It seems my husband and I have garnered a bit of a reputation among our friends as being tightwads. “Reap rhymes with cheap!” one declared as I doled out discount movie coupons to the group during a recent outing to “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.”

I think “frugal” is a more apt description. If we were really cheap, we would’ve insisted upon a matinee showing.

And I didn’t see anybody turn down their $2.75 savings when they hit the ticket window.

Consumerism has almost become a virtue in our society, with credit-card debt becoming the norm and the importance of having
each season’s “must-have” items trumping the wisdom of more conservative money management. Fortunately, my parents instilled in me an early appreciation for the value of cash.

My engineer father and I would sit down at the dining room table to examine my little red book of fiscal responsibility, a ledger we kept of my earnings and expenditures throughout the month. The BBSA (Bare-Bone Sloth Allowance) was a meager stipend provided for slug-like children who opted out of performing additional chores to improve their bottom line. Feeding animals, washing cars, mowing lawns and other line-item tasks were assigned specific compensation value upon completion. It was an act of honor at 9 years old to push the running total farther into the black.

I hardly had a Spartan upbringing, however–I had a HORSE after all, a word that translates into “neighing money pit” in ancient texts. We were merely taught that actions and purchases had consequences. My parents split the cost of my dressage saddle with me, and they made me withdraw my portion of the funds from the bank in cold, hard cash, painfully depositing each bill, one by one, into my mom’s outstretched palm.

No Money Tree
Naturally, I was a working student at my barn in a two-pronged effort to learn and to defray the expense of “Lester’s” board and
my lessons. Cleaning stalls and tossing hay made a relatively small dent in the actual bottom line, but, more importantly, it taught me that the whole horse thing wasn’t a free ride. If I wanted to do a special clinic or buy those beautiful Konigs, the money didn’t just magically appear from daddy’s back pocket.

I’ve carried those lessons through to my adult life, and I was fortunate to find a hubby with similar values. My mom and I still routinely share experiences of exciting clearance-rack triumphs and grocery store bonus-buy discounts.

My most recent momentous score was a pair of azure-colored Tahari slacks that perfectly fit my nearly 5’11” frame; retailing for $198, they were exhilaratingly nabbed for $8.

“I guess not many people are in the market for aqua pants,” I reasoned to a petite friend after my new garment had garnered praise in a recent outing.

“Yeah, and on most people they’d be an aqua jumpsuit,” she retorted.

Unusual body proportions can only get you so far when it comes to saving money. It also takes a little forethought, effort and creativity. After the “cheap Reap” comment, I took a brief Internet sojourn to discover where I resided on the thriftiness scale, and I discovered–ha!–that I’m a rank amateur. I’m the veritable Diddy of the frugality world.

The first site I visited had a list of money-saving tips, which included suggestions that left even me awestruck. Create your own lip gloss with a concoction of petroleum jelly, paraffin, food coloring and honey; use dish detergent instead of shampoo; and, perhaps my favorite, manufacture a kitchen spatula from a plastic coffee-can or margarine-tub lid. What?

First, after I amass my lip-gloss chemistry set of ingredients, which will probably cost more than a half-dozen tubes of generic Chapstick, is there any color in your standard food coloring set that you would want gracing your lips? And now you need somewhere to store your concoction. Perhaps you can decant it into a handy, portable margarine tub–wait, no, all of yours have been fashioned into clever kitchen gadgetry.

Second, I’m pretty sure cheap shampoo costs about the same as cheap dish detergent, and it’s not designed to scour a baked-on mess from your casserole dish. Geez, why don’t we all just roll around in the sand and bathe like desert shrews?

Well, I suppose one woman’s discount movie ticket is another woman’s potentially toxic and disfiguring pancake flipper. With that in mind, I offer to you the following:

10 Money-Saving Tips for the Budget-Minded Competitor

1. What is this word “budget” of which I speak? It works in concert with concepts like “goals” and “objectives.” Figure out what you want to accomplish this year or show season, whether it’s on the order of completing a three-day event or qualifying for indoors, or more to the tune of “getting Wiggles past the judge’s booth.” Create a game plan to achieve your goals and estimate what that will cost. Gasp in horror at that figure, and then revise the game plan for a more streamlined approach. Be selective about where you compete.

2. Find a trainer who doesn’t drive a Ferrari, or at least one who’s willing to drive the Ferrari to your barn. If money’s tight, you need to find a good trainer who’s willing to work with you within your means. That could mean keeping your horse at an affordable farm and trailering to lessons, or you could bring in a trainer for occasional lessons, while working on your own the rest of the time. Ask for help developing a training plan that you can follow on your own between sessions. You could splurge for a tune-up with your guru before big shows or at the start of the season and investigate paying a day fee for help at shows instead of keeping him or her on constant retainer throughout the year.

3. The working student mentality should never die! You’re never too old to muck a stall, and your trainer or the owner of the place you board may be willing to exchange their services for yours. Although typical barn chores are all fair game–and excellent physical fitness training augmentation for your time in the saddle–don’t limit your bartering arsenal. What else do you have to offer? Decorating skills, advertising know-how, culinary creativity? Any talent you possess can be valuable to someone who doesn’t.

4. Find a similarly skilled–or exceedingly wealthy–barn buddy. Riding and competing with your friends is not only fun, but it’s also rife with potential fiscal benefits. Working toward similar goals, you and your chum can split costs along the way, from semi-private lessons to sharing motel rooms at shows, that is, if you’re not sleeping in your trailer. You can also be each other’s eyes on the ground during practice. Remember, you’re not the only one making out here; your friend is saving, too. It’s symbiosis at its finest.

5. Your rig. Sure it would be nice to have the latest palace on wheels for you and your devoted steed, but as long as it’s safe, it doesn’t have to be pretty. Even before you go out and buy a truck and trailer, depending upon your situation, it may pay to examine whether or not you really need one. If you aren’t hauling to shows or lessons every week, it may actually pay to hire a pro or make a few calls to find someone nearby who’s headed to the same show(s). The initial purchase price of even a conservative suitable rig is daunting, and until they start rolling hybrid duallies off the assembly line, feeding and maintaining these puppies doesn’t come cheap either.

6. Learn a trade. Instead of repeatedly shelling out the dough to have your horse braided, clipped or otherwise coiffed, learn how to do it yourself. Your mare may have a few “Courtney Love” outings during your initial attempts, but that’s just another reason to go to schooling shows. Or, if you can braid, and your friend polishes boots like no other, arrange a trade. My mom was able to put her degree in fashion design to unexpected use in the field of blanket repair when I was growing up. And you just might be surprised at what a sheath-cleaning voucher can buy these days.

7. Make your children learn a trade. Spouses, offspring and friends can all be valuable commodities at horse shows, with the proper training. No one’s going to enforce the child labor laws if they’re picking hooves with love for you in their hearts. If you follow my parents’ example, your little minions–I mean, darlings–can even pad their personal accounts with their efforts. Face it, you’d probably be giving them money to go the mall, so you might as well make them work for it.

8. Avoid fads. When it comes to clothing or equipment, purchase good-quality, classic items that won’t fall apart or fall out of favor in a season. I know what you’re thinking, but those bright blue pants are timeless in their own way! And c’mon–
8 bucks! Which brings me to?

9. Be a bargain shopper. Tack stores and catalogs have sales and clearance areas, and online stores can feature some sweet deals. Just because it’s discounted, doesn’t mean it’s low-quality and less worthy of your consideration. It could be last year’s model or color, there could be limited sizes or quantities available, or it could be a top-notch custom order that was returned. Check out online auction sites as well. At last check, eBay had 38,340 equestrian items listed for sale. Granted, some of them may be used purple-and-teal, rhinestone-studded Western show shirts, but I’m sure there’s a pair of khaki Tailored Sportsmans in there somewhere too. With luck, you could find a seller with similar tastes/sizes to yours who’s a more impulsive buyer. You just have to stalk their listings for their cast-offs.

10. Buying the newest doodad or trinket isn’t going to make you a better rider. Buying the most expensive horse isn’t going to automatically make you a better rider either–well, it might make you a little better, but if you can afford to do that, you probably haven’t read this far anyway. Most riders will probably testify that the big lessons they’ve learned have come from problems they’ve overcome, not from perching atop a wunderkind who already knows it all. Investing your money in a good education and a suitable mount usually pays off with a challenging, rewarding partnership. That is why we do this, isn’t it?