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| The nasturtium baskets are looking good. The leaves are big enough to pluck to add to salads. I grew these plants from seeds collected from the previous year. |
Serious frugality (as opposed to casual frugality) takes a lot of work and energy.
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| My lavender container garden. The left square pot is the one I spray painted. The right round pot used to be beige. The sun bleached it over the years. I had peppermint growing in it until a week ago. I transplanted all of the peppermint into 4 pots and will hopefully harvest even more peppermint to use for tea. The little bird figurine was from a free pile last summer. |
DIY repairing and maintaining a home or car also takes a lot of knowledge. Cooking from scratch requires time, work, and energy. Keeping clothing and shoes in good repair takes work and time.
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| One shelf of my lettuce bins. I think the 8 inch deep bins are producing better than the milk jug pots from last year. |
Growing one's own food, whether in the form of a vegetable garden, a fruit orchard, or livestock, requires a huge amount of work, knowledge, and energy.
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| The last of this year's tulips in pots, sitting on a birch tree log table. |
Canning all of that home-grown bounty requires knowledge, time and energy. Even thrift store and yard sale shopping is time-intensive.
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| Nothing terribly frugal about this photo, except maybe that the pot is about 28 years old. I hope to gather seeds from the creeping Jenny for next year's pots and restart the begonias again next spring after a winter in the garage. |
What I'm getting at is sometimes I disappear from this blog for a week at a time. Most often the reason is I am in the midst of practicing some serious frugality. The last couple of weeks have been labor intensive, to be sure. I'll update you all on some of my projects later this week.
Till next time . . .
I agree, serious frugality is not passive. It takes a great deal of effort and time as opposed to casual, which is occasional and quick. I think most people don't have time. I've become more frugal since I retired almost 9 years ago. I don't spend for convenience since I rationalize that I have time. Practicing frugality gives me more benefits than just saving money. It makes me feel better about not wasting and keeps me moving for my physical health, and keeps me mentally sharper. Also it sets a good example for our children and grandchildren to see first hand that it can be a choice for them too. Most people unless they witness a frugal person in action don't think it's possible in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteHave a great frugal day,
Laura
Hi Laura,
DeleteYou pointed out some great side benefits to practicing frugality. I do think I stay in better physical health due to gardening and doing our own home maintenance. I know we eat more vegetables because we grow a large garden each year. And it's lots of great fresh air and exercise.
You're a good example for your kids and grandkids. That will help all of them at some point in their lives, I believe.
It's good to have you back. Hope your dental procedures are done. Looking forward to hearing more about what you've been doing!
ReplyDeleteHi Kris,
DeleteThank you. This morning was the last of my dental appointments. Woo hoo! But as always, it wore me out.
Welcome back! Looking forward to hearing your serious frugality story. Sometimes major frugal stuff takes a lot of work, and sometimes it involves just refraining from doing something or doing it in a less expensive way (i.e. not going on a big expensive vacation).
ReplyDelete- Tina
Hi Tina,
DeleteThank you.
Yes, I agree. My husband and I drive our cars forever. Our current one is a 2004, that's a 20-year old car. We intend to continue driving it for several more years. I know by refraining from replacing it sooner, we save a bundle. Because we drive all of our cars for 25 or more years, in our lifetimes, we probably avoid purchasing at least one, maybe two cars, as compared to friends and family members car purchasing history. We do have to do more to maintain an older car, though.
I joke with my husband that I'm a "cheap date". I've never expected him to buy jewelry for me or fancy meals out. Being a "cheap date" saves us another bundle of cash, with little extra work.
We've had it all this week--both major expensive dental for me (3 crowns prepped) and a major car repair for hubby (very expensive) and our refrigerator needed to be replaced (new one coming Friday) so we're just a bit frazzled today. But we're pretty good savers so it could have been worse. I will, however, take a big step in trying to replace the $$ by being extra frugal by digging deeper into the pantry and freezer.
ReplyDeleteOh, Alice. When it rains, it pours, doesn't it?! My husband and I are the same. We save as much as we can most of the time. Then when these major expenses come up, at least we know how we'll pay for them.
DeleteI hope all goes well with the crowns and car repair and that you like your new fridge.
I'm not sure how it happens, but your posts sometimes don't show up in my feed until they are a couple of days old.
ReplyDeleteLife is all about balances. Sometimes you have more money than time and sometimes you have more time than money. And sometimes you have to balance out the thought of being frugal with it's okay to spend money if you have it. I struggle with that one.
Hi Live and Learn,
DeleteI have no answers on why my posts don't show up in your feed. The only thing I can suggest is the email option. At the top of the right-hand sidebar is a form for email subscriptions, using follow.it. I subscribed myself and it does work. I installed this widget about 2 weeks ago and it hasn't missed a post yet.
Even with a good chunk of my day dedicated to frugal stuff, I still don't have enough time to do everything the most frugal way. I try as much as I can, but I can't do it all.