The Things I Do

Home home beautiful lovely home at last! Armed with a box of oyster crackers (the traditional snack of the ms. m. family) I am more than ready to kick off my unwise choice of footwear (today was my light teaching load, so I wore my bombass thrifted turquoise mocs...but combined with the equally bombass shinsplints I have from yesterday's walk, not so great) and repent my failure to get a bottle of red wine ready.

I have about $120 till the 15th, and will definitely need to gas the car before then. The goal right now is not to tap into my poor savings account, but to really use this time to figure out rational weekly spending patterns. I am not going to shop, should have enough food, and should, theoretically, be able to make it through. (All this being made easier by the fact that I literally know one person in SDO, and she is just as cash-strapped as me, so I never go out. As a diehard vegetarian, I also don't eat out that much--veggie offerings, unless it's a dedicated vegetarian restaraunt, are so so blah and not worth my time.money.honey.)

I thought I'd make a list of the frugal things I do already, and why. I'm interested to see how much is sheer laziness, how much is green-ness, and how much is actual frugality. (Does that matter? I guess not, as long as the pennies make their way to the savings account...)

--I don't own a TV. I didn't have one for three years, never missed it, and am totally out of the habit. I do have internet, and watch what I want to watch on hulu.com or another free site. It's just about the perfect solution for me. I would take internet over TV in a flippin' heartbeat, and it saves me about $60 per month, plus the cost of the TV I never bought.
--I stopped buying magazines. In part to avoid paper wastage, and in part because holy hell! They're like $4 now! I read a lot of magazines' sites online, and did choose to subscribe to Yoga Journal and Lucky, my two favorites.
--I buy 90% of my clothes from the thrift store. Not my panties, and not if there's something wicked specific I want, like black boots that are not skanky chunky 90's-in-the-bad-way boots. On any given day, I am wearing something thrifted, and it's amazing to me the way my attitude about my wardrobe has changed. I used to treat thrifted clothes as disposable items; now, I want to brag about my good luck and rub everyone's face in the fact that my brand new Anthropologie top cost me $2hollabitches!
--I buy books secondhand; see above re: paper wastage.
--I eat out only once per week, usually in an attempt to try a new ethnic cuisine. I love my Vietnamese food--sure, it would be more frugal to learn how to make it, or cut the expenditure out all together. But right now, when simple pleasures are few and far between in my life, eating out on the back patio of the local Vietnamese place while reading a new mystery novel is an okay line item.
--No manis, pedis for me: I honestly could care less about manicures, and pedis are a once-in-a-very-long while treat. I do spend $ on a monthly eyebrow wax to take care of the caterpillars that nest above my eyes, thanks so much Dad.
--Don't belong to a gym. Gym fees are like flushing money away for me. I don't even feel guilty about never joining anymore. I walk instead, and try to direct that moolah to a yoga class or workshop.
--Canceled my PayPal account. It was waaaaaay too easy to drop a cool $100 at iTunes, or to bid on a random vintage dress that ended up costing me $45 at eBay, or to find a handcrafted ring/pair of earrings/ print at etsy. The madness had to end when I bid on a polyester dress that was so heinous, polyester itself blushed for shame. No pictures were ever taken, thank G-d.
--Limit my driving. I drive a lot for work, so when I get home, I try my best to walk the rest of the time. I purposely live in a very walkable neighborhood.

Um. Kind of feel like there should be more, to tell you the truthsies.
Guess that's part of the problem.

Next post: all the ways I fart my money away!