Why Are Aprons Frugal?

On Saturday I posted on my thoughts on buying rather than making an apron. Today I thought I’d just take a couple of minutes to discuss why an apron is frugal.

Cooking dinner used to be something I could do on my own time frame, even though I worked. Then came children. At first, I could still sort of arrange things how I wanted, until they started eating regular people food. Then it all changed. Little people like to eat on a very regular schedule, and it seemed like I needed dinner ready to go within 30 minutes of hitting the door. Inevitably I’d be half way through whipping something up for dinner and realize that I had a-forgotten to put on an apron and b-splashed something on myself. Luckily for me I was a solider and wore camouflage, which hides a multitude of sins. But that is when I started realizing that wearing an apron was actually a practical idea.

When I started staying home, it became even more imperative, as I was messing around with food 3 or 4 times a day, and even doing things like baking on a regular basis.

So let me cover a two ways that wearing an apron is frugal:

#1-An apron saves your clothes. Really. That is why they were invented. You won’t stain your clothing with oil, tomato sauce and other cooking residue if you are wearing an apron. This is especially something to think about if you work outside the home in business wear and then come home to cook. Do you really want try to get stains out of your dress clothes? Do you want to have to take them to a dry cleaner and pay extra to try to get oil stains out?

#2 If you wear an apron over your clothes you don’t need to wash your clothes as often thereby saving water etc.-Back in the “old” days women did not have very many clothes. An apron (or a pinafore for children) was worn over the dress so that the dress did not need to be washed as often. You may be thinking “Well, the clothes may not be dirty, but the apron will, won’t I just have to wash that?”. You can actually use the apron several days before washing it as long as you haven’t gotten it totally nasty. It’s the same idea as using cloth napkins, just because you use it doesn’t mean you have to wash it. In the case of an oilcloth or plastic apron you can just wipe it off.

As an added bonus, there are some really cute aprons out there now. I personally don’t like the BBQ/Chef type. Online I’ve found the styles of ones I like (mostly referred to as “hostess” aprons) Check out style 1 and style 2 at Target, these cute oilcloth ones at Pinupgirl -I would intend to wear more clothing under mine, or these pretty ones by “Busyaprons” and “Sassy Britches” on Etsy.