There’s no shame in being frugal! I actually really love being frugal! As a big family with big financial goals, we focus on saving money on the things that don’t matter to us so that we can spend on the things that do matter to us.
Of course our financial priorities are going to be different than yours, even if you’re frugal. That’s the beauty of personal finanace- it’s personal! Each family or individual can decide where you want to save and where you want to splurge.
No matter what your frugal looks like, I’m sure you can agree that living the frugal life can really be an adventure sometimes. That’s what Frugal Feats, Flops, and Funnies is about: sharing the wins, fails, and humor in living a frugal lifestyle! I would love to hear your latest frugal feats, flops, and funnies in the comments!
Frugal Feats
Knowing that we would be spending our complete Christmas budget (a sinking fund that we add to each month) and then some on this year’s Christmas surprise (I can’t tell you about it yet), I knew we had to keep the cost down on other Christmas traditions. Sending our annual Christmas card and poem is a non-negotiable for me. Instead of “normal” photo Christmas cards, I used a photo from a trip this year (complete with goofy looks and awkward accessories) and used a photo editor to stick Merry Christmas on it, then printed 200 4×6 photos at Walmart that cost $.16 each for a total of $32.
Buying stamps for that many Christmas cards gets expensive really fast, but here’s where the second “feat” comes in. I knew that I already had some stamps on hand from last year’s Christmas cards. I also had stamps stashed in a few different places in the house. When I gathered them all together, I had 112 stamps! I only needed to buy a few more.
Before the pandemic, I sent Christmas cards to far away friends, but in 2020 I started sending or giving them to friends nearby as well. This year I handed out most of my cards to local friends. The trick is having my cards ready early in December, then always having them with me to hand out when I see friends throughout the month. I also share our annual poem with friends on Facebook for anyone that I miss.
Frugal Flops
Our library stopped doing fines a while ago, which sounds like a good thing. The problem is, when a fine is not involved, there is little motivation to get your books back to the library, which means that books that were a little lost become very lost. Eventually, after something like 12 weeks, they will charge you the cost of the book and lock your library account (including Libby!).
We were recently billed for two missing kids books, an $8 book and a $27 book. The email warned that if not paid, the bill could be sent to collections. Yikes!
I put the kids to work looking for the books. They found the $8 book after a couple of days, but the $27 book was nowhere to be found. I did not want to pay full price for this book, so I looked on Thriftbooks and found a library bound copy for $7. Sweet!
But this is a frugal flop, so as you might have guessed, the library would not accept it, even though it was in lovely condition, because it had a stamp inside saying that it was no longer part of whatever other library.
Now I have two copies (one hidden and one in plain sight) of this book. I don’t even want one copy!
Frugal Funnies
Continuing on from the library story, I asked the librarian how long I had to find the book before the bill would be sent to collections. She assured me it was a long time. “Like years,” she said. Great, but I need access to Libby for audiobooks, so I either need to pay $27 (on top of the $7 buying the used book) or find the book. The librarian did say that bringing in a new book would be acceptable, so she suggested watching Amazon in case the price went down from $27. I told her that I was doubtful that this random, not-in-demand book would ever go on sale. I searched the title on Amazon and it didn’t even show up in the first three pages of results!
About a week before Christmas I was sitting on the couch and saw that $7 book, which makes me grumpy every time (the book, not the couch). Nudged by divine inspiration, I looked it up again on Amazon, using the full title and author’s name so that I could find this obscure book. Lo and behold, the last copy of the book was on sale for $16.21. I immediately put it in my cart and with tax paid $17.39. It hasn’t arrived yet, but hopefully this will be the end of the story.
You might think that this is a frugal feat because I found the book on sale. Nope. While I did not have to pay $27 at the library for this book, I paid $7 for the used copy (that the library wouldn’t take) and $17 for the new copy (that the library should take) which is $24. And I still have two copies of this book at my house. I would call this a flop, but I’m planning to laugh about it soon (hopefully) so I’m calling it a “funny.”
How about you?
Tell us about your recent frugal feats, flops, and funnies in the comments!
