The Festival of Frugality is up at Value For Your Life.  I love this edition – it’s all about gratitude and focusing on the positives in life.  I loved the article from Sound Money Matters making a case for frugality.  I couldn’t agree more.  A frugal life is sustainable, and it’s focused on what really matters (people, relationships) rather than what doesn’t (stuff, consumption).  And in an economic downturn, the frugal among us are best equipped to weather the storm.  Great article all around.

Paid Twice has an article about school fundraisers.  This concept drives me nuts.  I hate the idea that schools are relying on students to be little door-to-door salespeople, making friends and neighbors feel obligated to buy candy bars, popcorn, cookie dough, etc.  I wonder how many people buy because they just can’t say no to a little kid?  And enough is enough already!  These fundraisers start in August as soon as school starts, and around here they keep coming, all through the school year.  I am so hoping that our schools will figure out something else before our son starts kindergarten…

Cheap Healthy Good has an article about tofu.  I made a stir fry last night with tofu in it, and I put a little tofu in our green smoothie this morning.  I’m a huge fan of tofu.  It’s cheap, easy to cook with, takes on pretty much any flavor you want it to, and has a lot of nutritional goodness.

Saving Advice has a wonderful article about invitations, registries, and money grubbers.  Thank you for writing this!!  I gotta say – I’d be tempted to give up on humanity all together if I had gotten some of the invitations Saving Advice has had.  I’ve been lucky to just get the standard wedding/bridal shower/baby shower invites.  But they almost never come without registry info these days.  Blegh!!  My husband and I eloped, partly because we wanted to avoid the hullabaloo that is a wedding.  When my MIL wanted to throw us a party later that summer, we agreed, but on the condition that the invitations say “no gifts” We were 25 and 27 at the time, had been living together for more than two years, and didn’t need anything.  When our son was born earlier this year, we skipped the registry and shower all together.  Several friends offered to throw us a shower, and we politely declined.  (the ladies I work with at the library did have a book shower for me, so we have lots of board books for our little guy – each person just brought her favorite baby book, no registries involved).  Don’t get me wrong, I love giving gifts.  And I would never show up to a wedding/shower/birthday party without something in hand.  But these days I’m more likely to make a donation to charity or a home-cooked meal.

And for a little inspiration about living outside of the box (or house, in this case), check out The Life Less Traveled for a story about a European family who moved into a camper and are living on the open road.  Never give up on your goals!

The Carnival of All Things Eco is up at Focus Organic.  As usual, there are tons of great ideas for green living that is also easy on the budget.

Jim at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity writes about how his town earns money by recycling, versus spending money to haul away trash.  Think about that next time you’re tempted to just toss everything in the trash can.

Michelle from Organically Inclined has some great ideas for inexpensive gifts for children.  I love the crayon idea (I remember melting down old crayon nubs in tuna fish cans and making candles as a child), and the felt board.  With a five month old, I’m on the lookout for cheap projects that we can involve him in as he gets older, and these sound great.

And Surfer Sam has some great ideas for reducing your energy bill.  So does Condo Blues.

I love this carnival, and look forward to it every week.  Frugality and green living are both very important to me, and I love how so many of the submissions to the Eco carnival also encompass frugality.

We had another great weekend day, no spending, lots of productivity.  We finished painting the last little bit of our house.  Whew!  It was a small part of trim at the top of a second story gable, but it’s over a trellis and vine porch roof, so it’s pretty hard to get to.  We finished the rest of the painting about a month ago, but we had been procrastinating on this part.  Today we finally got it done.  It involved a sheet of plywood on top of the trellis/vine structure, lifting the ladder onto that, and then my husband perching himself on the ladder and painting the trim while trying not to wiggle (so as to avoid having the ladder slide off the piece of plywood and fall through onto the porch).  So anyway, we’re stoked to finally have a completely painted house, and no injuries from the process.

Our baby had his first outing in the jogging stroller today.  The stroller was a hand me down from friends who had outgrown it.  They gave it to us before we were even pregnant – they knew I love to run, and they knew that we eventually wanted a child; they were going to donate the stroller and offered it to us first.  We’ve been storing it in our crawl space for a couple years.  Today we pulled it out, aired up the tires, wiped it down, and it was as good as new.  So now the dog and I have a new running companion, and he has a sweet recycled stroller to ride in.  Life is good.

Lots of good stuff in the Frugal Blog Network this week.  At Tight Fisted Miser, Andy has his take on the financial bailout.  He says “My life was good at the beginning of the year and it is still good now.  Until that changes for the worse or looks like it is going to I’m not going to worry.”  I like this sentiment, and I feel the same way.  Not having consumer debt, and having a small mortgage relative to our income, means that financial downturns don’t hurt as much as they could otherwise.  This current financial mess is just giving me more motivation to pay off our mortgage as quickly as possible, and spend as little as possible.

The Frugal Zeitgeist has also written about the economic mess, and what it means for the average person – everything from our jobs to how we spend our money and give to charity.  And I agree completely that working towards getting out or staying out of debt is a good goal for just about everybody.

The Frugal Duchess has an article about what happens to your money when your bank goes under.  Helpful reading for anyone who used to bank at WaMu.

Not Made Of Money has a post about fall garage sales – it’s not too late to cash in on bargains that abound at garage sales, or on getting rid of the clutter that is taking over your basement.

Almost Frugal has written about how to put together your own travel emergency kit. Small enough to go in a purse or a diaper bag (which we moms tend to use as a purse for several years… I’ve forgotten what my purse even looks like), economical, and simple.  I love it.  I think I’m going to have to find a little box and get busy making an emergency kit to stash in the diaper bag.  On another diaper bag note, I stashed an old sheet in ours a few weeks ago.  It’s perfect for an impromptu seat on the grass wherever we happen to be (and keeps the baby from eating pesticide-laced grass), and it’s easy to toss in the washer and line dry when we get home.

We just finished a wonderful, productive, almost-free Saturday.  My husband spent a good chunk of the day putting the finishing touches on the greenhouse (adding insulation around the edges of the doors, and chains to hold the doors open while we’re inside the greenhouse).  Right now, he’s in the crawl space doing some work on the hydroponic garden, which is doing amazingly well.  We have tomatoes on our tomato plant already, and flowers on the pepper plants (plants that were started as seeds in August!).  I spent most of the day cleaning our cars, taking stuff to the thrift store and recycle center, and cleaning the house.

The only money we spent was $6.69 to buy a can of Fix-a-Flat for my husband’s car.  When I cleaned the cars, I sorted out all the junk that we didn’t need to be hauling around, and organized the essentials into a box in each car’s trunk.  Each car has a can of oil, a bottle of wiper fluid, brake fluid, Fix-a-Flat, some rags, and an ice scraper.

We also installed a new carseat for our son.  He’s 17 pounds, and won’t fit in his infant seat much longer.  It was a loan from one of my friends, and I’ll be giving it back to her when she has her next baby.  A few weeks ago, I ordered a Britax Marathon convertible carseat, after much online research.  I got it for $219, with no tax and free shipping, which was the cheapest I could find it (most sites were charging $250+).  Yes, it’s expensive, but it can be rear or front facing (right now it’s rear facing, and will be until he’s one), and can hold a child up to 65 pounds.  So over the years, I think we’ll get our money’s worth from this seat.  It’s amazingly solid feeling.  It has clamps that latch down over the lap belt and once it’s installed it feels like it’s part of the car – no wiggling at all.  This is only the second big baby-related purchase we’ve made.  The other was his mattress, which makes me feel good every day when he goes down for his nap.  He’s nearly five months old, and we’ve bought very little in the way of baby stuff so far (and other than the mattress and the car seat, it was all used).  We set up his high chair today, which was a sweet yard sale find last fall when I was just a few weeks pregnant.  It was brand new, and I got it for $20.  We haven’t started our little guy on solids yet, but tonight he sat in his high chair and watched us eat our dinner.  It felt like a big step, even if he wasn’t eating anything.

So that was our day.  The car seat was bought and paid for a few weeks ago, we just installed it today.  So the only money we spent was to buy the can of Fix-a-Flat.  We’re exhausted, but we feel great.  Everything takes longer these days, since we’re taking care of the baby at the same time as whatever projects we’re working on.  So we’re feeling pretty productive with what we got done today.  It feels good to get so much done, and at the same time have a very frugal day.

I got this email from a reader yesterday:

“My parents are driving me insane. They want me to buy a new car. Or, if I won’t, they will buy one for me. It’s getting ridiculous. My car is fine. It’s paid off. It’s a subaru with 185,000 miles. But with a subaru, it could seriously last another 100k. Their argument is safety. Mine is frugality. I’m paying off debt, I have no intention of getting a car loan. And absolutely don’t want to be in the situation where I owe my parents, or where they give me such an expensive gift. (and I’m 36) Plus, I think it’s ‘greener’ to continue to use my current car. I could be wrong, but it gets decent gas milage. It isn’t low emissions or anything, but if I don’t buy one, in my mind, it’s one less car on the planet. Anyways, I don’t feel particularly unsafe, although there is only one airbag. I’m just wondering about your thoughts on all of this and would be interested in reading a post about it. You say you drive used cars, did you buy them used? Obviously one day I’ll have to purchase a car, what would you recommend (as far as new v. used v. ‘green’ etc).”

I’ve written a lot about my car. It’s a 1991 Civic wagon that my husband and I bought in 2003 for $2300 cash. It has about 214,000 miles on it. (my husband drives a 1990 Audi with 110,000 miles on it). Both of our cars are still going strong. I am on a mission to drive as little as possible. I walk or bike anywhere within five miles of our home. My yoga class and the bank are both four miles from our house, and I bike to each of them every week. The grocery store, post office, thrift store, and library are all about a mile away, and I would never dream of driving to any of them. Since we both work at home, we often go several days without taking either car out of the garage.

Here’s our long-term plan: We’ll keep both of our cars until one of them dies and/or needs very expensive repairs (we’ll do things like spark plug wires and brake pads, but not an engine overhaul). At that point, we’ll get rid of the dead car and keep the other one. We’ll keep that car until it no longer drives either, at which point we’ll go looking for a new-to-us car. We will never buy a new car, under any circumstances. In fact, I can’t see us ever buying a car less than five years old. We’re currently saving $200/month in an online savings account earmarked for a new car. We just started this summer, so we only have $600 in the account right now. But it should take a good long while before both of our cars bite the dust, and by then we should have enough money for a decent used car. (It’s a myth that you have to spend a fortune to get a good used car. We only paid $2300 for my car, and it’s already lasted us more than five years). So our plan is to eventually be a one car family. But for now, with cars that are 17 and 18 years old, it doesn’t make sense to get rid of one, since we don’t know which one will end up lasting longer – we could get rid of one and then the other one could die next week. It only costs us about $350/year to register/emission test/insure each vehicle, so we’ll keep them both around until they don’t drive anymore.

I also agree that it’s greener to keep your current car than to go buy a new one – but it depends on your circumstances. For me, since I drive so little, it’s a no brainer that keeping my current car is the greener choice. And it helps that my Civic gets nearly 30 miles to the gallon. It would be a different story if you drive a truck that gets 12 mpg and you put 20,000 miles on it every year.

But what about the safety issue? Breaking down is a possibility with any car, regardless of how old it is. Back in the bad old days, I worked at a car rental company. All of our cars were less than three years old, and the majority of our fleet was always less than a year old. And there were plenty of breakdowns. A new car is no guarantee that you won’t be left stranded on the side of the road. But most of us have cell phones these days, and that’s what they’re there for.

Speaking of cell phones, let’s look at the other safety issue – accidents. It’s true that newer cars have better built-in safety technology, and that is the only argument I would ever make in favor of a new car (and possibly the warranty, if you go with a company that offers 100,000 mile warranties). If cars were free, I would drive one that had a great safety rating and great fuel efficiency. But cars aren’t free. So I choose to continue driving my Civic (which doesn’t have any airbags at all). But I wonder how many of the people I see on the interstate driving 80 mph, talking on the phone, 15 feet behind the car in front of them, bought their new car because of the safety features? I’m guessing a lot of them would give that as a reason, but their behavior indicates that they really aren’t that concerned about safety at all. A safe car isn’t going to keep you from being in an accident – it’ll just help protect you once the accident occurs. In the winter, when our mountain highways are covered in ice and snow, I invariably see SUVs flying past everyone in the fast lane – no doubt counting on their four wheel drive to let them drive 55 mph on ice. So instead of going into debt (to the bank or to your parents) to buy a fancy new car, here are my ideas for enhancing our safety on the road, which I think work a lot better than having 25 airbags in the car:

• Driving is not a multi-tasking sport. Don’t talk on your phone (and people who text while they’re driving shouldn’t have licenses), don’t eat, don’t shave, don’t put on make up, don’t put in a new cd, etc. Just drive. With both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road.
• Drive 65 mph on the interstate. You’ll save gas, and you’ll be able to just stay in the right hand lane most of the time (frequently changing lanes increases your chances of an accident)
• stay far back from the car in front of you. If someone ducks into the space in front of you, slow down. You’ll get fewer rocks in your windshield, and reduce your chances of an accident.
• Who cares if someone cuts you off, doesn’t let you in, doesn’t use their blinker, honks at you, etc. Just chill out. we’ll all get there eventually.

I honestly think that these things (combined with driving as little as possible) matter more than the safety features in a car.

That’s my two cents on cars. We’ll have to wait and see how much money we have in our car fund by the time both of our vehicles go to car heaven. That will determine what we end up with as our next car. The number one issue for us will be fuel economy, but we’ll also be looking at safety, maintenance issues, and cargo space. I’m hoping that we won’t be car shopping for several more years though, and we’re careful about staying on top of routine maintenance to keep our cars going as long as possible.

Yesterday I rode my bike over to the library to pick up a book that had come in for me – Jeff Yeager’s Ultimate Cheapskate book.  Since the library is a 5 minute bike ride from our house, and since just about everything known to woman can be found on the internet, I don’t buy books.  Well, every once in a while I’ll get something for 75 cents from our library book store, but very rarely.  There are a few books that I check out over and over, and ponder buying.  But then I remind myself that I can just keep checking them out of the library – for free.  And returning them so that they don’t take up space in my house long-term.

Anyway, so far I’m loving the Ultimate Cheapskate book.  It’s funny and non-preachy, but full of great ideas.  I’ve read just about all of the personal finance/frugality books in our library.  I skipped the get rich quick ones that detailed complicated day trading schemes, or real estate ventures.  I’d rather not give myself an ulcer in the process of building our net worth.  And I’m really not looking to get rich at all.  Just to pay off our mortgage and have enough money to live on comfortably.  Really, we already make enough money to live comfortably – and we save more than 25% of what we earn.  The mortgage is the only major financial project we have right now, so we’re working to pay it off as quickly as we can.  We’re happy with what we have – old cars, thrift store clothes, used bikes, a smallish house within biking and walking distance to most of the places we go.  We’re slowly growing our savings, but there’s no fancy tricks to anything we do.  We just live on less than we earn and save the rest.  And we pay extra on our mortgage every month, since paying it off is a big goal for us.

So Jeff’s book is very much my style.  It’s all about being happy with what you have, and not always striving to have more stuff, more money, etc.  He writes about slaying your “Enoughasaurus” – that beast within us that keeps wanting more and more.  He suggests finding a point where you’re happy with what you have, and staying at that lifestyle, no matter how much your income goes up in the future.  He suggests the lifestyle you have at 30, which is convenient since I’m 30 right now.

I’m only about a quarter of the way through the book, and I’m excited to keep reading.  I love books like this that inspire me on my frugal journey to live simply and happily, without needing vast amounts of money to do so.  Invariably I find some little idea I hadn’t thought of, or just renewed motivation.  So far, I highly recommend this book.  Just make sure you check it out of the library!

The Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Sound Money Matters, and the Festival of Frugality is up at My Two Dollars.  I had articles featured in both,  and there are tons of other great posts.  Whether you’re looking for frugal ideas, investment guidance, ways to weather a rough economy, or tips on increasing your income and decreasing your expenses, you’ll find something you like.

In the Frugal Blog Network, we have a new member!  The Frugal Dutchess has joined us.  She’s a newspaper columnist for the Miami Herald, and has even written a book about Frugality!  I love her recent post about 37 things to do with $1000.  Welcome Frugal Dutchess!

Not Made Of Money has a post about organizing your pantry.  I really like the idea of a dry erase board to keep track of things.  Our pantry isn’t very efficient – we just have deep shelves with lots of space between them.  Somewhere on my to-do list is a plan to put in shallow wrap-around shelves with less space between them, to make stuff more visible and cut down on wasted space.

Almost Frugal is giving away cloth diapers and covers that her daughter has outgown!  I love cloth diapers.  That’s all we use for our son.  Even when we’re out and about, we just take along a bunch of cloth diapers, some wet washcloths in a ziplock bag, and a plastic bag for holding wet/dirty diapers.  I could sure use the beautiful wet bag that Kelly is including in her giveaway!

At Tight Fisted Miser, Andy checks out the details of a $700/month budget.  I love Andy’s focus on reducing living expenses.  I’m all about increasing income, but mainly so that we can save more and pay off our mortgage faster.  We still live on pretty much the same budget we always have.  We do have a $1200/month mortgage and a $430/month health insurance bill, but we try to keep the rest of our expenses to a minimum.

Frugal Zeitgeist has written a thoughtful piece about who pays for rescues from hurricanes, snowstorms, and the like.  It’s especially appropriate given the massive rescue that is being handed to the financial industry from Uncle Sam right now.

My husband finished our greenhouse yesterday.  I thought I’d post a picture so that my description would make more sense.  The whole project cost about $160.  The bulk of that was four double-paned glass doors that he found at the Habitat for Humanity thrift store.  Other than the doors, he used scrap wood that he found in the cull bin at Home Depot, screws that we had left over from another project, primer and paint left over from the last time we painted our old fence, insulation, caulk, and metal angle brackets.  I’m really proud of him – I think he did a fantastic job, and the greenhouse will allow us to extend our growing season considerably.  The doors that you can see in the picture are fixed at the bottom and swing open to allow access to the plants inside.  (There are two more matching doors on the other side, facing the fence)  There are stepping stones inside and we can just walk right in to harvest our crops. 

The greenhouse is on the south side of our house, and although it gets very cold here, we get a lot of sun all year round.  We’ve planted some cold-hardy greens, and we’re letting our existing swiss chard keep growing in the greenhouse – we’ll see how long it goes.  We’re excited for our winter gardening.  Between our hydroponic garden and the outdoor greenhouse we should have a pretty good amount of homegrown produce.

I remember one day in 6th grade our teacher asked us each to tell the class our favorite song, and he wrote our answers on the board.  I don’t remember what the point was – probably something about opinions and diversity.  It was 1988 – Big Hair bands were huge – but I was mostly listening to Buddy Holly, Dolly Parton, and Randy Travis.  When my turn came, I didn’t want to look like a dork, which I somehow thought I would if I mentioned one of the songs I really liked.  So instead I said “Guns N Roses.”  Yep.  That’s a great way to not look like a dork.  Of course everyone giggled, and the teacher asked me which of their songs I liked.  Oh crap – Guns N Roses is a band, not a song?

Around the same time, I loved going to yard sales with my family, and there was even a little hole in the wall thrift store where we would rummage around for treasures on weekends.  But I would never in a million years have admitted to anyone that my clothes were used.  If people asked where I got something I was wearing, I would usually say that I couldn’t remember.

Today, I was wearing an awesome pair of black capris.  Originally from Banana Republic, I found them last year at the thrift store by our house.  A friend mentioned how great they were, and I was happy to tell her where I found them.  I’m not as much of a clothes horse as I used to be, but I do still enjoy putting together great outfits, and invariably they come from one of the two thrift stores in our neighborhood.  Everyone who knows me knows where I shop.  I’m proud of my frugality, and I’m completely open about buying used stuff, driving old cars, and making do with what we have.  Even my bike that I use to get around town is old.  My parents bought it for me 20 years ago, and I think it was an antique then.

It’s a lot more fun to not care too much about what people think.  Of course that’s easier said than done when you’re in 6th grade, but at least I figured it out eventually.  I do still care somewhat – I don’t wander around town unshowered in a pair of sweatpants (well, I have a four month old, so maybe I do, but not often).  But keeping up with the Joneses isn’t even an issue for our family, because for the most part, we don’t notice what the Joneses have, and if we do, we can usually figure out a cheaper way to do it.

And just for the record, November Rain is my favorite Guns N Roses songs.

Well crud.  That exchange traded fund purchase I made last night didn’t go through.  The markets had already closed by the time I settled on GEX, and it had closed at $42something.  I had talked to a rep at Ameritrade who said that if the price for the number of shares I bought went higher than the amount I had in my account, it would show a deficit and I’d have to send in more money to cover it.  But I’ve already maxxed out the account for the year, so I can’t send in more money until January.  So I had to set a limit above which I wouldn’t buy, in order to not spend more than I have.  (I wanted to just say “buy $5000 worth of this etf at whatever price it opens at,” but they wouldn’t let me do that).

So this morning I went in and looked at my account, and the order was still pending, because GEX opened $2 higher than it closed yesterday.  Then while I watched, it went another dollar higher.  But this time, the markets were still open, so I canceled my pending order and placed a new one, to buy at the current market price.  So I ended up with 107 shares instead of 115.  The purchase I made in my traditional IRA did go through, because that etf opened at about the same point it had closed at yesterday.

Dang it.  If only I had gotten around to my purchase yesterday while the markets were still open.  I’d have 300 extra dollars in my account right now.  But then again, I could have gotten hit by a car on my bike ride home from the gym last night.  All in all, life is still good.  And now I really don’t have to think about my IRAs again until January.