January 17, 2008

• Frugal Friday

  

  
  

   

  
  

  I’m still reading a page or two of The Tightwad Gazette every night before I go to bed. I started at the beginning and read Amy’s testimony. I haven’t read it for a year and it always inspires me. She was determined to prove that their family could live off of one salary. Her husband’s average salary was less than $30,000 a year.  In less than 7 years they saved 49,000.00. They put a large down payment on a pre-1900 rural farmhouse plus made purchases such as cars, appliances and furniture adding up to $38,000 and were debt free. They saved an average of $12,500 per year or 43% of their gross income.

  
  

  The one thing I came away from this time as I read her testimony is that the ‘small’ things matter when trying to live on one-income.

  
  

  I’ve been thinking lately of older women  I know and their practices of frugality. I know quite a few widows living on $600-800 a month who have paid off their homes and have a savings account. As I look around their homes and watch their lifestyle it becomes obvious that they are not ‘spenders’ but ‘stretchers’.

  
  

  I can’t remember a Christmas where my mother hasn’t sat off to the side of the gift opening frenzy and quietly folded the wrinkled tissue paper,  separated the bows and folded the larger pieces of wrapping paper that haven’t been ripped. She learned this practice from her mother.

  
  

  Small boxes are another thing my mother has always saved. She never purchased those fancy plastic organizers but would save good, sturdy small boxes to use as dividers in her drawers and larger ones in her closets. This past week I saved a Velveeta box and a few small boxes that my checks came in. It didn’t take long to find a good use for them in one of my bathroom drawers.  Mother always lined hers with shelf paper.

  
  

  Mother hasn’t bought any rubber bands, safety pins or paperclips for years. She bought a package years ago and saves others that come her way. I also save my rubber bands from the vegetables, buttons from shirts, elastic from pants, etc.  

  
  

  One thing I must say is that the older women I know who are ‘stretchers’ are NOT hoarders or clutters. They do not have piles and mounds of saved items in their homes. They are very organized. Organization is essential to being a ‘stretcher’.  These women are simplywilling to find ways to make things last and do without more stuff in order to make their money stretch.

  
  

  I’m realizing more and more that it is a mentality that our generation has pretty much lost.

  
  

  So, here is what I have done this week to be a ‘stretcher’. I’m trying to practice the mentality  to USE IT UP, DO WITHOUT, MAKE DO, SHOP AT HOME FIRST, MAKE IT LAST and DO INSTEAD OF BUY!

  
  

  1.  I finally found a use for leftover small slivers of bath soap. It’s always bothered me to just throw them away. I’ve tried putting them in a bottle with water to make hand soap but that was a flop. I read that someone saved their soap and grated the small pieces into their laundry soap. Perfect solution for me since I make homemade laundry soap!

  
  

  2. My mop broke and I was going to buy a new one when I remembered that my pastors wife shared her secret for mopping floors and exercising at the same time. She takes a wet rag and uses her foot to ‘mop’. I tried this and it works great and you get a good workout at the same time! So, I’m putting off buying a mop for right now.

  
  

  3. I’m washing out my baggies and tinfoil (not the ones used with meat items or dairy).

  
  

  4. I need to use up some instant oatmeal so I’m mixing it in my old fashioned oats for my breakfast in the mornings.

  
  

  5. I use the paper towel cardboard in the middle of the towels to roll my reused tinfoil around and then fasten with a rubber band.

  
  

  6. I broke my toothpick holder last time we had company. Normally, I would have gone to the Dollar Store and bought a new one but I looked around the house to see ‘what I had in my hand’ and came up with my husband’s medicine bottles. The toothpicks fit perfectly. I also took a metal mint holder (Eclipse Mints) and used that to send toothpicks in my husband’s lunch.

  
  

   

  
  

  But godliness with contentment is great gain: for we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out; but having food and covering we shall be therewith content.
  1 Tim 6:7-8
  

  • 10:15 pm
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