LIVING A FRUGAL LIFE STYLE

Yesterday I was reading Christy's blog here and her post titled Feeling The Pinch here.

We are the most blessed nation on the earth. Most of us have lived a life style that is the envy of the world. It is basically that "life style" that has gotten us into the mess we now find ourselves in. I'm not going to go into all this part of the issue, many others have already done a good job of that. Here is a link from Christy's blog that addresses that issue well.

What does come to the forefront in my mind is

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another:" Romans 13:8

&
"The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender" Proverbs 22:7

I'd like to tell you that we are completely debt free but that would not be truth. We owe 3 1/2 more years on our home and we owe on the 2007 Chevy HHR that we purchased on the spot last year when taking our grandkids on a brief vacation and our car broke down out of town and out of state. You can read about that here.

What I want to address is how we can live a frugal life style, being resourceful and not wasteful. To learn to stretch our dollars and what God has given us to the max. To be good stewards.

I learned frugality from my parents at an early age and it has stood the test of time. Mickey and I have never made big salaries or a lot of money but we have lived a very full life and have enjoyed many pleasures. We have never felt deprived and have always counted our blessings. Mickey has always told our kids "the reason we have what we have is because of your mother" and my four kids all think I am down right "cheap"!!!! They can call it cheap, I call it being sensible and practical.

I thought it might be interesting if we began to share with one another some of the things we do to economize. Some we have always done and I am finding myself learning to be even more resourceful these last few months as the gas prices are soaring, the food costs going up from week to week, and the utility bills rising rapidly.

Here are just a few things that come quickly to my mind that I do:

1. I do not throw out any left over food but find some way to use the left overs in another meal or another way.

2. I find a rubber spatula to be one of the most thrifty items in the kitchen and scrape out every last bit of any and everything in a jar, a can or the sides of mixing bowls. It is amazing how much food is left on the sides and wasted. .

3. I try not to buy items in plastic squeeze bottles because you cannot scrape them out as above.

4. I use my lipsticks down to the metal by using a lipstick brush once the upper part of the lipstick has been used up.

5. I almost never buy any of the fancy cleaning products that flood the market. My basic cleaning supplies are Pin*esol, Co*met cleanser, amon*ia water for cleaning windows, old newspapers for drying down the windows, M*r. Cl*ean & bleach.

6. We save all our coffee grounds & egg shells to put in the flower beds.

7. I buy ice cream in the 1 gallon and 1 pint size plastic bucket and then save and use the bucket for cleaning, or other uses that come up.

8. I use scrap sheets of paper for notes and doodling and have them by my computer and our main telephone in the kitchen.

9. I diligently watch the grocery ads of two stores. One I have to drive a ways to and the local neighborhood store that is way too high priced for normal shopping but runs great leader ads. I buy to the quantity limits on the specials they run.

10. When going to the store I have to drive about 20 miles round trip. I always go when I am having to run another errand that direction. With the cost of gas now, it doesn't pay to make a special trip.

11. I am blessed to have an extra frig and an upright freezer in the garage and I take full advantage of them with the sale items.

12. I squeeze every toothpaste tube until you can not get out another drop!! My husband is ready to throw his out and I take it and can get at least 2 more weeks of brushing out of it.

13. I have a dishwasher but I only use it when we have large family or company dinners. For just Mickey & I or even just a few extra I always wash the dishes by hand and my sweet husband usually dries them.

14. I basically shop at Al*di's (don't know if you have them in your area. They don't carry a large supply but what they do carry is very good and always a few cents cheaper on everything) the two stores mentioned above for the leader items and then Wa*lmart for the things I can't find at these and still need.

15. We save a lot of the plastic and paper grocery bags and re-use them. I use the plastic bags to line all the small household wastebaskets. I use the paper ones to wrap items I am mailing.

16. I save ribbon bows and the colored tissue paper from gift packages to re-use. I save all gift sacks I receive.

17. We keep out house thermometer set at 79 degrees during the day in the summer, lower in the winter, and turn it to 80 degrees when we leave and at night.

18. We have ceiling fans in every room of the house.

19. I never use the "hot" water setting on my washer.

20. I usually buy the large size of things.......but I do look at the price per unit on the tag to be sure it is the best buy. Some times it is not. I use the price per unit as I shop.

21. I usually buy the house brand of products and not name brands.

22. We have replaced almost all of our light bulbs with the newer energy saving ones.

23. My husband keeps a "rag box" to use in his garage and shop area.

24. We do not drink a lot of soda pop but I do save all the pop cans in a barrel. My two daughters also save theirs for us. When I get a barrel full and take them to the recycle place (which we have one right here in Coweta so I'm not spending money to drive there) and get my $5 to $7 I put the money in savings accounts I have for Oksana & Aric.

25. We have a Wa*mart Di*sco*ver card that pays us a 1% rebate on all purchases. We use that card on most all our purchases. We pay the card off in full each month (other wise this would not be economical) and then I put the rebate check in our savings account each month.

26. The above mentioned card also saves us 3 cents per gallon on gas at Mu*rphy which is where we always fill up.

27. We have a land line phone with basic service, none of the bells and whistles like call waiting, caller ID, etc.

28. Mickey had bought me a cell phone as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago, that we buy minutes for in advance, to use solely for emergency purposes if I ever needed to reach him if I broke down somewhere. Now that he has quit work and we are together almost 100% of the time we will not buy any more minutes when these run out and will stop using the cell phone.

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These are some changes and additional things I have been doing recently as I am becoming more aware of the need to pinch & save any way possible. Mickey & I are retired and on fixed incomes that are not rising along with the cost of living.

A. We are limiting our driving trips into Tulsa. We are 25 miles SE of Tulsa and we thought nothing of running in there several times a week. Now we try and only go once and take care of everything we need to do in the one trip.

B. I have begun to do most of the driving when we go places. I am able to get better gas mileage than my sweet husband!!!! (our car has the automatic gas mileage reader that tells us the miles per gallon we are getting). Seems he has a heavier foot than I and he is more of a sped up, slow down driver than I. He actually enjoys being able to relax and look around and enjoy the ride more. Especially since his last jobs have been driving all over town delivering abstracts!!!

C. I have begun making a simple salad dressing out of just mayonnaise with milk and a dab of sugar and cutting down on buying as much ranch salad dressing.

D. I have begun taking my bottle of shampoo and dividing it and doubling it by diluting it with water. I find it does as good a job and cuts down on cost.

E. I have always used cloth napkins when having guests because I prefer them. We have begun to use cloth napkins everyday and cutting out using paper napkins 3 meals a day. I have very many sets of napkins so it did not necessitate buying any.

F. I just recently began shutting off my computer at night when I go to bed. Before I left it on all the time.

G. I've been thinking about having Mickey put me up a clothes line and not using the dryer but haven't done it yet.

H. I also want to buy a large barrel and start catching the rain water. I remember my grandparents doing this and the water was so soft. We've had so much rain this year it's a real shame we hadn't done that already.

I. Just before the last stamp price increase I bought a lot of extra stamps at the 41 cents instead of having to pay the current 43 cents per stamp they are now charging. If there is another price increase before I use up what I've purchases my savings will be even more per stamp.

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Please leave me a comment and tell me what things you have done and are doing to economize. Are you are making any changes in your life style due to the current conditions. Let's all share and learn from one another.

"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.. Psalms37:25