Sunday 19 October 2014

frugal?

somewhere along the line i have started to read two blogs about living a frugal life and i started to wonder if i would count as frugal.
i dont know what i pay for everything, thats a bad sign.......

some of my more frugal habits would include

  • trying to buy petrol on the cheap days
  • trying to combine trips in the car
  • owning a very simple mobile phone (though i am getting closer to getting a smart phone, i feel like maybe it's unprofessional to have a simple one. i am resistant to peer pressure but not impenetrable)
  • no cable tv
  • we drive older cars and hubby does as much mechanical work as he can
  • a large factor in my last washing machine purchase was it's efficiency ratings
  • we all wear hand-me-downs at times. i dont shop in second hand stores because they seem expensive and it takes ages to find anything interesting but if someone offers me a bag of clothes, which they do quite often, i am in no way too proud to pick through it for the best items
  • we eat vegetarian at times
  • i make bread and yoghurt rather than buying them
  • i buy some types of fruit by the box and we eat it until we are sick of it
  • much of our furniture is second hand (although truth be told, i would rather not have a lot of it)
  • i refuse point blank to buy bottled water (this becomes quirky rather than frugal when i am caught unprepared and buy soft drink instead)
  • i washed nappies for four children who between them wore nappies for over ten years (that was an environmental decision as well as monetary)
  • i cook at home most days. we eat out or get take away about once a fortnight these days but for many years i probably cooked for 360 days a year
  • i dont buy any expensive beauty products or treatments. i do get haircuts and a rare blow dry at the salon but no manicures, pedicures, skin treatments, hair colouring and i use the very smallest amount of makeup
  • we use things until they fall apart (carpets, towels, sheets and clothing have all been known to be in use with holes developing) 
  • threadbare fabrics are re-used as rag
  • i have a cupboard full of mismatched crockery that we use daily because i am not about to get rid of odd pieces from broken sets
my frugality doesnt extend to every area of life. i might post on that some other day

Thrift was never more necessary in the world's history than it is today.  ~Francis H. Sisson

6 comments:

  1. I think you definitely count as frugal. That's a pretty impressive tally of not wasting either money or global resources. Jenny and I could repeat most of that list so I guess we're frugal too. In fact at this very moment I'm wearing a jumper with a large hole in one sleeve and jeans with a small hole in one seam. And I have a couple of shirts with badly frayed cuffs. Most of our furniture was bought new but as that was anything up to 31 years ago, I think that counts as frugal too. We also keep the central heating as low as possible, switch off lights the moment we leave a room and keep as many appliances off-standby as possible.

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  2. You cannot be called as anything but frugal! And I am exactly the opposite. I have become like that since the last few years as I have been brainwashed into believing that since I am not taking it with me, I might as well enjoy what money can get me till I can here! Lest you think that I am loaded, no, I am comfortable and not at all prodigal.

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  3. hey nick,
    did you know that jeans use a lot of resources and that a huge amount of that resource is used in the washing of them? wear your jeans holey and dirty for even better savings, i say

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  4. ramana,
    i completely believe in spending what is reasonable in pursuit of things we enjoy!

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  5. I just found your blog through Practical Parsimony.

    I'm on a tight budget & always looking for ways to save (in fact, I just blogged about saving $205 on tires). But I'm known to splurge when something is important to me.

    I'll continue to peruse your blog :)

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  6. hello, making cents of it all!
    thanks for visiting. i know where you are coming from, cars are such money sucks but pretty indispensable for most of us
    cheers
    k

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