Adventures in Frugality

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, times are tight for a lot of people economically. The price of gas has gone up. The price of food has gone up. Other than our paychecks, one may be hard pressed to find something that hasn’t gone up.

A few years ago, in my household, times were very, very tight. My husband had lost his job and we were living on my wages and his unemployment while he went back to school. We could barely afford to live in the place we were living, and eventually we ended up moving into a small place in a not so great neighborhood with cheap rent which included heat and water. Eventually, the Hubby graduated from FVTC, found a job, and we were slowly but surely getting back on our feet. We still live in this cheap little apartment with most of the utilities included in the rent (but the neighborhood has gotten much better), and because we decided to stay put, we were able to start putting some money away into savings. But lately, I’ve noticed that the money we live on is getting tighter and tighter, and I fear that we won’t be able to put money away in a savings account in hopes that some day, it will be put as a down payment on a house. When I realized this, the stubborn part of me said that not having money to put in a savings account is just not an option. And there has to be a way to be able to save and live within our means when the cost of everything is going up and our paychecks are not.

I am not one of those people who drive one of those lumbering land barges through town that only get 2 miles per gallon. I am not one of those people who will only have the newest and the best of everything. I am not one of those people who thinks that shopping at Goodwill or yard sales or thrift stores or the dollar store is beneath me, and that unless it has the words “Fox”, “River”, and “Mall” in the name, I would never dare cross the threshold and spend my money there. I am not one of those people whose morning ritual consists of a trip through the drive up at Starbucks for overpriced frothy coffee drinks (those are a once in awhile indulgence). No, I am an eminently practical person that doesn’t like to waste the money I have. And with that being said, we’re starting to feel the pinch that the increase in gas prices, food prices, and the price of pretty much everything else a little more. And since my paycheck is not increasing a long with this, something’s gotta give.

And so it begins, this adventure in frugality. This blog will be a journal of my frugal living. Take from it what you wish. I will probably stray off topic to write of other things.

We’ve already started our frugal living by purchasing a small chest freezer and by starting a price book to keep track of what things cost and where. More on those later. Even with these first couple ideas, I am learning that living frugally takes time, it takes patience, it takes work, and it takes planning.