Good morning and happy, happy, happy Monday!
We had another low-key weekend around here, but it was so nice and much-needed. Here are some photos from it!
Clockwise from top left:
- Poor Murphy just wasn’t feeling Sunday morning and stayed in bed for hours. His life is so hard.
- On Friday night, Mal and I ordered pizza, salad, and spinach artichoke dip from Bertucci’s. It was an epic dinner.
- A CrossFit friend, who works for Frito-Lay, gave us a few party size bags of Cheetos, so Mal and I have been chomping on them all weekend.
- I ate my first pumpkin oatmeal of the season, and it was so delicious!
- Mal and I went to Rustic Kitchen for lunch yesterday. I ordered a hot chocolate. Mmm!
- I drank my first Sugar Sleigh Ride tea of the season! I sipped it while reading this week’s issue of US Weekly.
- Lunch on Saturday afternoon was from the Whole Foods hot and salad bars. So yum!
- Saturday night’s dinner included “organic” mozzarella sticks.
- Murphy gathered acorns for the long winter ahead and then chewed them up all over the living room. #butthead
On Saturday afternoon, I got sucked into an Extreme Cheapskates marathon. Has anyone else watched this show? It basically profiles people who are super frugal and shows just how far they’ll go to save (literally) a penny.
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I thought this show was totally fascinating. I could not stop watching it, and I must have watched 5 or 6 episodes in a row. Of course, some of the things I watched were a little too out there for me (i.e. sharing floss, dumpster diving for food, using cloth toilet paper that is then washed and reused), but I actually got a few great ideas from these extreme cheapskates:
- Using dryer lint as a fire starter””apparently, it’s really flammable. The guy on TV packed it into a cardboard toilet paper roll and then lit it to start a fire in his fireplace. I definitely want to try this!
- Sudsing up your car right before it’s about to rain for a free rinse from Mother Nature. I love that this saves you time and energy too!
- Cutting open your toothpaste tube after you’ve squeezed all you can out of it. I actually do this with bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, and face wash””you’ll get an extra week’s worth of product!
Watching Extreme Cheapskates also reminded me of a number of frugal things that my family did when I was growing up. My sister and I lived with my mom, who was completely normal with her money-saving ways. She clipped coupons, shopped sales and flea markets, and took us to thrift shops to go clothes shopping. My dad, however, was a bit more “extreme” with his frugality (although, it was NOTHING like what I watched on TV over the weekend). My sister and I only stayed with him on occasion, so here are just a few things I remember from our time at my dad’s house:
- To save money on shampoo and conditioner, my dad told my sister and me to use bar soap to wash our hair, which, of course, was, um, awesome when it came to detangling long hair. My mom was not happy about this!
- To save money on toilet paper, my dad instructed us to count out 4 squares of toilet paper per trip to the bathroom. (I assume this was for #1s, but who knows? I’m pretty sure I didn’t abide by it.)
- My dad almost never bought anything new. He’s a tinkerer and good with his hands, so he was always repairing or creating things from what he had around the house. At one point, I remember he somehow hooked up a vacuum to a vent in the kitchen, so he could just use the hose when he wanted to vacuum and not drag out the whole vacuum cleaner.
Questions of the Day
Do you have a frugal family? Did they do anything “extreme” when you were growing up?
Do you consider yourself frugal now? What are some “extreme” or (just semi-extreme) things you do to save money now?
P.S. Just got word from Reebok that they’re planning to offer some really great Black Friday promotions. Stay tuned for details!
