Frugal Philosophy-Playing With The Hand You Are Dealt

You know, a lot of frugal living is not “glamorous”.

Shocking eh?

I don’t mean that frugal living is dreary (I don’t think it is) or that living a frugal life is confining or ugly or any of those things. What I mean is that a lot of frugal living is about what you don’t do, or changing your mindset about what you are doing, rather than doing something active.

It’s just dealing with the hand you are dealt rather than paying extra to change that hand.

In the not so distant past, there really wasn’t the option of “changing your hand”. For the most part our grandparents and great grandparents just had to deal with it. If you wanted strawberries in North America in January, well you were just out of luck. There wasn’t the option of paying a ridiculously inflated price for berries shipped in from Mexico. People ate more or less what was in season, or what they could can or preserve and left it at that.

I’m not saying that I’m adverse to someone buying strawberries if they love them and can afford them. That’s a personal choice and one of the wonders of our modern world. But I do think it is a waste of money to buy them regularly the entire time they are out of season-just because you want them and haven’t really considered the cost. There are other fruits that you could eat, or you could buy canned or frozen fruit etc. I won’t even go into the argument that eating seasonally brings more joy into the experience when things are in season.

The weather is another “hand we are dealt”. Although Upstate NY is not known for it’s soaring summertime temperatures, it does get quite hot here in mid summer. Many of the houses here, including both our current lovely 1890 abode and our previous 1976 ranch, are not equipped with air conditioning. When hot weather comes instead of trying to change the enviroment I change our habits.

Yes, we could buy air conditioners, install them in a bunch of the windows (or purchase a full house and have it connected in to the forced air heating sytem ducts), but why? We typically have about a month and a half where it would really be pleasant to have air conditioning. Why spend the expense of purchasing, installing and running it?*

Instead, we change our habits. Typically in the fall, winter and spring mornings are a lazier time (or as lazy as they can be while getting ready for school etc). This is the time of day when the kids are allowed to veg out on the couch for a while and watch some tv etc. I try to bake or cook when we are going to be in the house to enjoy the heat afterwards, and I’ll leave the oven door open to send that residual heat into the house. Meals are warm and filling, drinks are hot (cocoa, coffee, tea etc).

In the summer that changes. Sure-I could buy a AC and crank it up, making the house comfortable for whatever activities I wanted at whatever time I wanted. We choose not to do that because of financial and environmental repercussions.

The TV goes off in the morning and the kids are sent outside to play in the coolest part of the day-the morning. After lunch when the temperatures usually peak is the time that we might sit on the sofa and read, or watch some tv, letting our bodies rest and our temperatures drop as much as possible. We might even choose that time to spend at the library or local stores that are air conditioned.

Meals are frequently lighter and cooler, and drinks (with the exception of the obligatory coffee) are cold. Popsicles are made, the blender comes out for smoothies.

Cooking in the summer is done as much as possible in the crockpot (plugged in via extension cord and set up in the garage or basement to avoid heating the kitchen) or on the grill. In the past as much of my baking as possible was done in the evening after the kids were in bed when the temp had dropped. This year in our new house Yankee Bill took our old stove** and installed it down in the basement, so I can bake or can down there without adding heat to the rest of the house.

Laundry is hung on the line to dry as much as possible, using air for free rather than paying for the dryer. Since we live in the village now, we walk as much as possible, or ride our bike to local events rather than starting up the car and burning gas just to go 2 blocks. I was even lucky enough to be able to borrow a bike trailer from a friend so I can tote the kids around (at 7 and 5 I think this is the last year that will be a viable option).

The kids bedtime swings a little bit later, and they are encouraged to play outside in the evenings (when it is again cool) rather than parking themselves in front of the TV for the 45 min or so of watching that they are allowed in the winter. YB and I use that time to work on outside projects-mowing, weeding and otherwise caring for the exterior of our home and yard.

So am I telling you that you shouldn’t run your AC or buy strawberries? No, of course not. What works and makes sense for my family is not necessarily a “one size fits all” proposition. Each person needs to look at their own life, their own “hand” and decide what is the best way to play it.

Photo is by Shockwave via Flickr.com


*Note: obviously there are portions of the country where air conditioners are necessary. I lived in Huntsville Alabama for 3 years-you NEEDED AC. I used to wonder how folks lived down there, working fields and such, before it was invented.

**OK, here’s the story on the stove. When we bought our previous house it came with a stove. About a year later our girlfriend was selling her glass top stove for $150-the almond color didn’t match her kitchen so she got a new one. I prefer the glass tops because #1-I’m a messy cook and they are easier to clean and #2 I can use it as additional counter space when I’m not cooking. So we bought it from her and put the regular stove in the shed. When we bought our current house it had an older glass top stove already in it. So we took the glass top stove from the old house and put it in the new house, then we took the glass top that was their and installed it in the basement (which was my dear sweet hubby’s idea), and back at the old house we took the regular stove out of the shed and reinstalled it in the kitchen for the folks who were buying the place. There-clear as mud?

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