I ♥ Frugality
by Katy on January 18, 2012 · 30 comments
I ♥ being being frugal. I love the challenge, I love the freedom from keeping up with the Joneses and I love knowing that my family’s frugality keeps us from supporting businesses and environmental practices that are worsening our planet.
Recent frugal activities that warmed my heart:
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Mailing out our thank you notes. At 44¢ per letter, the United States Postal Service is a screaming good deal! (I know we could have e-mailed our thank you notes for free, but it’s so much fun to receive real mail, and if we can make that happen for under half a dollar, I say do it!)
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Using our leftovers to create delicious new meals. I saw that chuck roast was on sale at Fred Meyer, which meant it was time to make The Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pot Roast. After the initial hearty meal of pot roast for the five of us, the next night’s meal of french dip sandwiches knocked our socks off. So yes, we were able to get ten fantastic meals from that single pot roast. (And the leftover mashed potatoes from the first night got served with last night’s sausages.)
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Wandering around the Habitat for Humanity ReStore yesterday with my compacty friend Chelsea. Although I did not find what I was looking for, (spray paint for my Goodwill lamp) I did buy a bag of 50 assorted tulip bulbs for only $4. (I’ll probably split these with my neighbor.) I also found a penny on the ground, which I promptly put into their donation box.
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Lending our snow shovel to our next-door-neighbor. There is no reason why these kind of household items can’t be shared, especially in Portland, where a few inches of snow throws our citizens into a white-hot panic.
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Borrowing our neighbor’s garden loppers, which made it possible to chop the branches from our Christmas tree so it would fit into our yard debris can. If I simply put the tree on the curb for our hauler to take away, it would have cost us $6. This chore took maybe ten minutes, and was actually kind of fun.
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Sharing garbage service with our neighbors. This saves us $14 per month, and is easy, easy easy. This is an annual $168 savings for each of us. Schweeeet!
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Renting out our spare bedroom. My son’s Japanese tutor moved in last week, and it’s been awesome! She’s super helpful around the house, tutors the kids for free, (I was paying $20 per week for just one kid) and is great company. She’ll be paying a small amount to cover room and board, but it will be hundreds less per month less than she was paying in her last living situation. Great for both of us.
I can’t think of any frugal activities that in any way impact our lives negatively. We constantly scrimp and save, but it’s so that we have the time and resources to do all the fun and satisfying things that make life enjoyable.
How about you? Do your frugal activities keep you from living the life you want, the opposite or something in between? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
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{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
My parents rented out an extra bedroom in our house when I was a teenager. We got quite a bit of money for it, and if you carefully vet tenants, you can find choose one who will be gone most of the time. None of them were scary.
I can’t recall a time when I felt that frugality kept me from living the life I want. Personally I find the difficulty lies more between money and time. I often want to spend money in order to save time — time which could be used for a preferred activity. I’m still working on that one…
Last spring when we moved into our first new gome, our front porch was icky and black with mold and dirt. I was thinking about renting a Power washer from home depot, but saw my neighbor (kind of a great coincidence) washing his house. I asked to borrow his for the porch, and he was glad to lend it to me.
I think a lot of people *want* to be helpful! Especially when it doesn’t cost them anything.
Our fridge freezer broke down. Being fridge-less saved us loads of money that week because we systematically ate our way through all the fridge contents. We had to think really creatively about food & only use what we had in the store cupboard or coolbox (temporary fridge arrangement). It made us realise how much food we have! From now on we’re going to keep less food & eat at least 2 store cupboard meals a week. (Today was jacket potatoes, sliced meat from the freezer leftover from Christmas, lots of pickle & chutney- roasted vegetables & spiced red cabbage, again frozen leftovers)
It only just snowed here for the first time this winter! My husband wanted to get a shovel, but yesterday I saw my neighbor shoveling, so if we absolutely need one, we’ll just borrow theirs!
I’m also considering sharing the garbage with our neighbors…another young couple like ourselves, but I’m not sure if they would be up for it and I’m a little nervous to ask! How do you deal with the bill? Do you just write your neighbors a check?
We cancelled our service and they kept theirs. They then bill us every six months. (Their idea not ours.)
Katy
We share with our widow neighbor. I save $10 in an envelope every month. The bill comes to him quarterly and he lets us know when it’s due. Then we just hand him the $30. We save at least $220 a year. Probably more, because the company changed our rate constantly.
Where I live the trash is included in city taxes & each house gets a 96 gallon trash bin. We usually don’t bother taking it to the curb.
96 gallon?! That’s insane, and I imagine it keeps people thinking that that’s a normal amount of garbage to be generating.
Katy
Like you, KatE, our trash and recycling pick up is included in city taxes. Our bin is 64 gallon. Most weeks it is not even close to full, but we do take it to the curb because the contents begin to get smelly. But every once in a while (this week, for example) we have overflow. I’m still trying to figure out why…
We usually only produce one kitchen garbage bag a week. However, I noticed that the week of Christmas, we had 3 full bags. And the weeks after Christmas, we had a little more than normal. We tried to recycle as much toy packaging as possible, but we still had a lot more trash than normal. Another eye-opening sign of the excesses of Christmas. Something to think about for next year…
I love The Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pot Roast! We too use it for a second meal as French Dip Sandwiches.
I think our frugal activities allow us to live the life we want by saving our money for things that are most important to us.
I love this blog…you are such sn inspiration. Tell us about the other eight meals you got from the pot roast!
I think that that weas 2 meals, 5 servings of each!
Being frugal allows us to live on one income, which means I can homeschool our son. He has two neurological disorders and school (mean kids, stress, frustration) was just a disaster for him. Seeing him go from miserable to relaxed and happy makes it all worthwhile.
That is fantastic. School can be a very damaging environment.
Katy
I can’t think of a frugal activity that negatively impacts anything – the only time it might become a negative is if it crosses the line to just plain cheap. Even that is frequently not negative – just when being cheap means you have to replace things more often or causes increased wear and tear.
I’m not nearly as frugal as you, but doing what I do as I work toward complete frugality makes me happy. That along is enough reason to keep on trying. Oh! And I love being able to say, “sure, baby” when we are shopping the Goodwill and one of my girls finds an item of clothing she likes. That doesn’t happen at the mall. Thank you for the daily inspiration.
I crossed the line yesterday. DD is away at school but I knew she needed thicker running tights. Five thrift stores later and a quarter tank of gas found me at Old Navy where I bought a nice pair for $19. It wasn’t a total fail. I managed to pick up 2 pair of nearly new Dockers for DH for $4 each.
Honestly, Central Ohio has so many thrift stores. It could easily be full time hobby but even still, there are times I have to buy specific items new.
I went to college in central Ohio and spent many a fine day perusing thrift shops.
Katy
I always love reading your musings on frugality. It’s clear that you derive so much joy from it. I consider myself a very frugal person, but honestly I could really take a hint from you.
Great point, also, that frugality has never impacted your life negatively. I’d never thought of it that way, but it’s true!
I get such a thrill when I figure out new ways to save money. Sometimes I feel like I’ve reached a spot where there’s nothing new to learn, then I inevitably figure out something new.
A couple weeks ago I called up the cable company to see about getting our rates lowered. I had hoped for a big savings, and only ended up getting $10 off per month plus free Showtime. Keep in mind that my husband now bicycle commutes to offset the cost of cable, and that we’ve crunched the numbers and figured out that we’re using waaaaay less gasoline now. However, that’s a $120 annual savings, which is not too shabby.
Katy
I really LOVE the idea of renting out a spare bedroom. My college roommate and I lived with a family of two parents, two toddlers, a dog and a cat. It was the best ever!!
Frugality allows me to follow through on two things that are of supreme importance to me. First, preserving the environment. The great Amy Dacyczyn pointed out that thrift and the environment go hand in hand. Second, the drive to live simply that others may simply live. So many things we take for granted in our country are made at the expense of others’ quality of life. I really value not seeking out the latest fad or fashion, and buying used instead. Or like some people I know who take a carribbean vacation each year. They breed and sell dogs to do this. They don’t know what they are doing, how to look for certain traits that should not be passed on, how to properly care for and vet the dogs. But the proceeds from the puppies pay for a lavish vacation. The exploitation of these dogs makes me really sad.
I have been thinking about this topic for the past couple of days. Being frugal in some areas of my life allows me the flexibility to be “not so frugal” in other areas. As I grow older, I have discovered that more and more I enjoy the ability to give generously to non-profit or causes that I want to support. Frugality helps fund that…….if that makes any sense?
Amy Dacyczyn, author of The Tightwad Gazette, would say that is the eassence of frugality. Spending money on what is meaningful to you, while scrimping on other areas in order to do so.
I would say living frugally never negatively impacts our lives, and my husband would say the opposite 😉 He’s a die hard skier and golfer – not the most frugal activities ever – not to mention an utter shopaholic. I derive a beat-the-system kind of pleasure in figuring out how to get what I want without spending much money or figuring out how to be happy without getting what I thought I wanted. He hasn’t figured out that simple joy just yet, but I keep working on him!
Love that you got so many meals out of the pot roast. Since watching my food waste, I’ve done many similar things and my food bill has dropped considerably! I’d say that was frugal!
Hi Katy – I found this on lifehacker & figured you might appreciate it. It’s a hack for cutting down on food waste by creating a “fridge triage box.” As a fellow nurse, I knew you’d appreciate the triage, too – let’s use this food before it gets in any worse shape!
Ginna
http://lifehacker.com/5877563/create-a-fridge-triage-box-to-possibly-save-over-100-month-in-wasted-food