What do I mean by that? Here's a few examples. I don't buy chips, cookies and soda. I don't drive a brand new car (we've never had a car payment). I don't carry cash on me (most of the time). I don't eat out hardly ever. I don't need expensive clothes to look nice. I don't.....
Well, you get the idea. A lot of my frugality is expressed by not doing certain things. I know most people believe that the frugalites are always 'doing' something, such as, baking their own bread (yeah, I do that sometimes), or hanging their clothes out to dry instead of using the dryer (yeah, I do this sometimes, too). But most of my frugality comes down to what I don't do.
So when you think you don't have time to be frugal, I say, think again. I'm sure there are things that you can stop doing to save money.
As a side note, my mom called last night and said something about the earrings she put in my Christmas bag on the bottom wrapped in tissue paper. She was sure that I probably didn't receive them as I never mentioned them in my thank you. I told her I never found any earrings in the gift bag. She said she knew she should have mentioned them. I went upstairs to the attic where I keep all my gift bags to recycle for the following Christmas and sure enough....there on the bottom of the bag was the earrings wrapped in the tissue paper that I had kept. My mom said, "Gee, girl, I'm glad you don't throw those bags away, and you don't throw out the tissue paper either."
Just a couple of other things that I DON'T do.
Boston Terrier Puppy Inside a Bag
5 comments:
I don't throw away gift bags or tissue paper either.
Yes, frugality is definitely about what we don't do rather than what we do.
Well, any action can be expressed as a do or a don't. "I DON'T throw it out" is the same as "I DO keep and store it"
What fascinates me is that for people who don't consider themselves frugal, it NEVER OCCURS to them that there are other actions they could choose. Such as shopping at a less expensive store and finding the same clothes (I love Ross and TJMaxx) or purchasing store brand over name brand (I can't remember the last time we had Skippy peanut butter and Smuckers jam.)
The tricky part for me is figuring out what to keep and what to throw out. DH's mom doesn't keep hardly anything, and her house is neat and tidy; my mom and her mom are on the other side of the spectrum and while they save money, their houses are cluttered and you can't find stuff when you need it. My solution: design and build me own house with LOTS of closet space ;)
Jennifer, I know what you mean about what to throw out. My hubby is a pack rat....albeit, he's an organized pack rat, but he's rubbed off on me a bit.
We don't have much closet space in my house, but I have to get a bit creative at times when I want to save certain things.
We have some things we don't do (or do as you might want to see it). We don't have a car payment so we do have older vehicles. We don't use credit cards or other kinds of charge accounts and we do pay cash for everything. I have 'plastic' issues and just do better with cash. I spend less when I use cash.
We *do* buy chips and soda but not cookies. And we do go out to eat, too often actually, though we're working on that. I try to keep plenty of food cooked but sometimes one of us really just wants to eat out so we do.
After all, I think its really all about priorities and everyone has different ones. :)
I agree with you that we all have different priorities and that usually dictates what we do or don't do when it comes to pinching a penny.
See, I think it's neat that someone may be frugal so they can own a fleet of snowmobiles or have a barn full or horses or.....(the list could go on and on).
I don't think people should be so frugal that they never get to enjoy anything in their lives.
For example, hubby and Bryce love to hunt and fish. Sometimes the equipment can be expensive. If we weren't so frugal, I imagine that they wouldn't have some of those fine fishing poles that they own.
Or maybe, I wouldn't have all those books that I need to sometime in the future sit down and read. (Books are my biggest 'hobby'.) I love to read and I have probably what others would consider 'too many.' But I think I have just enough!
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