The Non-Consumer Advocate

My sister and her two kids are visiting from New York for a couple of weeks, which we absolutely love. However, it can become an extremely expensive endeavor for my family if we’re not careful. Why? Because it’s very easy to slip into a vacation mindset with potential to hemorrhage a gal’s wallet.

Example?

My sister and I took the kids to get a Voodoo Donuts afternoon treat and afterwards walked around the Ladd’s Addition neighborhood. We were seriously dragging, so we stopped into a local coffee shop to grab a couple of grown up caffeinated beverages. (BTW, Voodoo Donuts is totally obnoxious, rude to their customers and only accept cash, yet have a predatory ATM on site. Seriously people, don’t buy the hype. They are an terrible business to support.) My sister started to have the kids place drink orders as well. Our $3 expenditure suddenly became as $12 outlay of cash.

For me, I would not have bought fancy drinks for the kids as A) They had just eaten donuts; and B) They already had an excess of energy as opposed to our middle-aged energy deficit.

For my sister it was “fancy drinks for everyone!” as A) “We’re on vacation” B) “We’re on vacation!” Like “The force in this one” the vacation mindset is strong.

I had a small ah-hah moment, as I realized that I would need to be careful to not confuse my sister’s vacation with my own. My husband and I just completed paying off all our debt, and we have college bound teenagers. So yeah . . . not a time to start spending with abandon.

Mind you, we have our own family vacation scheduled for the end of the month, during which I plan on indulging in my own vacation mindset. I time when I will say yes to fancy drinks and other such nonsense. (Note that I call anything beyond tap water to be a “fancy drink.” 😉 )

Please don’t consider me to be party pooper though, as I am the queen of frugal fun. (Okay, okay, I’m actually The Court Jester of frugal fun, but why quibble about semantics?) Just yesterday we enjoyed a delicious burrito buffet dinner that featured pressure cooked black beans, the last of two half-onions, bulk purchased fresh salsa, loss leader Tillamook cheese and the last of a head of lettuce. We also walked to the library where I turned in my adult summer reading program card, checked out books for my niece and nephew, accompanied my sister to Walgreens where I found a penny, and then picked up a tub of free Papa Murphy’s cookie dough using a coupon from a Timber’s game.

And that was all after picking my sister up at the train station at 6 P.M. from a Seattle weekend adventure.

Today we’re going thrifting and will walk to The Bagdad Theater for pizza and second-run movie goodness. (Star Trek, of course!)

Just because I am surrounded by vacationers doesn’t mean that I can give up my Frugal Court Jester duties.

Those are sacred.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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People think that living a frugal lifestyle is a lot of work, and frankly it is. It means doing stuff yourself that others hire out. Cooking, cleaning, hair coloring and probably some other tasks that I don’t even realize can be hired out. (Shoe organization?)

It would be sooo much easier to buy goods and services that I end up having to make/toil for myself, but those decisions come at a price. Choosing the convenience route simply costs more. Eating in restaurants and hiring out household jobs is fantastic, and makes sense for some families, but not for mine.

Take this morning as an example. My 17-year-old son has a weekly hour-and-a-half long 7 A.M. lifeguard meeting at the swimming pool. The drive takes twenty minutes, so it’s not worth going home during the actual meeting. Sometimes I sit in the car and read, other times I’ll go for a walk and then occasionally, I’ll sit in a coffee shop and sip coffee.

Today was a coffee shop day.

I slowly nursed my small non-fat latté, people watching and reading my library copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior. I was also facing the pastry case. With three house guests, I knew it would be nice to bring home some yummy breakfast treats, but then I did the math and changed my mind. ($2 apiece X 7 people = too rich for my blood.) I even considered stopping at Safeway for less expensive options, but then I remembered that I possessed a bag of frozen blueberries scavenged from one of my mother’s guest cottages.

So I mixed up a double batch of oatmeal blueberry muffins, which not only sweetened my household’s air quality, but also allowed everyone to gorge on delicious treats.

Was it more work to make muffins from scratch instead of buying them from the bakery? Of course it was. But to buy two dozen fresh muffins would have cost $24, and to make them at home set me back maybe a dollar or so. (I grease the muffin tin instead if using paper cups) Yes, I have to clean the pans and spend maybe 15 minutes on prep time, but that can be done as part of my daily life.

Almost every day I put in the extra work that a truly frugal lifestyle requires. I cook from scratch, hang my laundry, fix up curbside finds, cut my husband’s hair, maintain my house and prepare my own hot caffeinated beverages. Would I enjoy hiring out these tasks? Yes, but also no. None of it is a ton of work, and the alternative income burden makes it worth every measure of sweat equity.

Sweat equity that invests in my frugal lifestyle.

Do you feel the extra work of frugality is worth your while? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

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