cleaning. I still don't understand the cleaning raw wool, but hey, if it worked for you, that's fine. This one definitely ranks as crazy. I guess not buying any fruit for a year. I don't know how much fruit you ate. Did you eat anything else? That's the question.

Man cannot live on cashew alone. So I don't know if you just were on a fruit nut diet. It's like a Daniel fast situation. I don't know. None of my beeswax. All right, well, this is the first one to map on the camel crazy frugal matrix. I'm going to take my little apple here. And I'm going to mark this one very high on crazy, middle of the road on frugal,

which puts it right about here. That feels right. I don't know how Matrixes work. or matraces. Matrices. I knew there was a word for that. I got to say, if you use the plural of Matrix often, nobody likes you.

Actually, if you look at the Matrix... No, stop, stop. Go kiss a girl or something. Drink a beer like a man. If you're in the homeschool community, that's a beverage intended for adults. Also, we didn't talk about the effort of reading a map to find this in a pamphlet.

Almost impressive. Almost. Next up. In college, I lived with four other girls in a suite that shared one bathroom. That's a reality show. We had to buy our own toilet paper. But when we were out, one of us would swipe a roll from the bathrooms in the building where our classes were. That's known as theft.

The building janitors must have gotten wise because they started keeping the rolls elsewhere, and the dispensers were locked. So we would keep the cardboard tubes from previous rolls and sit in the building bathrooms and roll up the teepee around them like it was our job. What? We did other frugal student stuff too, but that takes the cake. Taking the empty cardboard roll and then wrapping new TP around it to create your own role, that's diabolical.

I mean, I don't have much to say about that other than very crazy. And I don't think toilet paper, like, I don't know how much you're using. And if you're using that much, you've got some GI issues. You should see a doctor. But I don't think toilet paper is like the biggest expense for how much you're using. You know, two sheets is fine. Three, if you want to get crazy. I mean, it's slightly more frugal than the fruits and nuts, I feel like, depending on how...

Again, usage matters. We can all agree on that. This one's going to rank real high on crazy and frugal. Unhinged. All right, moving on. Somehow they're just getting worse. My mom got our teeth cleaned for free every year because, quote, the first cleaning is free was a thing at different local dentists.

So she rotated between the three of them every year. By the third year, they didn't have our files anymore. So we were new patients and got free cleaners. That's a mom hack if I ever found one. I mean, that's actually pretty brilliant. You're not doing anything illegal. Now, the ethics are a little bit murky on this one, but I feel like the dentist is a borderline scam anyways. So, you know, stick it to the man, is what I say. So I'm going to rank this one. I feel like this is actually not that crazy and very frugal. So I'm going to go high on frugal, low on crazy would go down here. That makes sense.

Low crazy, high frugal. Yeah, that's pretty. I mean, dental cleanings ain't cheap these days. How do you like that? It's quite the molar. Is that the emoji for a tooth? Shouldn't it technically be this way? Not if it's on bottom jaw. Well, I didn't know we were talking bottom jaw. I thought we were talking top jaw. All right, there we go. Got to make the producers happy.

All right. Sam the Lady said. Learn to make all of our carbs from scratch. How do you make a carb from oak? Sandwich bread, hamburger buns, tortillas, French bread, hot dog buns, sourdough, all of it. My poor family had to endure tons of really bread for months, L.O.L. The most shocking part is you never got good at making any of this.

Like, that's so crazy. You did all of this. I don't know how long. I mean, you just said months. Okay. I feel like month five, you should. get decent at making bread. I mean, they have bread makers. I don't know how you were making this. Tortilla, I wonder which one's the hardest. Hot dog buns feels like a feat unto itself. Like,

how do you make a hot dog bun from scratch? Sourdough, I feel like that was a big thing during COVID. Everyone did that. And French bread. Broke me's your. Gros, madame. No. I'm not eating it. Wow. All right, well, let's get our bread. So that's a, hey, that's a nice loaf. Man, that's a great color on that. All right, I'm going to rank this one. It's not that crazy. But I guess if you're going through a lot of bread in a household, it would cost a lot of money. So I will say that is very frugal of you, and it's probably middle of the road, crazy. So here we go. It's a good level of frugal.

I'm going to go here. Crazy right there. Is that straight enough for you, producers? Yes. I don't know. Is this, no? That feels right. In winter, I leave dishwater in the sink until it's cold so the heat dissipates into the house

rather than going down the drain. It's just a game I play. to contribute toward awareness. It's all about awareness. I don't think you've ever played a game before. If that's a game you play, there are only losers in this game, and you are the only player.

What does that say about you? I just don't understand. I've got to know the science behind how much heat is actually dissipating from warm water sitting in a sink. I think more bacteria is growing than any heat being dissipated. But I give you points for using the word

dissipated in a sentence. I don't think it's used enough. So let me find my old dishwater. Just the word dishwater sounds gross. Don't drink that. I don't think it's that frugal because I don't think there's really any cost savings happening here. It's just a game you play for your own sanity or insanity.

So I'm going to rank this one high on crazy, very low on frugal. There you go. Okay, this next one isn't from the Reddit list, but it's one of my personal favorites. So it deserves a spot on the board. And that is protecting my personal info. using DeleteMe one of today's sponsors. So how is this a frugal hack?

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So I'm gonna put that right about here, very low on crazy, very high on frugal. And right now you can get 20% off their annual plans, to be even more frugal by going to join delete me.com slash George. And speaking of insane things, can we talk about how expensive phone plans have become? You could spend 50, 100, even 150 bucks a month. That is Gwen Stefani level B-A-N-A-N-A-S. So here's a frugal hack that's not bananas, switching to Boost Mobile.

Their unlimited plan is just $25 a month forever, and that includes unlimited data, talk, and text, which places them squarely high on frugal with negative amounts of crazy. I'm going to put that, I guess, down here. There you go. How do you like that? Ooh, straighten it up. And that low price doesn't mean you're getting low quality service. So do something sane today and make the switch at boostmobile.com slash Ramsey.

After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited Plan. All right, back to the official list. I lived in a pantry in an apartment once. Okay. Okay. I don't even know what emoji represents living in a pantry. I imagine, is this door?

Is this supposed to be a pantry door? I have so many questions for this person. Are you Harry Potter? You have to tell me legally if you are Harry Potter. This is crazy. To live inside of a pantry. Okay, question number one, was this agreed upon? Like, was someone trying to lease out a pantry as a rentable space in New York City or San Francisco?

It says SFD Squid. I don't know if that's San Francisco or not. I don't know what the D stands for. I don't want to know. It's your business. But living in a pantry is definitely, I would consider that unhinged behavior, unsafe. I don't know what the airflow was like in there. I don't know how people got to their food in the pantry.

Were you just like sleeping and they're just walking around you? How big is this pantry? Does it fit like a twin-sized bed? Is it a massive walk-in pantry? And it was a rich person's house? Were you forced to stay here? Did you have no other option? So many questions, so little time.

And for that, I'm going to go, So high on crazy and frugal. That's going to take the top spot currently right over here. Pantry living. Okay, the next one, buckle up. It's reading Rainbow Time. I did not intend for this to be frugal, but it has turned out to be insanely frugal for me. About three years ago, I decided to meal prep and eat beans for lunch every day at work.

I did it mostly for health reasons. What I would do is buy a pack of dried beans and cook it into some sort of big batch of food every Sunday. Sometimes it would be soup, sometimes it would be chili, spelled that way. wrong, by the way. Sometimes it would be falafel. Now we're talking. Sometimes it would be chana masala? Whatever. I would then divide it up into Tupperware and just eat, take one every morning for lunch at work that day. Punctuation of grammar, guys. I've been doing this for three years now, and I've been shocked by the time and money savings. A pound of dried beans cost about $2. You can also buy a 50-pound bag of beans for only $15. One pound of dried beans actually makes enough for five

meals. I used to my food at work, which would have been between $5 and $10. Now I'm paying about 50 cents per meal. I'd probably say 40 to 50 bucks each week, 200 a month, $2,400 a year. Wow. All right, let's read this comment. I feel like frugal 101 should be learned to love the legumes. Never learned how to say it. No one never taught me and I refuse to look it up. So I'm going to go legumes. I assume it's French for fiber. No. A lot of fiber in those beans. I really want to know, like, did you have a plumber on? standby. Like what was going on? That probably counteracted the savings was paying for a plumber. That feels borderline dangerous for your body to only eat beans. But, I mean, you've survived to tell

the tale. You said you've been doing this three years ago. Have you had a fruit? Go talk to the fruit and nuts guy from earlier. Maybe he can, you guys can come up with some sort of barter system. Maybe with the pantry guy, you can store the beans in the pantry. Wow. Okay. Well, I mean, The truth is, food and groceries tend to be one of the biggest areas where people waste money. And so the easiest way to stay in control of that without living on a diet of strictly beans is to just come up with a budget and stick to it. Say, I'm going to spend $200 this week on food, no more. And then you work within that budget. You shop at the right grocery stores.

You meal plan based on what's on sale. You meal prep so that you're not worried about having to have food at the end of the day instead of eating out because you're tired after work. So all of that comes down to sticking to a budget. If you want a great budgeting app that makes this easy, I love one called Every Dollar. I will drop a link in the description below if you want to check it out for free. All right, let's plot our beans on here. All right, $2,400 a year, $200.

That's a significant savings. So it is pretty high on frugal. But as far as crazy goes, like sacrificing your physical health for $200 bucks a month, pretty unhinged. All right, I'm going to go, all right, it's high on frugal and crazy. I'm going to go right about here. That feels about right. Next up, all right, we're sticking to the pantry food category here.

I use tea bags as air fresheners in my car in the summer and then drink them in the winter. What? Okay, so you take the tea bag, you literally hang it from the mirror, just like a normal tea bag. Are we talking Earl Grey, Lady Earl, you know, English breakfast? I got to know what we're working with here. Was it an herbal tea?

Was it Sleepy Tom? because that might not be safe for driving. Think about that. But I guess that's frugal. I don't think air fresheners cost that much. So this one is not the smartest as far as frugality goes. And then I also don't know about like, you know, air pathogens. Does it stick to the tea bag?

Is there bacteria growth on the tea bag? If it's exposed that long in your car with all the air coming in, the fumes from different cars on the road? I don't know. I'm not a road scientist. I don't know. I'm not going to Google it. That's your business once again. So I'm going to take my teapot, mark this low on frugal, high on crazy. Enjoy your tea. Do you only drink tea in the winter?

It's another question. What if you want summertime tea? An ice tea, perhaps. Good luck. Your car's going to smell. How bad did your car smell? Or how little did it smell that a tea bag did the trick? Does it absorb odors? Is that what it is? Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's not about the odor it's putting off. It's what it's taking in that mattered. It was the journey. not the destination. All right, here we go. Only bought one Labrador puppy when I could have bought seven. Yeah, you could have bought 100.

So I guess in that sense, you're the most sane person alive. But this is a wild, this is wild dog math, is what I'm going to call it. Only bought one, could have bought seven. Yeah, all right, let's take our puppy. I don't know if this is, I don't think this is Labrador. What kind of dog is this? Let me know in the comment section what kind of dog this is with a little eye patch going on. Wow, I have so many questions.

Are you single? Did you want to buy seven, but someone talked you off the ledge? I love a puppy as much as the next guy, but seven puppies is hoarding. You were hoarding the puppy population. Let someone else enjoy a Labrador puppy. All right, this one, I don't think is that frugal, because if you bought a Labrador puppy, that means you paid money for it versus getting it from the rescue. It's shame on you.

I'm just kidding. I'm not one of those people who thinks that if you buy an animal, somehow you're a terrible person because you didn't get one. from a rescue. All right, I'm going to plot this on, uh, not that crazy, because they only bought one. They didn't buy seven as a cost savings hack. So I'm going to rate this really low on frugal, really low on crazy. Just, there's clearly some mental health issues, but it's not related to the frugal hack. All right, let's keep it going. In college, I would buy my college books, go to Kinko's at 2 a.m. And when the overnight person didn't care, I would copy entire books,

make extra copies, and return my book before the deadline, and sell the other copies I made. Wow, there are so many crimes being committed here. Like, number one, you know what, can you get the VHS from Blockbuster and it has the warning? Like, if you're the FBI warning, you're going to go to jail if you try to make a copy. Not only did you do that, but then you sold the bootleg copies, which is like a triple crime, I think. And the Kinkgo's person was enabling you at this point. They're an accomplice to the crime. I hope they're in jail too.

But I do agree that college textbooks are a scam, and for that I will help you out with one point to you, but you have negative 10. So now you're at negative 9 points. Still not great. I'm going to say this one, because of the ethical, questionable nature of this, it's very crazy to do something this illegal. I guess who's going to find you? I don't know. I mean, you put it on the internet. So, I don't know. Simon and Schuster McGraw Hill. They're coming after you, bro. They got, their lawyers have lawyers. So I'm going to go very crazy. But also, pretty frugal considering, I don't know how long you did this, but if it's four years of college, you probably saved a couple of thousand dollars. So I'm going to say very crazy. I'm going to put

it right under the pantry living, because that's still the most insane. All right, that does it for the crazy frugal stories, and now it's time to reveal the winner. The craziest most frugal person, I don't know what these are for, but we'll save them for a future episode. The winner goes to our pantry living friend here who somehow survived their Harry Potter lifestyle. I hope they're doing well today. I hope they have a bed, a room, a place to lay their head that isn't near beans or toilet paper.

And honestly, I'm as much impressed as I am disturbed. And if you think you can top that, let me know in the comments the most unhinged frugal thing you've done or someone you know has done in the comments below. Remember, keep it family-friendly. Home schoolers are watching, and they've already learned about beer today,

and that's a lot for them. So, once you're done in the comments section, watch this next video where I walk through my 12 rules for frugal living, none of which blessedly involve toilets, pantry living, or fruits and nuts involving maps. So watch it next by clicking here or use the link in the description. That's it for today. Thanks for watching.