The Fruglar

Saving is a daily grind. And I do mean grind. The best way to look at a frugal life is like a river grinding up against a rock formation. On your average day, the river's only going to be claiming grits of sand and pebbles. Not much excitement there. But over time, that chipping and grinding produces stuff like the Grand Canyon. "But didn't that take a kabillion years?" you say. To which I say, then you better get moving if you want to make a dent. And while much of the work of saving won't be appreciated til much later, there are times and circumstances when you will be amazed how fast tiny increments can add up. Consider Office Space  as an example. The frustrated cubicle slaves cook up what they think will be a get-rich-slow scam: carving fractions of a cent off of each of their company's transactions and diverting the funds into a private account (the official term for this is apparently salami slicing ). When they take one decimal point too much...

The Fruglar is here to rob you of unnecessary expense. He will break into your mind, carjack that new Mercedes you’ve been dreaming about, joy-ride it back to the lot and exchange it for an ’86 Toyota with low mileage. He will lie in wait behind your pointless garden gnome, jump you on your way out the door, steal your lunch money, drop it in the piggybank and lock you in your pantry until you can assemble a meal from your ancient canned goods. The Fruglar lives life on the edge to the extent that he can get out from under the massive overhead of daily life. He sits at the very edge of the table, where no one can hear his whispered order of “water with lemon” as he sates his hunger on the complimentary chips and salsa and waits for the unfinished plates of his fellows. He drives his gas gauge to the red edge of emptiness to guard against the possibility of reaching Armageddon with a full tank of expensive and flammable gas. For love and romance, the Fruglar requires neither jug of...