Frugal Babe

Today, I hosted the Festival of Frugality - the first time I’d hosted a blog carnival.  I got to read lots of posts, and then ended up sitting at my computer until 2am last night, putting everything together the way I wanted it.  For some reason (probably exhaustion-induced delerium) I didn’t publish the post when I [...]

Here it is folks, the long-awaited 85th Festival of Frugality! I spent all my free time yesterday engrossed in the posts that everyone submitted, and as always, there are tons of great ones. I love reading about other frugalites - it’s nice to know that there are so many of us out there. [...]

My in-laws were visiting us for the last few days, and just left this morning.  They were in town for my husband’s cousin’s wedding last night.  They arrived on Thursday afternoon, bringing with them a new car for us!!!  They recently bought a 2004 Acura MDX, and offered to give us their old car.  It’s [...]

I’ll be hosting the Festival of Frugality next week (July 31).  Please submit your articles by 6pm MST on July 30th.  I’m excited to get to read everyone’s articles and hear all your recent frugal adventures. 

In 1970, when my parents were newlyweds and struggling to live paycheck to paycheck, my mother started keeping track of their expenses.  They wanted to start building up a nest egg, but there didn’t seem to be anything left at the end of each month.  So she got a ledger book and wrote down every [...]

We have a tiny bathroom attached to our bedroom.  Outside of the shower, sink, and toilet, it’s got about 12 sq feet of floor space.  Pretty tight quarters, but we’re glad we have it (some models in our neighborhood have a walk-in closet in that space, and we’d much rather have the second bathroom).  When we [...]

Our story has been featured at We Beat Debt, a new blog written to spotlight the positive stories in the debt-o-sphere.  If you’re in debt and looking for inspiration, they are gathering it all in one place where you can read lots of stories from people who beat debt.  And if you’ve already dug yourself [...]

We got our maple tree trimmed on Monday.  When my husband was getting quotes, he felt really comfortable with one of the guys he talked with.  He asked if it would be possible to get a discount for doing some of the work himself.  The trimmer said that he could give us up to $100 [...]

EDIT:  during the three years that we’ve been paying off this debt, the highest total before-tax income we ever had was $56,765 for the two of us together.  That was in 2006, and was considerably higher than the previous two years.  We paid off the debt by being frugal, not by earning big bucks. 
This week I’ll be sending $500 to [...]

We’ve been needing a new computer for about two years.  We both work at home, although for me it’s only part time.  We each had good computers when we started working from home, but mine died almost two years ago.  It was fine one day and gone the next.  Bummer.  We were very much still [...]