Being Frugal is Never Boring

One of the very first frugal things I did as a new homemaker who was also newly unemployed was to find out how I might make a savings in my home.  It was the late 1970's when I found myself without a job  during an economic recession that affected our household as it had many others.  Books and magazines suddenly abounded with information on how to save money and I soaked it all up like a sponge.

I focused first on washing out the baggies that I put my husband's daily lunch sandwich in.  It was a tiny savings at that time but times were desperate.  It became a habit that I kept up for 43 years.

Then I pulled out my favorite old cookbook and picked up a few women's magazines special publications with thrifty meal ideas, sought out budget cookbooks at the library,  and I learned to cook with less meat.   My first husband, like John, was not going to go meat free, but it was in this recession that I first began exploring the possibilities of how far to stretch a single chicken or pound of ground meat to make several servings, not just enough for four.

We sold newer cars and purchased an older one and became a one car household.  That meant we could reduce insurance coverage, but it also severely limited my ability to shop,  as well.  Admittedly I was never one to haunt the stores but when you've no choice but to make do every pay period then you make do.

We stopped using the dryer and started hanging out clothes.  I will say this for my first husband, he built most excellent sturdy clotheslines.  I learned to treat stains so that I could make our clothes look nice for as long as possible.

Truth told, there wasn't a lot more I could do except go without, so we went without.   

When I got pregnant the next year, I quickly saw the value in cloth diapers and requested them from anyone who asked what I could use.  

This was how my frugal journey began.  

When John and I met, my frugal kitchen habits kept five kids and two adults fed and satisfied.  Most all of the things I'd done from the beginning continued to be the norm.  Except with Katie in nursery I was required to use paper diapers...and when I did go home with her at 9 months I discovered that cloth diapers were out of vogue and nowhere to be found.  This was in the days prior to internet and clever mama's who'd created a home business with homemade cloth diapers and diaper covers.

With five kids and two adults, two loads of laundry were usual every day, and drying clothes on the line was not always feasible.  We used the washer and dryer every single day.   

As time went on, things changed.  The family size decreased, the budgets we had increased.   Family sized increased and the budget decreased.  Everything changes over and over again.

Two years ago, I gave up washing out zippered baggies to reuse.    With six in the house at that time, suddenly the kitchen was always in use and to have to wash baggies, turn them inside out to dry and then inside in once more to finish drying, ate up more  real estate, time and attention than I had to spare.

What resulted was that after 40 odd years of washing out baggies, the ship didn't sink financially.  Bess and I looked long and hard at other storage options and only used a baggie when nothing else would do.  We found a way to make a new savings and that's something that has been repeated all through my frugal years: for every way I find it's no longer feasible to continue a task or method of savings, a new one comes along to help in a different area.

Frugal living is always changing.  It is never stagnant.  It's not a one size fits all sort of thing.   Frugality is a marvelous tool but what it looks like today is not what it necessarily will look like a year from now.  That's what makes it so interesting and fun to me and makes being frugal anything but boring.