I think it is worth discussing attitude as it pertains to being frugal.  First, that one must never judge an0ther person whether they practice being careful with their money or resources or not.  Frugality is an individual thing.  Some will save all aluminum foil to reuse over and over (I do for maybe three reuses) but that might not be frugal to you.  I rarely clip coupons (not worth it where I live) but do shop the sales.  I buy new underwear and socks but buy nearly everything else at the thrift shops.  I know some who think frugal means shopping the sales at the mall.  That’s OK!

Some of us are very new to saving and being conservative with our resources so it might seem extreme to wash out baggies ( rarely save any baggies but then I use reusable plastic containers).   As times get more tough we will have more and more chances to be creative and learn to stretch dollars.

For me, I found it useful to read Amy Dacyczyn’s book, Tightwad Gazette.  I made it a point to add a new way to conserve money or be careful with my resources each week.  It became a game to see what new things I could do to be more frugal with water, food and clothing – everything.  Now I love it.  It is a way of life.

But I will never be as spartan as some other frugalists out there.  And that is OK.  The idea is to be wise and to implement new steps that help your family as well as benefit the community.

Don’t let yourself get too zealous too fast, either.  Your family might “rebel”.  Like adding new foods to their diet, go slow enough to make it fun and interesting – you know your own family.  Also, some  husbands may be all for conserving  while others more used to a liberal lifestyle.

The point is, begin were you are and allow yourself to expand your frugalness as it seems best for you.  Hopefully you won’t get a sudden cut in income that throws you into desperate need, but if you plan to be more careful and add new habits all along, it won’t hit your budget so hard.

New Frugal habit:   We added garbage pickup to our budget.  We carried our own for the longest time.  But we realized our biweekly trips were costing us more to haul our two cans than to have it taken away for us.  It worked out to be $20 a month plus gas to haul it (not to mention time!).  So now we pay $24 a month to have it hauled and we share the bill with my in-laws since the garbage is partly theirs.

Well, I am happy to say we are really seeing a difference in our budget due to the changes we decided to make in our lifestyle last April.

We cut kilowatts using less hot water in the kitchen and with shorter showers.  So while the per kilowatt charges went up, the monthly bill stayed the same.  Now that might seem a bit frustrating to be cutting back on energy usage and still be paying as much, in a way yes, it was.  But it showed us what we could do with less of.  And we really can take shorter showers – we just love that extra minute or two of just standing there in the hot water.

I am going to try a new thing this winter by using the clothes dryer less.  I like the fluffiness of using the dryer but not the extra energy out go, so I am going to fluff the laundry for 10 minutes in the dryer and then line dry the rest of the way in the garage (we live in the rainy Pacific Northwest).  I hope this will eliminate the stiffness of line dried clothes and yet drastically cut the dryer energy consumption.

Thankfully it has been a longer summer here – we just last week turned up the one heater in our house.  We have had colds the past week so we are keeping the house warmer for the time being.  But generally we will keep the thermostat at 68* and wear more layers.   Bedrooms are not heated  all night.  We turn up the heat just prior to getting into bed and then off for the night.  Once under the covers we are quite snuggly.

We spent money this past summer on our garden – probably more than we needed to but we also feel it was an investment.  We bought 200 strawberry plants and enough chicken manure to make them happy.  We acquired some nice thornless raspberry plants for free but for the chicken manure too.

We recently found out that we could have gotten a pick-up truck load of barn litter from the local dairy for $15, so we will do that before it gets too much colder.  We plan to use it to mulch all the perennial plants and prepare the beds for next year’s planting of vegetables.

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So, with that entry begins my Frugal Living Journal.  I am inspired to keep a journal for reference for myself and anyone else who might benefit from our family’s frugal ideas.  I have read the Economides’ book, America’s Cheapest Family as well as Amy Dacyzyn’s book, Tightwad Gazette so l have lots of inspiration but even they don’t go so far as we have had to over the years.

Come back often and even post your own frugal living ideas.  In this way we can help each other out in these tough economic times.

B is on the Fentanyl “patch” desperately hoping to find something to ease the horrible pain in her back. But to no avail so far. She has tried everything that the pain doctor was willing to prescribe without going to do more scans and MRIs which so far she is not willing to do.

His comments were that he saw her older MRI and didn’t really see anything that warranted her taking so much pain meds. He wanted to do another one but she pushed for her Percocet. His hands were tied, I believe. He won’t give her anymore and now she is up the proverbial creek without a paddle. (I guess she’ll have to submit to the MRIs now?)

He had also suggested shots in her back which she only refused and whined about the inconvenience to her to get in to see him for a series of 3 – 4 shots over a 8 week period. She also pointed out that she had had some years ago and insists that it was a waste.

So, now what?

R is fuming. He thinks the whole med system is a racket and is trying to kill the poor and infirm. He drives Betty nuts with his deluded dream that she will soon be able to toss her walker and make meals for him again – like the old days – if she would only try this or that “quack” remedy.

B wants to be dead and wonders why God won’t either take her pain or her life.

You know, I have thought about all this for some time and that is we all “wear” our stress/anxiety in different ways. B wears hers in her back. I wear mine in my gut as do others in the family. You probably know where you “wear” yours. Anyway, I begin to know why they have given her yet another anti-depressant to quell her nerves rather than a stronger pain med.

Stress and anxiety plays games with our minds and sets up shop in our bodies and begins to manifest itself as this or that symptom. They couldn’t find a physical reason for Bob’s shrieking pain in his belly every time he eats so they call it IBS and send him home with something like Zanax or nortriptaline. They can’t find a significant reason for B’s back pain other than normal arthritis and compression fracture, neither of which warrant heavy pain control.

I say it is just remembered pain or what ever you want to call it. The pain is very real but could just as easily disappear if the person could heal the emotional/spiritual hurt that began it in the first place. Am I nuts? I don’t think so.

Meanwhile, I TRY not to lose it – being a bystander in all this. B asked the other day about how I thought about this patch. I told her I didn’t have her body so I couldn’t answer that but that if she thought it would help she ought to try. Well, she wrestles with the possible horrible side effects but gives it a try anyway as the pain is so unbearable.

I am sorry for the whine… I wonder how health care professionals get though the day dealing with patients like B who have no cure in sight. Even dealing with cancer, a doctor can see the “enemy”. With this, the enemy is invisible. It would drive me to some bad habit I am sure.

Just when I thought we were already tight, we need to get even tighter.  What an adventure!  Learning to do with less and being more thoughtful about what we do with our small income.

I am so thankful we don’t have a mortgage – just one of those blessings of caring for someone else’s home.

Here are some things we are planning on doing or are already doing to save cash:

• This year we are definitely putting in a garden.
• We take fewer and shorter showers.
• We use the dishwasher now.  I didn’t want to use the dishwasher for years thinking it took a job away from the kids.  Well, after finding out that a dishwasher only uses 2 – 3 gallons of water as opposed to the 20+ gallons of water (three times a day) used during hand washing I was convinced to change.  The kids still get to wash the meal prep stuff and rinse the dishes for the washer, but I figure we use less than half the water now.  That is less heated water as well as less water going into the drain field.
• Clothes are more carefully used.  Even though I rarely bought brand new, the used stuff got tossed rather than repaired.  Now I am repairing!
• Reusing clothing.  This is different from repairing.  This involves remaking a dress, shirt, pants into something that fits a smaller person.  It is fun and very creative to see what we can remake.  My favorite thing is to remake denim items.
• We cut our garbage bill down by two thirds just by carefully recycling.  All paper is sorted.  Cans are all smashed.  Glass is sorted.  Plastic is rinsed and sorted.  Clean cardboard and packaging is broken down.  Veggie scraps go to the compost.
• What goes into the garbage?  Plastic packaging and plastic wrap that comes on packaging.  Meat and bones.  Wet or food covered paper is trash.  Bathroom trash (and diapers, if we were still using the disposables). That’s it!  Not much anymore.  We go to the dump every 5 – 6 weeks now instead of every other week.
• My next step is to try to only buy things that come in recyclable packaging.  We buy apples from the local produce store by the box instead of those plastic packages like they use at Costco.  There may come a time when we can incinerate our trash again, too.
• Taking one trip to town per week for all needs instead of multiple trips for any excuse.

All this and more will help cut out wasted $$.  I won’t bother to (or continue to) beat myself up thinking I should have started this years ago but now is the best time to start.

I thought I might spend some time talking about how we save here and there in future posts.  Feel free to share your ideas, too.

I occasionally get comments on my article on Beginners guide to MMS so I thought I might update my own experience with it.

My family and I use MMS to brush our teeth.  We apply it to bug bites with great success.  Perhaps it would be helpful to take more often, I don’t know, but we get great results with it in any case.

When brushing my teeth, I have not had a negative check up in over a year.

A simple warning to those who think if a little is good a lot must be better:  not so with MMS.  It is easy to think you can handle more but be warned that your body will go into a strong detox with flu like symptoms for a day or so.  Not fun.  So, go easy and add a drop or so every few days till you reach the 18 to 24 drop dose.

I will encourage any readers to read through the comments under the post on a beginner’s guide to MMS as there are others’ experiences listed there.

As a precaution I have to add this:  MMS has not been evaluated by the FDA for medical use.  You use it at your own risk.

Update!!  MMS has been determined to be dangerous by the FDA.  Use at your own risk.

I think this has been due to incautious, irresponsible use of MMS which has brought many to the ER for bad flu-like symptoms which in reality is an extreme detox.  FDA is cracking down on sources and proponents of MMS.

I can no longer advise you taking MMS for internal use.