Festival of Frugality

In many ways, environmentalism and frugality can go hand in hand. This week’s festival shows that, featured at Pragmatic Environmentalism. There was a plethora of interesting and insightful entries, including:

• How to Afford Switching to Cloth Bags – The Conscious Shopper.
• Cook More & Eat In – Chief Family Officer.
• Eight Versatile Dishes Entirely Adaptable to Your Tastes – Cheap. Healthy. Good.
• Square Foot Garden Fever – Being Frugal.

Thanks for hosting! Join us next week by entering your post – today!

The Festival of Frugality travels this week to the Ultimate Money Blog, where the festival urges us to save green and live green. No specific editor’s picks in this festival, which gives me license to pick a few of my own:

• How Often Should You Check Your Credit Report? posted at Military Finance Network
• Save Money By Making Your Own Household Cleaners posted at The Canadian Finance Blog
• Make Use of The Free Time You Have posted at Free From Broke

Thanks for hosting! Next week the festival travels to Pragmatic Environmentalism so get those entries in early!

This week the Festival of Frugality goes to the Cooking Manager blog, where you can learn to cook frugally and without wasting resources. Browse the festival’s wisdom this week, including a few that stood out to me:

• Are You Spending Less This Year? posted at PT Money.
• Make Your Own Disney Greeting Cards posted at Family Balance Sheet.
• Convert Any Toilet Into A Dual-Flush Water Saving Machine posted at Energy Saving Gadgets.

Thanks for hosting! Make sure to be included in next week’s edition by submitting your entry here!

Part of being a frugal-minded person is being able to discern value. Value does not mean you spend the least amount of money possible all the time. It means, in part, that you know when to spend and when spending is not worth it and there is a better alternative.

Food is one of the things that I used to be cheap about and I have learned to become frugal. My family’s nutrition is important to me, and there are times where it seemed easier to grab the processed pre-packaged high calorie/fat things versus really looking at what are frugal alternatives. As my family began to eat healthier, yes we did spend a bit more money of food, but at the same time, we learned how to shop fresh smarter.

Buy in season. Look for sales on produce. Find out what can be frozen (cheese is my favorite thing to freeze!) and what is not (please do not freeze lettuce… just saying). Plan a menu around what is fresh and inexpensive this week. Buying fresh does not need to break the bank – but it may require a little extra effort.

Or maybe they do, when they come to rest at Yes I am Cheap! The festival this week looks at New Beginnings, in honor of the new year and new resolutions. These made the cut as editor’s picks:

• How To Achieve Your Top New Years Resolution posted at Wealth Creation Blog.
• January Extreme Challenge posted at The Conscious Shopper.
• File Your Taxes on the Cheap This Year posted at PT Money.
• 365 Days of Saving Money: Streamline Your Bathing posted at Modern Tightwad.
• 101 Ways to Cut Your Spending This Year posted at Being Frugal.

Thanks for hosting! Make sure to be included in next week’s festival by submitting your posts bright and early!

One of the things I have tried to do in my own life is live a life without clutter. I am not very successful at that, but I do make a conscious effort to reduce the amount of things in my life that have no real meaning to me and simply take up space.

One of the ways I accomplish that is by eliminating many of the things that come into our home before they find their own place to be. After the holidays is one of the biggest times that a lot of unnecessary stuff comes to my house to find a home. So I work to find new homes for the things that I don’t want or need.

If your house looks a little overrun – donate what is useful to some but not useful to you. Your home will be a little easier to manage and someone else can use and treasure what you may not.

The Festival of Frugality gets off to a rip-roaring start, beginning 2010 at Eliminate The Muda. Hop on over to find out what Muda is (I didn’t know!) and check out the great articles! One that especially caught my eye, being that I am far from handy, was:

Funny About Money: When DIY Doesn’t Save Much. It would save nothing for me in a lot of cases! Recently I thought I’d have to tear out my ceiling because my bathtub was leaking and a plumber determined it was actually the wax seal on my toilet (a very easy fix). Goes to show me.

Thanks for hosting!! If you’d like to host a future edition of the Festival – contact us! We’d love to have you.

I’m not really all that up on the borders of decades, but this week’s host of the Festival of Frugality, Foreigner’s Finances, points out that this week’s Festival is the last of the decade. Where does time go? And with that, he celebrates a decade’s worth of frugal people, and a decade’s worth of entries as well, including a few I picked out:

Free Money Finance: Are Outlet Stores a Good Idea?

Frugally Green: The Art of the Staycation

Thanks for hosting! Make sure to be a part of the first festival of the NEXT decade by entering your best work here!

Holiday times are upon us, and many many people take advantage of the pre-holiday sales. But what about the post-holiday ones?

I am not just talking about sales on Christmas merchandise – but on many many things. My supermarket, for example, stocks a number of things during the holidays that they don’t want hanging around afterwards, even though it is not all holiday-themed. So I can find a great price on anything from toys to cookies to stemware, even if they are not “Christmas” exactly.

If there is something you need – think about where it might not be needed anymore, from a store perspective.

I am on vacation away from home, and my wireless connection is less than ideal at the moment.  So visit Studenomics’ explanation of why birthdays are not always merry, and see who’s who in the Festival of Frugality this week!

And remember to enter for next week’s edition – information on the submission link on the right!  The host is still pending, so it could even be you – see the info on the hosting page linked to the right   Start out the new year right with some Festival goodness.