Living Frugally

Good afternoon Folks ~ I hope you are all having a good day today whatever you are doing. It is very warm at 85 and feels like it is 93 and the humidity is at 69%. I worked outside this morning in my main garden area, and had to come in when I started tripping over my feet and stuff, and I was sweating like crazy. I said to myself, that's it for today. I had done more trimming and weeding, pulling up beggar lice, and cats claw and Virginia creeper vines. A thunderstorm is expected but so far nothing yet. On the weather radar it looks like most of the rain activity is down around the Keys. Hopefully we will get some rain. We need it. I hear thunder in the distance so maybe we will.

Now on with this post about living frugally. It is something DH and I have done our whole married life. We started out as newlyweds living in Spain while DH served his tour of duty for the US Navy. Pay wasn't much, but we learned to make do and have been doing just that ever since. We've had lean times and good times. Right now is one of those lean times.

DH is semi retired. I work part-time. Have had my job for 13 years and may lose it in the next year as the economy has had a huge effect on the business. My hours and pay were cut the beginning of 2009, so that I have made half of what I had been making.

We buy in bulk and have been for quite some time now. Just recently we went to a newly opened Hispanic Grocery store in our area, and bought 10 lbs. of jasmine rice for around $8.50. One lb. in our regular grocery store is anywhere from $3-$7. I love Jasmine rice for Thai cooking. We had seen Jasmine rice at SAM's and it was more than what we just paid, and also saw it at an Asian grocer, at about the same price we just paid, but we had to buy double the amount.

At the Asian grocery store we bought a half gallon of Sesame Oil for $12.99, whereas at our normal grocery store I had bought small 4 oz bottles for around $3 and the price kept going up. It pays to shop around that is for sure. I love fixing different ethnic dishes and there are lots of stores to shop in this area.

Below is the neat woven plastic bag that the rice came in and the Sesame Oil is in picture below that. Sesame oil gives a wonderful nutty flavor to foods.

Besides buying in bulk, we have curbside shopped for years. DH did it before he joined the Navy, and we've never stopped. This is such a throw away society, that there is almost always something that can be saved from the landfill. We found our double size beech wood Colonial style head and foot boards while living in Spain. We had just started out on our vacation when on the outskirts of the next town, there was the bed. Oh my gosh, we certainly couldn't pass that up. We loaded onto the top of our car, and took it back to our apt., then headed off on vacation. (Later we saw a hand painted sign in that dumping area that said 'No ponga la basura, or something like that, which meant don't put your garbage here.) It has turned spindles and other parts turned as well, and there is some carving on the panel of the foot board. The picture below is of the foot board. Excuse our bedroom as we are in the process of remodeling. Hopefully when we are done, I'll be able to get a much better picture of the whole bed. The head board is higher by about 6 inches.

Our bed fits right into our cottage and cottage style living. I love it.

In better times, of course, we do buy things, in leaner times we do not. We have shopped thrift stores, flea markets and yard sales.

We have done remodeling of our cottage through the years and built outbuildings too. When we built our three outbuildings DH got some wonderful A grade truss wood and other lumber from a lumber recycling place for free. The wood was just going to be ground up. The wood and DH's work passed all inspections. Not all of our wood was free but we did get quite a bit for the frame work.

We have found statuary, and other outdoor pieces, plants, furniture, fencing, etc. not so much these days, as we are pickier, and we don't need stuff, but the stuff is still out there. The swing in our screened room was found in the trash across the street, the screening and aluminmum for our screened room was also found over time, the claw foot tub was sitting outside of a plumbing supply place and they were just going to throw it out, so we took it. The jacuzzi tub was $100 at the Goodwill many years ago. We bought a rebuilt pump and a filter. The brick pavers in our screened room were free, all the wood around the tub was free also. The round tiled concrete pad for our outdoor shower was a table top.

We could not afford all this stuff to go out and buy it new. We are thankful for all the good deals we've come across.

I have been making my own laundry detergent the past year or so and it works nice and smells wonderful too.

We buy herbs and some vitamins in bulk also.

Our cottage is paid for, our vehicles our paid for. We do not have cell phones or cable TV. I get books from the library. I cook from scratch. Lately I've been taking cuttings from plants we have here and rooting them. I've been in a couple of seed trades also that gave me seeds galore to plant and I'm still planting them.

I know the way we live isn't for everyone, but it works for us, and we are not in debt. Times are rough all around the world, and things may get rougher. We just have to take each day as it comes being thankful for our many blessings great and small.

I have really enjoyed reading frugal blogs, from different parts of the world. All are inspiring and encouraging. That's part of the fun of blogging, learning, sharing, the inspiration and encouragement.

Thank you all for blogging about your homes, your gardens, your projects, etc.

Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL