Yesterday, I wanted to setup an old DayRunner I had to be my permanent price book. It is sturdy, has a leather cover and a pen loop. It had some old business cards in it, but only like 2 sheets of paper.
Now, I tend to be a packrat, so I thought I had a pad of paper for the dayrunner. Looked through my file cabinet, and found it! So I filed the old business cards and such, and used the tabbed pages from the address book in the DayRunner, sticking a few pieces of paper between each. So now I'm all set.
I know this probably doesn't sound like much. I didn't really save any money, but it's the mindset I'm trying to develop. Reuse, recycle, use what I have or can reuse cheaply. It's a small step in that direction at least.
My partner and I had a good talk last night about money. We talked about ways to save money on electricity this winter, since we have electric heat and we pay for electric here. And we don't pay for water, but we do pay for the electric water heater. We also talked about the changes I've been making. So far, all the food changes and more home cooking is working well. It helps that neither of us care a lot about high end brand names. For instance, a lot of people here have Columbia Sportwear jackets. They work well handling the mist and damp of a Portland winter. We have no name jackets that are 50-300 bucks less then the Columbia Sportswear jackets. They work fine for us.
Barbara
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2 comments:
Don't kid yourself Barbara, you did save some money, not a lot but it all adds up. (I think some of my worst spending decisions started with a small thing like a pad of paper.)
Living frugally is all about your mindset and how you approach the challenge before you. It definitely helps when everyone in the house is on board.
Kudos to you!
Barbara--
I also use a price book. I've been meaning to "translate" it to my old Day Runner, right now it's on folded up paper I stole from the university's recycle bin! Even though its tiny and scribbled all over, I believe it is THE most important tool I've discovered for frugality. I love buying something and KNOWING I'm getting the best deal, as in, I could have bought this exact same item (i.e. raisins) anywhere in the city but I KNOW for a FACT that this is the least expensively I can get it for. It makes you have this little snottiness though, when you see someone buying something overpriced. Most of the time, someone will tell me "Oh I bought such-and-such at this place" and I'll shoot back without a second of hesitation "You should really buy it at this other place, you'll save 20 cents a pound!!" Or if I'm at a store and see someone buying something and they look generally friendly I'll comment, You know, that same item is on sale at this other store this week for this much a pound. They might care or might not, but it's good to know. :)
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