I could live without pricey department store counter cosmetics like Clinique, Elizabeth Arden, etc. I used to drop $50 easy on a tube of lipstick and some blush or spend $25 just to get the "bonus" gift they sometimes offer. Those days are over and now I'm a drugstore girl. Some of the pricier products are superior, but generally speaking, you're paying for packaging and marketing with the expensive dept store brands and they're just not worth it.

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I agree, books are a challenge to give up. I borrow books from the library but some books I do want to write my own marginalia in, and the library frowns upon that practice. So, while I have been buying fewer books, I can't go cold turkey all together with that.

Take out is something I have cut back on without missing it much. I'm a good cook and can buy better ingredients for most foods or shop in ethnic markets for prepackaged seasonings, or frozen meals which are much less expensive.

http://www.urbanfrugal.com

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We gave up our second car, got rid of cable tv (though we did keep the high-speed cable), got rid of the house phone line since we both have cells, let all but one magazine subscription expire, and brown-bagged it for lunches.

I love books, also, but I've been shopping the used book stores and overstock bins.

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I can do without Oprah Winfrey .... I don't need another Socialist telling me how to live my life, the one in the Oval Office is doing a bang-up job of that already.

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I could easily do without Oprah.............

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Honestly, I think a car and the internet is all I REALLY couldn't do without. And that's because they relate directly to generating my income.

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I could do without the members of congress constantly yanking their chains. All this chain yanking their doing, and as much as their on television lately. I don't see any of them smiling.

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I love and respect Opera. But her pose in the photo, is the spitin image of Aunt Jamima's pose on my bottle of maple syrup. Just add the terry cloth towel around her head. Go ahead look, at the photo again. I'm not kidding.

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How would Oprah know how it is to pay each month just and i mean just the things that keep your life going. I pay over $231 for propane so we won't freeze and the water so we won't dehydrate and showers ,electric bill and the food and the other things you need like toilet paper soap gas for car right now it is not running so i am saving there.The car insurance,home owners my husband is 70 and has to pay the supplement which is $200 and i am 64 and i don't have to pay any insurance and have not the last 3 years when i get all my medicines each month it is about $400 cash out of pocket.I guess i was lucky i only had to be admitted to the hospital one time and it was do i want to live or die when the 3 days in the hospital and the bill was over $15,000 plus all the other bills you get maybe i should have picked to die..When i got home i had a $334.44 second mortgage and a $909.00 first mortgage.I have all my teeth infected and i cried for days in agony do you think i fouind a dentist to treat me even after i told them i had both total knee replacements done at the same time in 2001 and you need antibotics before you can have the teeth worked on. Just one thing you have to pay up front or no teeth can be fixed. I had 5 credit cards and i had to use them for things i needed and i didn't pay the Washington mutual of which i had 2 and i was never late on any of them and boy did they ever lie , cheat and raised my interest rate on both cards to the 23.99% for what and i called them and told them if it is raised they can do what they want i tried to work with them bastards and it was like talking to Hitler my minimum on one is $170 a month and the other one $160 and i already got a late fee of $39.00 and plus they charge you $10.00 fee of some kind.I am a nervous wreck and these CEO,S are going on the big expensive resorts on our tax money and the ass holes the crooked greedy scum i hope they do have to live 1 day like a person that cares for the USA we have no money but i can sleep most nights until i hear where all our tax money is going.
.Now the fun starts no hair cuts for a year no clothes,make up and the things that make a woman happy and then the thought enters your head is there any money in the bank and i pray that there is. The last time i got out of my house was to go to the doctor January 9,2009
The things i could do without i have already give them up and i have to thank WAMU AND JP Morgan that got there asses bailed out and what did we get? not a dam thing and i want all the crooks to read this and go and look your self in a mirror and what do you see? BIG CROOKED GREEDY SCUM AND YOU SURE DON'T SEE A HEART BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1Oprah how did you like it we do this every day?!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I too, could do without queen Oprah telling us serfs how to economize...am I the only one who sees the irony of her giving frugality advice?

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