Owning Your Frugal Knowledge for Life

Today was crabapple sauce day. I made 13 pints of crabapple sauce for the freezer.

In the comments from yesterday's post, Tina reminded me of a thought I've had over the years: Once you learn a frugal skill, you own that knowledge for life. And if you learned that skill early in life, you own the knowledge for a long time, which means you save yourself a lot of money instead of a little. An example, if you taught yourself how to change the oil in your car when you were a teen, you can save thousands and thousands of dollars on home oil changes over your lifetime. 

Even if you're living on easy street for a while, if the tide turns for you later on, you can revert back to your learned frugal skills. Frugal skills and knowledge remain with us throughout our lives. We own the mental access to that information.

As Tina mentioned yesterday, returning to some of her frugal skills learned in her younger days is allowing her to choose her career at this later time.  She's not locked into a job that she doesn't enjoy. 

my Foley food mill for making applesauce

As with other types of skills, we build on our frugal skills with useful tools or seeking out better ways to do things. And mastering one frugal skill often leads to the mastery of adjacent frugal skills.

a cup of sour milk that no one would drink was used in a batch of pancakes this morning

homemade pancake syrup -- brown sugar, water, salt

Sometimes it isn't a skill but a tip that you learn and incorporate into your life that is money-saving. Once you've learned that tip, you own that knowledge and can refer back to it over and over.

I believe that many of these basic frugal skills and knowledge should be taught in school again. While you can learn them on the fly as needed, it's a whole lot simpler to learn them when you're young and not in the throes of a spoiling milk emergency. After all, life's emergencies often don't come with a warning.

Covid, the lockdowns, the shortages were evidence that many of us weren't really prepared. Imagine how much less stressful that period would have been all around if everyone had gone into the pandemic with some basic frugal life skills, like cooking at home. Having survived 2020, are we as a society better equipped to handle a future emergency? Did many people learn some useful skills for thriving in adverse situations? I hope so. Learning how to bake bread is like learning to ride a bike. It all comes back to you when you try again.

 

(Tina, I hope it's okay with you that I referenced your comment in this post.)

What motivates your frugality?

Frugal dinner for two. We could have eaten out, but chose to stay in for a home-cooked meal of leftover meatloaf on macaroni (my cheapest pasta shape), smothered with homemade Italian tomato sauce, with garden green beans on the side. Dessert was a home-made apple crisp made with our tree apples.

Today was all about making salsa. I've now put up 16 pints of salsa for this coming year. I'm glad to have scratched salsa off my list. I could buy salsa. The store brands are not that expensive.  However, we like my homemade salsa, and we love that there's always a jar at the ready for meals and snacks. And the $$ savings is nice, too.

So while de-seeding peppers and chopping vegetables I was thinking about all of the reasons we continue to live a frugal life, my motivators for frugality. The list is long, warning. But it sums up why my husband and I have chosen to be frugal.

My reasons are primarily financial (not a surprise), but a few reasons are more ideological. Some reasons have to do with parenting, although one could argue that everything we do that our kids can see is parenting through example. Some reasons have to do with my place in God's kingdom, how I love the world through generosity with what I've been given. Some reasons have to do with my personal fears and what ifs.

In no particular order, here's my list:

• to stretch limited finances to cover all our current needs
• to never go into debt and risk losing what we have gained due to missed loan payments
• to save for our future when we'll be less able to work and may need more hired assistance
• to pay for a few luxuries in our lives - well-maintained home, garden, and car, plus a vacation every few years
• to give generously to those in need and to support our church and missions
• to leave something to our children and causes that we support
• a challenge to do what culture has said is impossible -- American dream on one income
• to allow one person to focus on nurturing the family, home, and giving time to others
• to set an example for my kids and others around me
• to be responsible and pay for the things and services we use
• to save for unforeseen circumstances or needs
• in the past, but pay for education for our children without taking out loans (ours or theirs)
• to offer financial help to any of our family when they need it
• to not be wasteful -- I abhor waste, it really gets to me
• for a mentally, spiritually, and physically healthier lifestyle

I have days when I wonder "why bother? Why not just live my life spending without thinking?" Then I think of my motivations. This (almost) always triggers reason in my mind.

Our motivations have shifted over the years, obviously. In our early years of marriage, being frugal was a matter of survival. Over time we've slowly built up a cushion, so we aren't living on the edge any longer. Our focus has changed from children's basic needs, to older children's educations, and now to our own future retirement. 

I may have missed a motivator or two. But I think my list hits all of the most important reasons for our frugality.

So, what motivates your frugality?