My frugal self. And why it rocks.

I've noticed my frugal side growing lately. A lot. It's kind of getting out of hand.

I don't want to pay for anything and if I do have to pay, I want it as cheap as possible. I worry about how much everything costs, from a box of cereal to a tank of gas. I hate paying for things I can do myself, so I do my own highlights and cut my husband's hair. I even cut my dog's hair, although it doesn't always look pretty. But I seriously can't justify spending $40 for some lady to trim his bangs. Nope. Not gonna happen, sorry Chubs.

We usually only go out to eat once a week and even then we go to the most affordable place we can find. We never get dessert and pretty much always drink water.

Most of the furniture in our house is used, either from a friend/family member or something I purchased at a yard sale.


I generally never buy new clothes, although I've had to lately due to this expanding belly, but even then I'm shopping the clearance rack. Fortunately my best friend has a ton of clothes and she is always bringing boxes over full of stuff she doesn't wear anymore. Yay for me!

Two years ago we decided to buy our first home. We basically have no debt and both work decent jobs, so we got approved for a huge amount. Instead of purchasing at the peak of our budget, we bought a fixer-upper that was under foreclosure. We've put a ton of work into the house since then, but we got a slammin' deal and it was totally worth it.

We recently had to buy a "new" car, something we've been putting off for years now. Neither of us wanted a car payment. But it had to happen. So we hunted down an amazing deal on Craigslist and found a car in our price range, with a very reasonable monthly payment. Well, I still don't want to pay it but it isn't too bad, we can deal.

Crazy thing is we don't have to live like this. We definitely aren't swimming in money, but we could have gone out and bought a brand spankin' new car. We could handle the payments. We could have bought a much bigger house. I could get my highlights professionally done. We could go out to eat three times a week and get dessert. But we don't. Because if we spent our money on all this "stuff", we wouldn't have any left to do the things we love, like the time we went to Uganda or when we laid on the beach for a week in Cancun.

And that is what life is truly about, not our 'stuff', but the experiences. I'm always dreaming about our next plane ride and when we're ready to go, we'll have the savings to support our adventure. That rocks.