It took longer than I thought it would to distill the best tips and frugal philosophy from the past month, so Frugal Friday is appearing late. I am sure you will agree it was worth the wait.
Leading off, there was another high-profile mention of one of the best money saving tips ever seen here, switching to printer fonts that use less ink. Alas,
this one, at WiseBread, failed to bring up my follow-up idea, using shorter words and words that contain less ink-intensive letters.
WiseBread also brought us 12 Surprising Ways to Reuse Aluminum Foil. It is not a bad list, but I am not sure the word surprising can be applied to washing and reusing foil for its intended purpose. It does share the tidbit that “10th wedding anniversaries are traditionally celebrated by exchanging gifts made of aluminum.” I guess there is no romance like frugal romance. But they missed completely a 13th use, as headgear.
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Right on schedule, March went out like a lamb. The daffodils in my front yard are swaying in the breeze and that special occasion that marks the
cultural start of spring for many of us comes this Sunday. (It’s the start of the baseball season. What did you think I meant?)
In the frugalosphere, March was a time for both revisiting old ideas and exploring new ones. We had a follow-up from Provident Planning on Bambi the male “cow” being raised in a back yard for beef. It has an embedded 61 second video of the beast eating grass.
And one of my favorite frugal tips from last year made a sudden resurgence. It took a while, but apparently fonts chosen, and in some cases designed, to save printer ink are finally getting some traction. Not much mention of my suggestion to favor words that contain ink-saving letters, such as i and l, over such ink-hogs as e and w, but I am sure that the frugal world will get to that soon enough.
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February brought great heaps of snow to parts of the country not used to it, but being shut in for days at a time must inspire frugal thinking, because it was a good month for cutting-edge frugalist tips.
Laundry continues to be a fertile area for frugality. Keeping Kingdom First carried a guest post that thoughtfully reminded us to make sure our dirty laundry is really dirty. But the author may go too far when she advises that you ask yourself "If I was paying someone to wash my laundry, would I want to pay to have this item washed?" Obviously, if a frugalist were paying somebody else to wash their clothes they would do it themselves to save money.
SavingAdvice.com brought us instructions on how to make our own dryer sheets. Finally, a way to save money on these household miracles with a thousand thrifty uses.
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January was as cold as we’ve come to expect in the Northern Bits of our great nation and a lot colder than they’ve come to expect in the Southern Bits. Not to worry, the frugalosphere produced plenty of exciting money saving tips to warm us all up.
Frugal Upstate, from the northern Northern Bits, gave us no fewer than 3 different uses for the juice, technically syrup, that canned fruit is packed in. All are ways you can consume it, but without a doubt there are dedicated frugalists already working on potential uses as a household cleaner.
A fundamental premise of frugalism is that it is not about simply doing without. You can spend less of your precious money and still enjoy the modest and temperate pleasures of life. Along these lines, DebtMaven had an excellent post detailing how she practices frugal drinking. For example, since she will not drink her morning coffee without a bit of Irish Cream, necessitating the purchase of two bottles a month (presumably the 1.75 liter size since all good frugalists buy in bulk) she has switched to Carolins from Bailey’s.
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Due to the confluence of a holiday and an internet access snafu, as unlikely as it may seem, this is the first Friday post of the month. That means it’s time to round up the best frugal tips from the frugalosphere from December.
Needless to say, December is dominated by what is politely referred to as "the holidays" but which we all know to be that most un-frugal of occasions, Christmas. This annual orgy of unnecessary expenditure comes ’round each year and hypnotizes otherwise savvy people into parting with their precious cash.
Can there really be such a thing as a frugal Christmas? I’m not entirely convinced, but many bloggers gave it a try. Many of the tips were, like the seasonal music piped into all public spaces starting on November 1, familiar and repetitive. Give dad a book of "coupons" for hugs, wrap presents in newspaper, shop for decorations after the 25th, etc.
My Super-Charged Life did share the revelation that there are 7 Free Toys Your Kids Will Love More Than Expensive Gifts. They are a cardboard box, a cape made of an old pillow case or towel, a balloon, two sticks, a fort made of sheets or blankets, empty paper towel tubes, and a paper airplane. Click on the link for details. It’s probably too late to swap that bicycle you got your son for a pair of sticks, but now you know better for next year.
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this one, at WiseBread, failed to bring up my follow-up idea, using shorter words and words that contain less ink-intensive letters.
Frugal Friday | Frank Curmudgeon | 
May 8, 2010 9:00 pm | 
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