You Just Need a System (frugality and things)

Of course I keep birthday candles in the spice drawer. Doesn't everybody?

Many, many years ago, I read some advice on personal Bible reading, that I now know (because you can search out those long-lost things) was written by Peter Kreeft. One of his statements was "Forget commentaries." At least that's the way I remembered it; but it turns out what he said was, "At first, forget commentaries." As in, maybe for the time being you should just focus on the experience; but somewhere along the road, you will find a use for one. Keep that in mind for a minute.

More recently, I was listening to a podcast called Elevating Motherhood, where the guest was Kendra Adachi, author of the Lazy Genius books. Kendra said: "We don't need other people's systems; we need principles that can help us to build our own systems that work for us."

I don't think either person was saying that there is no need ever for cookbooks, guidebooks, menu plans, instruction manuals, or Bible commentaries. Or, shall I be bold enough to say it, teaching curriculum, study guides, and booklists that you haven't compiled yourself.

There has been talk from time to time about interfering with the liberty of teachers to choose their own books, but one might as well contend for everyman's liberty to make his own boots! It is one of those questions of the division of labour which belong to our civilisation; and if the question of liberty be raised at all, why should we not go further and let the children choose their books? But we know very well that the liberty we worship is an elusive goddess and that we do not find it convenient to do all those things we are at liberty to do. (Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, p. 272)

So what does all that have to do with living within our financial means?

Think of the old story of someone who has just had their kitchen re-organized by a relative--and now they can't find anything. In the words of another popular declutterer, Dana K. White, that "helper" has violated the principle that you don't put things where you should look for them, you put them where you would look for them. If you would instinctively look for kitchen scissors in the knives and forks drawer, that is a system that works for you, and nobody should insist that scissors belong with the foil and plastic wrap.

In other words, a lot of our everyday decisions evolve organically. If we're basing those choices on a few basic principles and on the particular circumstances of our lives at this time, then we're probably good, no matter where we put the scissors. (We hang ours on a fridge magnet.) At certain times, we might decide that we need a little extra help nailing those principles down, or figuring out the details, and that's where the commentaries (and podcasts) come in.

When we combine experience with solid principles, we can stand up to people who want to re-organize our kitchen, our shopping, or our homeschooling. Maybe they're well-meaning, maybe they're trying to sell us something, but, either way, we're already doing fine thank you have a good day. A few years ago we were living in an apartment building next door to a discount store. We didn't have a lot of room for food storage; plus, the freezer compartment didn't work very well; things got freezer-burned after only a short time. So, we did a lot of quick trips to the store, buying just what we needed. It wasn't a method we would have officially recommended, but it kept enough food in our fridge. Now we live in a townhouse (with a better freezer), but we're still close to a couple of food stores, so we've continued to make frequent but smaller trips, looking for whatever's on sale. As a household of two, we don't buy pounds and pounds of meat at a time, but we do look for in-store discounts that  let us score a meal's worth of pork chops for (sometimes) just a couple of dollars, combining them with things we already have in the cupboard (like the cranberry sauce we never did eat at Thanksgiving). As another example, we often make enough of a main dish to have leftovers for lunch; and if we don't have any leftovers around, maybe we heat up some canned soup. But if some friendly person came along and tried to move us into some other system, say weekly food delivery, or buying very large packages, or making lunches on Sunday for every day of the coming week, we might wonder if our way of doing things was wrong. Not pretty enough, not environmental enough, not frugal enough.

It's the same thing that makes people buy fancy household organizers, or labelled spice racks, or beautiful bookmarks. In Peter Kreeft's terms, maybe an expensive multi-volume Bible commentary. We want to do things better, more efficiently, more frugally; we may spend a lot of money attempting to do so. Now, sometimes that impulse to learn more, or try new ideas, is money well spent. Maybe we find a good book about car maintenance, or we download information that will help us save on baggage fees by travelling lighter. Other times it's just time and money wasted, and we probably sort of knew that all along, as we somewhat guiltily stick the package of chili powder in the cupboard instead of decanting it into its little jar.

We can learn from other people's systems. In fact, we should! But in the end, we are going to slip the scissors (or the birthday candles) back to wherever we will remember to look for them. We will also probably grab whatever piece of paper's handy for a bookmark.

Because it's enough.

Mysteries of Frugality

Living frugally sometimes means fixing things you've found. Often it means you just keep plugging along, eating up pantry or freezer food, wearing what you've scrounged or altered or been given, driving the car you locked into several years ago. Sometimes it means you reach into the stash of pinecones and fake acorns you bought at the dollar store eight years ago, and add them to the fake leaves someone gave you a long time before that, to make a fall arrangement in a thrifted basket. (Why don't we just go out and find free, real pinecones, acorns, and leaves? Because of allergies and teeny little bugs. Besides, I already have these, so they don't cost me anything. If you love picking up real maple leaves, go for it.)

Today I have a shoe story with a mystery attached to it. Recently I found a nice pair of  leather pumps at a thrift store.

What I didn't notice until I got them home was that the soles were separating from the uppers. See the space by my thumb? So, the first mystery to me is why a pair of shoes, from a good brand, that didn't appear to be otherwise heavily worn, would have that problem. And not just one shoe, but both of them.

But the other mystery, to my frugal mind, was why the original owner didn't either take them to a shoe repair shop (if they were in the habit of buying better-brand leather shoes anyway), or buy a tube of Shoe Goo (if they were tightwads). Which is what we did, when we happened to be in a store today that sold shoe sprays and polishes and things like that. And...they were having a new-location opening sale on just about everything, so we got a discount on the Goo.

Sometimes you have to change your frugal habits because the price of something goes up, or your family size changes, or you move to an area where the expensive thing costs less, or vice versa. When we had more people eating dinner at our house, I almost always had fresh onions, garlic cloves, and a bunch of celery in the fridge, and we used them before they had a chance to go bad. As empty nesters with (often) less ambition to chop things, we've switched over to a frozen vegetable combination that, until recently, was called Spaghetti Mix, but has now been relabelled as Frozen Diced Vegetables. I guess somebody figured out that you can use diced onion-celery-peppers-and-sometimes-carrots for a lot of other things besides spaghetti sauce, though it is good for that too. A package lasts us quite awhile, and we don't have to worry about fresh onions sprouting or celery going limp. As for garlic, we've been using the jarred minced stuff for quite awhile now, for the same reasons. And garlic powder for homemade seasoning mixes.

Sometimes, even if you're frugal, you have to know when it's the right time to spend money (though hopefully not too much).Fixing broken things in your house or on your car falls into this category, and so does medical care. But there are less vital things that come up too. Recently I did a whole blog post about fitting travel gear into a well-used freebie shoulder bag. Although I am not actually a rabbit going to a conference, the packing plan is a real one. After I posted the story, my husband wanted to use the bag himself, and when he was packing it, the zipper pull came right off. Knowing that I planned to use it for that one final trip (because it fits the extremely small size limits of our own Bunny Airways), he offered to try to replace the zipper pull with one scavenged from something else. Being Mr. Fixit, I was pretty sure that if anybody could manage to get one last hoo-rah out of that bag, it would be him.

But no, it was not to be, and we said our final goodbyes to the shoulder bag. I searched around online, but couldn't find anything that wasn't too big or too small. My husband's search was more successful--he found a reasonably-priced messenger bag that fit the size requirements, and that he actually likes as well (it's labelled as a men's item, which to me is like calling diced vegetables spaghetti mix, a bit limiting). The bag arrived very quickly (the wonders of this time we're living in), and I did a trial pack-it-up with about the same amount of stuff I used in the blog story. The doll will not be travelling, she's just demonstrating the size of things.

So, we fix things, or sometimes we don't. We keep and re-use things, or sometimes we don't. We buy fresh things, or sometimes we don't. Call it a mystery, but it works.

Betty Bunny, Master of the Skies

Betty Bunny has struck gold again with her latest juvenile mystery novel, Burrowed Trouble. She has been invited to teach some promising young writer rabbits at a three-day conference, an idea which doesn't thrill her especially at first. The conference is being held a full day's journey away, and she will have to travel first by bus and then on Bunny Airways. Maybe she should just say no and stay home to work on ideas for her own next book. However, her ears perk up when she hears that one of her writer heroes, Nigella Quottontail, will be the keynote speaker. She could also fit in a visit to the famous Bunnyheim Gallery, something she has always wanted to see. So she says yes.

The conference has paid for her travel, but when she checks over the details, she realizes that those budget-minded organizing bunnies sprang for only a Super-Super-Cheapo ticket, which means she can take only one bag that fits under the tail of the rabbit in front of her. And that's not a very big space. Can Betty do it? Stay tuned.

"Start With A...Coat?"

Betty thinks through several possible iterations of her cold-weather, tiny-bag travel wardrobe, and makes a couple of hard decisions. First, she is going to go trousers-only on this trip, because skirts and dresses require extra bunny underpinnings, not to mention shoes. Second, she's going to go with almost everything in navy blue, for reasons of simplicity. Third, she decides to wear her nicest green coat. The conference is supposed to be indoors; however, the attendees will likely take some time to hop around town.

And that last decision helps her figure out what to do next. She matches the coat with a multi-coloured scarf, which would also look good with her lavender turtleneck top. She adds in a navy blazer (it's stretchy like a cardigan), and a pair of pants that are sort-of-jeans-but-nicer. She thinks about wearing her navy loafers, because they're easy to take off for airport security; but when she checks the weather, it sounds like her waterproof ankle boots would be a better choice. She'll just have to make do with one other pair of shoes.

Betty realizes that, rather than planning her other outfits by possible activity, it might make sense to organize layers of clothes in sequence, so as not to have to do any laundry (outside of emergencies). This is what she comes up with:

First conference day: Pink tank top worn under a navy silk shirt, with navy knit pants, and probably the same scarf, plus navy sneakers.

Second conference day (and the art gallery): The navy shirt worn under a navy and white striped sweater, with one of the pairs of pants and her shoes. 

Third conference day, when she is scheduled to give a talk: A t-shirt (doesn't matter much what colour, but she picks teal) worn under the buttoned-up jacket, with the navy pants and a different scarf, plus shoes.

Day of return travel: The striped sweater, with one of the pairs of pants, plus the jacket and coat, and boots. 

If you didn't keep track there, Betty is going to pack a sweater, a shirt, a t-shirt, a tank top, a pair of pants, and one pair of running shoes (plus bunny-jamas and undies, and everything else she needs). The clothes, Betty thinks she has nailed now. It's the "everything else" she's a bit worried about.

What Does One Rabbit Need?

After a trial run with the clothes and shoes, Betty figures that she has just enough room left for one small  liquids bag, a zippered pouch for charger cords and jewelry, and a small purse that can fit inside the bag and hold small items like a comb, toothbrush, and chewing gum (bunny ears are sensitive to takeoff pressure changes). So, she can take anything she wants--as long as it fits within those limits.

Luckily, the conference will be printing out all the student handouts, and her own notes are on her Babblet (a bunny electronic device). She can put a few things in her coat and blazer pockets too.

Security checks can be stressful.

If you want to watch Betty pack in more detail, here are some photos.

The five items of clothing. (Forgot to include the extra scarf.)

Fitting them into a (thrifted) packing cube, along with pajamas and undies.

Shirt is folded on top.

Cube zipped up.

Things going into a small purse: money and i.d.cards, pen, comb, tissues, and other non-liquid toiletries.

Packed in the purse. (She took the shoulder strap off the purse to make it fit better; the strap can slip into the bottom of the bag. But maybe it doesn't make that much difference.)

(Thrifted) zippered case to hold charger cords and a jewelry pouch, sitting on a knitted hat.

Everything goes inside the hat, for some padding.

Clear bag for liquids.

Everything shown so far, plus shoes, a notebook, and the strap for the purse.

It all fits in. (The red thing is the packing cube.)  Betty's electronic device will slip in between the purse and the packing cube. No other space to spare on this trip, though--if anything else goes in, something will have to come out.

Zipped up.

Off she goes.

And here she comes back again. It's always nice to be home. 

(She did get to meet Nigella! And Nigellette.)

And she's already busy thinking of plots for the next bunny bestseller.

Frugal Life: When to say yes, when to say no

Years ago I read a novel about a family facing an economic crisis in 1923. The husband had lost his job, and the bills were piling up.

Finally [Irene] took an astonishing step. Without consulting anyone, she put $5.00 down on an electric sewing machine, which she arranged to buy on the installment plan, paying $8.00 additional each month for a year.

"At a time like this!" her husband fumed. "What are you thinking of, Irene?"

"I'm going to make clothes for some of my friends," Irene retorted grimly. "I know half a dozen women who like the way I dress and who can't find sizes to fit them properly in the stores." (Betty Cavanna, Joyride)

If you do the math, that comes out to about a hundred dollars (apparently about $1800 in 2024 dollars), so it's not hard to see why that made Irene's husband stagger a bit. (He probably also wondered why anyone would need an electric sewing machine.) However,  Irene turned out to be right, and the dressmaking business was a success. Sometimes getting ahead (or at least staying on course) means you have to take a calculated risk.

Buying used things can be a calculated risk, or just a regular old random one.

But so can buying new things, especially these days. Mr. Fixit recently bought a new pair of sneakers at a local store, in a brand that has previously worked well for him. However, these ones hurt from the first day he wore them, and even so, the store wasn't especially cheerful about taking them back (they did eventually). Everything you buy, new or used, carries some amount of risk. One of the ways you can minimize that is to try to pay so little for things that, if you hate the taste or the shirt's too tight, you won't feel like you've lost much (even if you bought them at a yard sale and there aren't any returns).

Example #1: I posted in August about some packages of rice and mixed grains that we bought for half price. I was a bit leery of the lentil-ancient grains mix, as it sounded like it might cook up into something awfully heavy or with a weird flavour. I thought I might have to doctor it with taco spices or something to make it edible. However, one night we needed a side dish, and I decided to cook up a small potful to check it out. We actually ended up liking it quite a lot--it has an interesting Thanksgiving-ish flavour and texture. So, you never know.

And, on the other hand, the baked yogurt-egg-fruit thing was too much to choke down, so I had to call that one a loss.

Example #2: On the didn't-work-out side, I bought a winter coat for five dollars at a church rummage sale. It was a good brand and it was in good shape. However...it turned out to be too big for me, so I'm going to re-donate it. I guess I will be wearing my same-old coat this winter. But five dollars is a manageable loss.

On the wins side, though, I found a boiled-wool vest for a dollar at the same rummage sale, and a pair of  leather pumps at Value Village (something I really needed).

Example #3: I had thrifted some candles in fall shapes, a couple of years ago, and stored them in a Ziploc bag. We lit a couple of them, and  used the rest as decorations. When I pulled them out this fall, I found that most of them had gotten kind of soft and sticky, maybe from the bag, maybe just from age, so I disposed of of them. Well, we probably got our small-amount-of-moneys'-worth from them, so I wasn't too put out; and we have enough other things to decorate with that I'm not looking for replacements.

On the positive side, one of our favourite thrift shops had some new-in-package silver taper candles, which I'm already thinking will be our Advent wreath candles in another few weeks. I'm not a colour traditionalist on that--I think silver could be as nice as purple and pink (and easier to find).

They might even work with these sparkly candleholders I found in the summer. The holders are meant to hold tealight candles, but with some sticky stuff and maybe a bit of padding, they could work with tapers. 

Well, one way or another we'll use the tapers.

Example #4: Travel stuff. About a year and a half ago, I made a trip by air, with only an underseat bag, and I bought a new backpack that fit within that airline's size limits. Sometime in the near future, I will be taking off again for a couple of days, but with a different airline, one that has even tighter size limits. Well, I'm not buying yet another bag just for one trip, so I scrounged around to see what we did have that would fit. It's down to a choice between two.

 I also thrifted a couple of packing cubes and other gizmos that might help this more-in-less venture succeed.

But that's what the next post will be about.

Experiments in Breakfast

The supermarket near us is still renovating and clearing out food items. Last week we found a large frozen chicken potpie, a lemon poppy-seed loaf, a canister of steel cut oats, and a tube of tomato paste, all for half price. The tomato paste is in the pantry, and we've been eating the other things

Part One: I haven't seen any deals lately on cold cereal, and with just two of us I don't always feel like messing up a pan with oatmeal.  I've tried microwaving quick oats by the bowlful, but they're sometimes too mushy. I thought these steel cut oats would be a good fit for Budget101's Instant Oatmeal mix. You run some of the oats to powder in the blender, then mix them with the rest and add your choice of sweeteners, dried fruit, etc. 

I used up a few cups of the oats, plus a bit of cinnamon, brown sugar, and a few stray Craisins. I also added a dash of salt to each bag (the recipe doesn't call for it).

I think it turned out pretty well. You have to experiment a bit with the amount of boiling water you add, as it's easy to get it too thin (you don't want gruel). If you don't feel like the oats are "cooked" enough by just adding hot water, you can try microwaving them instead. (That is, add the mix and water to your cereal bowl and microwave, not nuke it in the bag.)

And it's definitely an easy breakfast option when you're not up to much more than groping for the spoons and the jar of coffee.

The Part Two this week, I'm still debating the success of. I wanted to make something higher-protein, so I tried out a recipe for "pancake bowls." This particular recipe required most of a container of Greek yogurt, several eggs, some frozen fruit, and a few other things like baking powder and flour (no fat, very little sugar); you combine most of the ingredients, top with the fruit, and bake until solid. The results? well, don't expect a Dutch Baby. It's more like...baked yogurt and eggs. (Or Tubby Custard.) Which, I guess, is not a bad thing, and it's quite nutritious; it's just not necessarily a delicious thing. 

Each of these little pans is supposed to be one serving, but I can't manage more than a piece at a time. Now that they've chilled in the fridge, I think I'm going to cut them in smaller portions and freeze them, then microwave when I want one.

Would I make this particular recipe again? Probably not, at least not without a couple of modifications. A little more spice or sugar wouldn't be unwelcome. Or just eating some of the Greek yogurt and fruit without going to all the trouble of baking it.

Now there's a thought.

Ten dollar thrift haul, plus a jacket

Janice at the Vivienne Files website often starts a wardrobe with a small core of neutral clothes. She then lets her fictional heroine go shopping for a few additions, and shows how the new things might be used with the older ones.

But I'm going to start with the additions, then go back. A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a necklace, a bracelet, and a pair of earrings for a total of $7 (Canadian). Actually we had a five-dollar loyalty card to use, so it came to two-plus-tax.

This week, I was browsing the dollar rack at one of our usual stops, and I found three items that I thought would work with clothes I already had. One is a pink top with a draped-neck front. It's on the large side, so the draped part needs a camisole underneath. It could be also worn back to front.

The second thing was a navy skirt with kind of an assymetrical, draped thing going on in the front. I do have another navy skirt, and I hesitated just for a minute on this one because it's polyester, and not the nicest kind of polyester, but the different shape got me curious, and I bought it.

The third dollar find was a grey zippered activewear jacket. I do have a grey hoodie, but for a dollar I was not going to pass this one up. I thought the neckline might work for layering when I don't want a hood sticking out.

So, we're up to ten dollars. Minus the loyalty card.

Finally, we dropped in at a for-profit thrift, where the prices tend to be a bit higher. I found a mostly-wool Eddie Bauer lightweight coat/blazer, and I really liked it, so I'm adding it to this story too. I could have done a bit better on the price if I'd had a coupon; but even so, it was a good find. With the five dollars taken off the jewelry, the total of everything came to about $20.

To do a Vivienne Files-type story, I thought I would put together a casual, mostly navy core wardrobe of things I already had. I'll show you those items, but not how I would put them together--you can figure that out.

Two t-shirts

Another t-shirt and an "un-blazer"

Pull-on pants, mixed navy/grey pants, and jeans

V-neck pullover, and grey cotton pullover (given to me recently by a daughter who didn't want it)

Blue and white striped cotton shirt; navy silk shirt

White blouse (vintage, thrifted recently); off-white mock neck sweater

Not terribly exciting, but you could get along with just these things for awhile, especially if you added some accessories. So, here are a few outfit ideas with the dollar finds and the jacket. I didn't include the three pieces of jewelry, but they would blend well too.

Pink top, navy skirt. Boots, purse, necklaces.

White blouse, navy pullover, navy skirt. I'm not as sure about this combination because the navy of the skirt is different from the sweater; but I might try another sweater that would work better. (Boots, purse, necklaces)

Navy shirt, navy skirt; striped scarf, purse, boots. Again, the colour match isn't perfect, although I think you could get away with it here as it doesn't look as formal as the other outfit.

Pink top, navy pants. Purse, animal-print scarf, boots.

Pink top worn backwards under the grey not-hoodie; a pair of grey pants that I substituted because I didn't want to keep photographing jeans; boots, necklace.

Blue and white shirt worn under the grey jacket; jeans; backpack, boots.

Grey jacket zipped all the way up and worn underneath the grey pullover. Jeans, purse, boots.

White sweater, navy/grey pants, plaid jacket. Purse, necklace, navy sneakers.

Pink top worn backwards under the plaid jacket; navy pants; purse, boots, necklace.

Navy sweater (backwards), plaid jacket, skirt. Turquoise necklace, boots. I don't think this is going to be my most useful skirt, due more to the colour than the shape. But playing around like this is good for getting inspiration, even if I end up using a different skirt. Or pants.

So: now I have some ideas for how I'm going to wear my little haul.

Good things happen on the dollar rack!