Just curious who else is living super frugal

[pinusresinosa]

My husband has Wrights. Some pairs are almost 10 years old and still look new.

I love all of the suggestions and ideas in this thread, so very inspiring! Great discussion!

We save money by making our clothes. Well, I do, and mostly for myself and my daughters. I look online/offline for fabric that's under $2.00/yard, notions for super cheap anywhere I can find them. I won't skimp on the thread though... learned that the hard way by having to repair clothing too often.





I use this same pattern a lot. Costs about $2.00 total to make one dress for my older girl right now. Even less for my younger girl. Myself about $4.00.

 

[lismarc]

My husband has Wrights. Some pairs are almost 10 years old and still look new.

I love all of the suggestions and ideas in this thread, so very inspiring! Great discussion!

We save money by making our clothes. Well, I do, and mostly for myself and my daughters. I look online/offline for fabric that's under $2.00/yard, notions for super cheap anywhere I can find them. I won't skimp on the thread though... learned that the hard way by having to repair clothing too often.





I use this same pattern a lot. Costs about $2.00 total to make one dress for my older girl right now. Even less for my younger girl. Myself about $4.00.

aaaawwwwww... I don't know what's more precious, the dresses or those beautiful babies. Great job!!.

 

[pinusresinosa]

aaaawwwwww... I don't know what's more precious, the dresses or those beautiful babies. Great job!!.

Thank you very much! I'm fortunate and thankful for them for sure.

 

[lismarc]

I had been looking into making fermented feed for my "peeps", I didn't understand any of it. I was talking about it on another thread and it was told to me in what I call, Lisa Lingo = language I can understand.

It is sooooo easy to make and will cut my feed bill in half, possibly more. talk about saving money. PLUS, its better for the chickens than just dry feed.

I've also started sprouting seeds for them today. My understanding is that for every 1 oz of seed, it will make 6 oz of food. WHAT??!!!

Yesterday, I gave them the fermented feed for the first time. THEY LOVED IT! In a few days the sprouts will be ready. I will start a new batch of sprouts every day so that I have a constant supply. Doesn't take much time at all for the savings to me and health benefits to my "peeps".

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Beekissed]

Good move! It's saved me bunches and the birds are so healthy on it, yolks are big and the poop don't stink as bad. All good in the hood on that FF.

 

[Theda's Mom]

You are a beautiful seamstress, pinusresinosa! Before going to work full time, I also made all my own clothes, but my sewing was never that good.

I am enjoying this discussion too: living super frugal doesn't have to be painful. In fact there are a lot of advantages to it, and meeting the challenge can be fun and satisfying.

 

[lismarc]

I love it when I find another use for "stuff". I've always saved my dryer lint and used dryer sheets to use as fire starters. Works great! As I posted yesterday that I just started to sprout. Everyone's directions was to put cheesecloth or a piece of screen over the jar. I didn't have either one. hhhmmmm.. what to use??? The directions I like the best was to lay the jar on its side while its sprouting, so I had to have something....

As I was doing some laundry last night and was tossing my used dryer sheets in the Ziploc bag I store them in.. IT HIT ME... use that for the jar. Normally, I cut all my dryer sheets in half to use but for the sake of my sprouts... the next few loads I left them whole, used it in the dryer, rinsed it out really well and hung them over my sink faucet to dry till I use them.

I rinsed the sprouts this morning and put the dryer sheet back on with the jar ring. To drain, I just turned it over. Worked perfectly. Couldn't believe how strong those things are.

there ya go... two more ways to reuse dryer sheets.

 

[pinusresinosa]

We don't even use dryer sheets, lol! It's harder in the winter than the summer. Line dried clothes are stiffer off of the line (cotton ones mostly) until you give them a big shake, then they loosen and are softer than any clothes out of the dryer, especially if they've been rained on, heh! It's true though.

Another way we save money that goes along with making clothing when I can is, we look for ways to DIY everywhere. If we ca't DIY it, we do that thing where we sit one week before we buy it to give us time to stew on whether or not we really want the item. If we wait a week, 95% of the time we've decided we don't want the item. Just walk away and see if there's a simple DIY solution first, then wait a week to see if you still want it. There are limits to this though- like I've been wanting a canoe for years and it's always on the back of my mind- been waiting for a second hand deal to pop up on Craigslist or anywhere else. I have a hard time paying brand new prices for 10 year old well loved canoes, which you see too often. I can't make a canoe either, I've thought about it! LOL

Mostly, being happy with what we have right now works well, and although we do want nice things and see others with them, we try our best to not fall into that "gotta have it" trap. Usually works, and we live within our means. Still not making enough to save for retirement however, but we're young and just starting out and figure that if we can live within our means now and keep on the good course, we'll be ok. We hope. We do take pride in having a we-will-make-it-work attitude and keeping our minds open, which if you're going to make life work today that's what you need. For example, we were sick of being totally stolen from when it came to rent- rental places cost way too much. The cost of living is too much. So, we got approved for an 80k home loan working part time while in college (our credit helped) and we won a HUD bid on the house we're in now that was pretty ugly, but it's bones were good and things were new where it counted. We got our 1600 square foot house on 2 acres for 52k, new roof, dry basement, new furnace, well system, septic, everything. Our mortgage, including insurance and taxes is less than half what we were paying for a hole in the wall garbage trap of an apartment- and with paint and some willingness to live with older stuff right now, our cost of living is now manageable thanks to how much our housing costs. The kicker? Our roof and basement are solid unlike our apartment, it's not drafty like our apartment, we can have our pets, I can have a garden and a greenhouse, and our quality of life is much, much better. Oh, and now we get to live in the country! But a lot of people come over and sneer- nothing is new. All of our thrift store furniture scares people I think. And I'm a clean freak so it's not like our place is gross- just not what some like. Our walls aren't stark white and my bedroom furniture less than matches. But I love it and I'm happy and I sort of don't really like people who care about having new things anyway.

Maybe it's just all about attitude when it comes to money and being frugal?

And thank you about my seamstress skills! I learned from my mother in law, she made me sew my first daughter a sleeping baggie when she was an infant as my first go around- dove right in with a zipper and everything! I happen to love to make clothes so that helps with keeping going with it.

 

[Aacre]

We don't even use dryer sheets, lol! It's harder in the winter than the summer. Line dried clothes are stiffer off of the line (cotton ones mostly) until you give them a big shake, then they loosen and are softer than any clothes out of the dryer, especially if they've been rained on, heh! It's true though.

Another way we save money that goes along with making clothing when I can is, we look for ways to DIY everywhere. If we ca't DIY it, we do that thing where we sit one week before we buy it to give us time to stew on whether or not we really want the item. If we wait a week, 95% of the time we've decided we don't want the item. Just walk away and see if there's a simple DIY solution first, then wait a week to see if you still want it. There are limits to this though- like I've been wanting a canoe for years and it's always on the back of my mind- been waiting for a second hand deal to pop up on Craigslist or anywhere else. I have a hard time paying brand new prices for 10 year old well loved canoes, which you see too often. I can't make a canoe either, I've thought about it! LOL

Mostly, being happy with what we have right now works well, and although we do want nice things and see others with them, we try our best to not fall into that "gotta have it" trap. Usually works, and we live within our means. Still not making enough to save for retirement however, but we're young and just starting out and figure that if we can live within our means now and keep on the good course, we'll be ok. We hope. We do take pride in having a we-will-make-it-work attitude and keeping our minds open, which if you're going to make life work today that's what you need. For example, we were sick of being totally stolen from when it came to rent- rental places cost way too much. The cost of living is too much. So, we got approved for an 80k home loan working part time while in college (our credit helped) and we won a HUD bid on the house we're in now that was pretty ugly, but it's bones were good and things were new where it counted. We got our 1600 square foot house on 2 acres for 52k, new roof, dry basement, new furnace, well system, septic, everything. Our mortgage, including insurance and taxes is less than half what we were paying for a hole in the wall garbage trap of an apartment- and with paint and some willingness to live with older stuff right now, our cost of living is now manageable thanks to how much our housing costs. The kicker? Our roof and basement are solid unlike our apartment, it's not drafty like our apartment, we can have our pets, I can have a garden and a greenhouse, and our quality of life is much, much better. Oh, and now we get to live in the country! But a lot of people come over and sneer- nothing is new. All of our thrift store furniture scares people I think. And I'm a clean freak so it's not like our place is gross- just not what some like. Our walls aren't stark white and my bedroom furniture less than matches. But I love it and I'm happy and I sort of don't really like people who care about having new things anyway.

Maybe it's just all about attitude when it comes to money and being frugal?

And thank you about my seamstress skills! I learned from my mother in law, she made me sew my first daughter a sleeping baggie when she was an infant as my first go around- dove right in with a zipper and everything! I happen to love to make clothes so that helps with keeping going with it.

First of all, beautiful daughter!

Looks like you did really well on the sleeping baggie. It's adorbs!

Good for you that you guys were able to see the potential in a house that had good bones and new things where it counts! I know exactly what you mean about people coming over and acting kind of stuck up about the place. I've learned to accept that people just don't think like us frugal people can, and many times, I decide to opt out of friendships because they just don't understand it at all (Oh well, it's cheaper to not have as many friends ). What I love about living out in the country in a house that is bare bones, is that you can do pretty much whatever you want to it. I love doing our own drywall and flooring projects. A few years ago, we saved a lot of money by investing in a metal roof and putting it on by ourselves. I'm not sure how old your house is, but our's was built in the 1940's and most likely started out as a one room house/shed. Over the years, the house was added on to, and I swear that some of the rooms aren't square/straight, but I love it and wouldn't trade it in for the world. Not only because I get to do what I want to it, but because the mortgage is cheap and the house has a lot of character that new houses just don't have.

And to add to the living frugal list, we heat the house with wood. We have been very fortunate that this winter's supply of wood was given to us for free, all we had to do was haul it out of the mountains. It only took us two trips and doing the loading and unloading. Totally worth it though!

 

[Beekissed]

X 2....both of them! I agree 100%!