That charlatan, Jim Cramer, was on the Today Show this morning predicting pulling out of his ass several sectors where we would see growth in 2014. One of the hot, hot, hot sectors for investors, he declared, was the New Frugality. We’ve talked about our efforts to cut back on spending on this blog, especially since the economy hasn’t improved for average Americans. But I didn’t realize that “The New frugality” was a thing. I don’t quite understand why people will spend money to learn how to be frugal making it a good area for Cramer’s investments, but whatever.

After 2008, we cut back a bit, but never spent that much money anyway. We were only a couple of years away from the poverty of grad school, so we hadn’t gotten used to spending money on fancy things. In the flush years, we paid off chunks of our student loan debt and shored up our sagging house. Steve tallied every single receipt into Quicken every Sunday. Despite our penny-pinching ways, we had to cut back even further, after Steve lost his job and became a consultant for a year.

We saved money by not having a babysitter, house cleaner, or lawn service. I stopped spending money on stupid food, ie food that is convenient but not especially yummy. I make dinner five days a week. Steve and the boys have brown bag lunches four days per week (well, we’ve always done that).

Some savings happened without too much effort. We aged out of certain expenses. When we moved to the suburbs, we had to buy a sofa, beds, a table – pretty much everything. We had to buy dumb things like door mats and garbage cans and outdoor brooms. Stuff that people gradually acquire through their 20’s, we began to purchase in our late 30’s. Now, we’re set.

Dave Ramsey created a big blog storm last month. Background here.

If I were to cash in like Dave Ramsey and give people advice about frugality, what would I say? I’m not sure that I should give advice, because my family — at least by national standards — isn’t average. We are able to save on labor expenses, because my time is flexible. I’m able to make dinner while I’m helping Ian with his math problems. Also, I imagine that different families have different priorities. We’ve always driven really, really old and battered cars. We’ve saved a lot of money by not being picky about our vehicles. Would I tell a family from Iowa that they should also drive a crappy car, when they might have to drive much longer distances? I don’t know. At the same time, there is something very appealing about telling people what to do. I imagine that it could be a lot of fun.

If you were a Frugality Guru, what advice would you give?