“Living Frugal” Archive
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I’ve been known to be cheap, err, frugal. We don’t have a lot of cash and I’d prefer not to go into debt so I’ve been caught acting ridiculous a time or two to save money.
I knew it would catch up with me.
I made a fresh batch of cookies the other night and grabbed my husband’s Charger football oven glove from the drawer to pull the cookie sheet out. As soon as my gloved hand touched the hot metal, I screamed and dropped the cookies on the floor. Upon further examination, I found a rather large hole in the thumb finger of the glove. My hand suffered a nasty burn.
I angrily threw the oven mitt in the trash and used another one from the drawer for the remaining cookies.
Last night, hubby made a yummy dinner and I heard him shuffling through the oven mitt drawer while the baby and I were playing on the living room floor.
‘Hey hon? Where is my Charger mitt?’ he asked.
‘It had a hole in the thumb and I burned myself so I threw it in the trash.’ I called from the living room.
Silence.
I picked up the baby and walked into the kitchen. He was staring at the drawer, deflated.
He looked up at me, ‘I know it had a hole in it. I just didn’t use the thumb part. Things have been kinda tight lately and I didn’t want to spend the money to replace it. And aren’t you always saying we need to make things last longer?’
Sigh. He caught me on that. He should be allowed to have at least one crazy frugal holdout. Plus, I should have known not to throw out a man’s football anything.
Looks like the first thing I’m buying in debt free March is a Chargers oven mitt. Sorry honey.
I caught a tiny black ant crawling across my kitchen counter last week. My favorite thing to do is bleach my countertops so I knew his search for food there was like trying to find water in the desert. I wiped him away and tossed him in the trash.
A few days later, there were more. I caught about 10 or so scouting my pantry. They didn’t congregate. They weren’t crawling in any specific direction, just searching for good snacks.
Since I cleaned our pantry a few months ago and saw the amount of food I was wasting, I hardly buy anything. Grocery shopping is organized and limited to items on my list. There are no snacks. No chips. No cookies. Nothing but canned goods and tightly sealed bags of baking supplies.
In the past, when I caught the scouting ants, I knew I was in for it. I’d have to throw away food and spray pest killer.
Um. Not this time.
Apparently there is so little food in my house, the ants called it a day and moved out this morning. On to greener pastures and fuller pantries I guess.
Who knew living frugal would annoy the ant population?
No, I’m not talking about Christmas spending, I’m talking about the electric/gas/oil costs of cold weather!!
San Diego had its first cold snap this weekend. Each morning, I woke up and checked the thermometer, shivering as I saw it hovering in the low 60’s – INSIDE my house. We’ve been insulating the house one wall at a time as money permits, but a good portion of our home has no insulation in the walls. Normally, hubby and I throw on sweatpants and a few extra blankets on the bed but that’s not an option this year with a newborn in the house. We have central heating but every time I turn it on, I swear I hear ‘cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching’ rather than the heat fan.
The upsetting part is, we only need one room heated at night. We close the vents to the other rooms but it’s not effective. I’m terrified to run a space heater while we sleep and we don’t have a fireplace.
How do you keep warm without spending a fortune?
My brother and my husband are both celebrating their 30th birthdays in the next few weeks so we are heading north for a weekend away. Whenever we take a trip, we typically stay in vacation homes or in REALLY cheap hotels/motels. Depending on the area, vacation homes are typically priced the same as or lower than local hotels but the added kitchen makes it convenient for cooking in rather than dining out.
I found a couple homes I liked and contacted the owners. One owner offered her home at a 30% discount since it’s a last minute booking but she wasn’t in the best area of town. Before Dave Ramsey, I probably would have booked the discounted one and never thought to negotiate with the homes I’d rather stay at.
Oh how times have changed.
I went directly to the best place and asked them to beat the price. What could it hurt?
Not only was I able to get the home we wanted deeply discounted, I was able to negotiate the refundable deposit to 75% less.
Hubby worked an extra side job and we have the whole weekend away covered with cash. Can’t wait!
My sisters make everything from scratch. They don’t buy pizzas. They don’t buy frozen dinners. They don’t buy packaged cookies. I’m not even sure if they’ve ever purchased a loaf of bread.
I figured this craziness was genetic. A rare strain inherited from my mother who used to grind her own wheat for fresh bread in the morning. I, on the other hand, take after my dad who could pull out a fork, open a can of cold Chef Boyardee, and call it dinner.
I mean really, NORMAL people don’t bake everything right?
I went to a friend’s house over the weekend. She had invited my husband and me over for hamburgers and fries. I watched in amazement as she carefully molded ground beef into patties, peeled and sliced potatoes, and pulled fresh buns from the oven. We drank homemade Kombucha and devoured fresh cookies after dinner.
She started talking about saving money and how they lived on less because she cooks everything from scratch. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that while, yes, I make dinner at home each night, the closest I’ve come to making cookies from scratch in months is slicing them off a premade roll I bought with a coupon.
Am I the crazy one here? Are all of you out there baking away while I’m buying hamburger buns and crackers instead of making them?
I can’t yet fit into my pre-maternity clothes and was adamant that I wouldn’t buy new ones. This would have worked out if my office would allow me wear sweatpants and tank tops until I lose those darn last 8 pounds but surprisingly, they won’t qualify shabby cotton as appropriate.
To make matters worse, I’m not sure my clothes will EVER fit the same when I do lose those final 8 pounds. I’ve got curves in places I’ve never had curves before. Someone should have warned me!
When I told my husband about my predicament, he suggested I temporarily wear my maternity clothes.
When he regained consciousness, I informed him that wouldn’t be happening.
I spent some quality time at the thrift store and at discount clothing stores equipped with my coupons and $65 dollars later, I added a few dresses and skirts to my collection. Let’s just hope by the time my coworkers notice I’m rotating the same 6 outfits, I’ll be able to squeeze into my old clothes.
Hubby, Baby Boy, and I went to spend the day at my parent’s house for Labor Day. My sister and her family came over as well as my sister-in-law and her kiddos (her husband/my brother has been shipped out to fight another fire).There is always something so relaxing about the craziness of that house. We all seem to yell *cough* talk over one another while pots and pans bang in the kitchen as dinner is being prepared. We spent a good portion of the meal prep talking about the free workout, the Butt Bible, available on our cable network. All of us are too frugal to have gym memberships so we compare notes on any free workouts. Considering the fact that all us girls could hardly walk without wincing in pain, we gave it a thumbs up.
After dinner and dishes were done, gramps and I watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians. OK, so maybe he wasn’t watching. He was chatting about his recent trip to visit our family in Washington state. Hmmm. Great idea for a future cheap vacation?
Before leaving, I robbed grandma of all her garden grown veggies and a loaf of fresh baked zucchini bread. One less trip to the grocery store!
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My Debt
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