There was just so much exciting frugal material in July that it took me an extra two days to sort through it all.
Many of the posts in the best frugal blogs are seasonal, so it should be no surprise that July brought a wave of excellent tips on Christmas shopping. (For example, here, here, here, here, and here.) Being Frugal (the fourth link) suggested getting your family photo taken now when studios are not so busy. I think that’s better than paying more in November, but if you were really being frugal you’d just use the same picture every year.
Speaking of Being Frugal, its author has decided to go on a "change fast" for August. The plan is to not spend coins received in change and to save them instead. How could that not increase wealth? My plan is to visit the ATM every morning, withdraw $100, not spend it during the day, and deposit it back in the bank each evening. By the end of the month I will be rich.
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I realize that today is a holiday for many of you, but I just couldn’t put off the monthly round-up of tips from the frugalosphere for another week. I know than this means that most of you will not get this until Monday, when you 
return to the office (internet at home is not frugal) but that’s better than waiting until the end of the week, isn’t it?
June was an exciting month as old themes faded into memory and new ones emerged. There was nothing in June worth reporting on toilet paper and toilet paper tubes, nor on laundry detergent.
What was big this month was food. Frugal Upstate shared a recipe for Iced Coffee. (Can you imagine the CEO of Starbucks when he heard the formula got out!) Other tips included freezing the unused whites of eggs in ice cube trays if your recipe calls for only yolks and cutting the sugar called for in cookie recipes in half. They will taste just as good Thrifty Jinxy tells us.
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It’s the first Friday of the month, so it’s time to review all the exciting recent developments in the frugalosphere.
May was a month of themes, some old, some new. In the old category there was the ongoing frugal controversy over toilet paper. We were cheered to read that a California county stopped buying four-ply tissue. Much of 
California’s current budgetary troubles are no doubt traceable to this luxury. And the Frugal Duchess shared a related tip: flatten the roll "a bit" so it doesn’t roll so easily and waste paper.
But then One Caveman’s Financial Journey had a long and well researched post making the case that, in the long run, more expensive toilet paper is actually cheaper. Apparently, his research shows that a person uses less of the good stuff, resulting in a net savings of $0.002 (a fifth of a penny) per bathroom visit. We will have to wait for other frugal scientists to reproduce these results before we accept his findings.
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It was a rather light month in the frugalosphere. I am certain this does not mean that the trendsetters of the frugal lifestyle have run out of ideas. Could it be an early indication of strengthening economy? Did Tax and/or Earth Day distract bloggers from the frugal cause? I hope not.
I got my hopes up when I saw that there was a post entitled Suggesting Frugal Alternatives to Friends at Art of the Coupon. I was expecting something on how things like Second Life, and, uh, blogging, are cheaper than having actual friends. Sadly, it’s about how to suggest doing less expensive things with your friends, not getting rid of them entirely.
Bargaineering had a detailed post on how to make your own breadcrumbs. More than just a recipe, the post has great tips, for example, that breadcrumbs make good gifts.
Speaking of useful tips, How I Save Money introduced me to the concept of reusable cloth wipes to replace toilet paper. Now I concede that this is the obvious next step from using cloth diapers, but I see an obvious objection. If a frugalist does this they will have no toilet paper tubes to reuse in frugal ways.
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Four Pillars, writer of the blog of the same name, was disappointed in yesterday’s post. Since he has also expressed an appreciation for the Frugal Friday series, and since I did not want to disappoint my biggest only Canadian fan, I thought it was time for another update on goings on in the
frugalosphere.
I start with a follow-up. Obviously ignoring this post on how to make your own maple syrup, which was repeated as guest post on Not Made of Money and mentioned here in Frugal Friday twice, Frugal Upstate provided an alternate method (with pictures!) that involves getting stuff out of trees and boiling it. Yuck.
Also somewhat unpleasant was Free Money Finance’s revisiting of his crackpot idea that you can save money by living in a cheaper city. He actually openly refers to this as his “most hated piece of money saving advice.” Why won’t he get a clue? Moving someplace cheaper is not in keeping with the frugal lifestyle. If you move, you might save a lot of money each month, but you will soon get used to living in the new town. You will not get to act frugally as you save the money, you will merely save it. And that’s not frugal.
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Many of the posts in the best frugal blogs are seasonal, so it should be no surprise that July brought a wave of excellent tips on Christmas shopping. (For example, here, here, here, here, and here.) Being Frugal (the fourth link) suggested getting your family photo taken now when studios are not so busy. I think that’s better than paying more in November, but if you were really being frugal you’d just use the same picture every year.
Frugal Friday | Frank Curmudgeon | 
August 9, 2009 2:00 pm | 
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