When we chose to move last year, we knew that there were some things we were giving up by moving to a small town.  The most notable of these (and the only one we even notice) is the lack of public transportation and the distance we have to travel to get to a good grocery store.  We don’t really care about other shopping – we don’t do much of it anyway.  But groceries are a must, and the small-town grocery store near our house just doesn’t carry most of the food we want to buy.  I support them whenever I can, and buy small packets of organic frozen veggies there, along with a few other things.  But they don’t have a single organic item in the fresh produce department, which is where I spend most of my grocery dollars.  Our garden is starting to produce stuff now, so my grocery needs are steadily declining, but I do still need to buy a lot of our food.

So about once a week, I load up my reusable grocery bags and head into the big town ten miles down the road to shop at the co-op or the health food store.  Lately I’ve been taking advantage of the trip to also drop off stuff at one of the big thrift stores in town.  If there are any other errands that I need to run, I make sure that I coordinate them so that I do them all in the same trip.

Other than my weekly trip to town, I’m able to do everything I need right here in our little town.  And my rule is that I never drive my car unless I’m leaving our town.  Nothing is more than about three miles away, and I can easily get to everything in town either walking (pulling our son in his wagon) or by bike.  The library, post office, credit union, hardware store, liquor store, even a grocery store that will do in a pinch… all are within easy walking or biking distance.  I told myself when we moved here that I wouldn’t drive if I needed to go somewhere within our town, so getting around by bike or on foot has just become second nature.

Working from home also makes a huge difference, as neither of us has to go anywhere for work.  We’re working hard to create a life that we love, and to be honest, we’re both happiest when we’re at home, working, working in our garden, hanging out with our son… just doing the things we do on a daily basis.  And that means that most of the time, our cars are just hanging out in the garage.

Tammy Strobel has written an e-book called Simply Car-Free for people who are looking to minimize their dependence on cars.  Check it out if you’re looking for ideas and inspiration.  We aren’t car-free (yet… maybe once our town grows a bit we could be someday), but I suppose you could call us car-minimal.  The disaster in the Gulf should be a big motivator for all of us to look for ways we can consume less oil, and driving less is a good start.  Do you have a self-imposed rule about not driving your car to go short distances, or on certain days?  Do you make an effort to combine trips to limit your total driving?  Do you prefer public transportation, bikes, or walking?

If you haven’t given much thought to the idea of being car-minimal or car-free, maybe today’s a good day to start.  A good first step is to tell yourself that you won’t drive if you’re going less than two miles (or whatever distance works for you) and then gradually increase that distance as you get more comfortable walking, running, or biking.  And enjoy the added benefit that comes with getting a workout while you do your errands!

What didn’t match was our throw pillows.  Our old couches were tan, and our pillows were shades of brown and red.  The new furniture is shades of grey and blue, so there was a lot of clashing going on:

Last fall, I bought a king size blue sheet at a thrift store to make curtains for our son’s room.  I had a lot of leftover fabric, so yesterday I spent less than an hour to whip up covers for our pillows:

Much better, I think!  The covers are as simple as can be – no zippers or buttons, I just made the back out of two overlapping pieces of fabric.  Here’s a picture that shows the back of one of them:

The best part is that they are easy to take off and wash.  And our living room looks a lot better.  Not bad for leftover fabric… I spent $6 on that sheet, and ended up with curtains and three pillow covers.

I bought my glasses from Zenni Optical (and no, they aren’t paying me to write this).  My mother had tried them earlier this fall, and was very pleased with the results.  She wears bifocals, and got a new pair for $32 (compared with about $200 if she had bought them at her eye doctor’s office).  She was so happy with that pair that she decided to order another pair just for reading.  They arrived this week, but had been caught in a post office machine and smashed.  When my mother called Zenni Optical to see about a replacement pair, they offered to start making a new pair immediately, and within 24 hours she had received three emails from the company, detailing the status of her replacement order (and there is no charge for the new glasses).  So not only do they provide good glasses for rock bottom prices (as low as eight dollars a pair), but they also have great customer service.

My new glasses arrived today (not smashed!) and I love them.  At my current every-eight-years rate of replacement, the $200 that I would have spent on an exam and glasses will last me until I need bifocals of my own.

One thing to note, you’ll need to know the distance between your pupils in order to place an order online for glasses.  Eye doctors measure this distance, but often don’t write it on the prescription.  I didn’t find this out until after I had my exam, and sure enough, that space on my prescription form (listed as PD) was blank.  My husband measured it for me (the website gives detailed instructions for how to do this if you need to), and it worked out just fine.  But if you want to get an eye exam and then order your glasses online, it’s probably easiest to just ask the doctor to make sure that space is filled in on the prescription.

Our own bedroom has two windows, both of which also let in a good deal of light at night.  I went looking for a solution at the thrift store a few weeks ago, and found a really neat-looking comforter that was big enough to cover both windows.  I cut it in half, hemmed the cut edges, and viola – two light blocking, insulated curtains!  I spent $15 on the comforter, and it took me about an hour to make the finished curtains.

Window coverings can be very expensive, but they don’t have to be.  Look around for creative solutions – you might already have stuff on hand that can be made into curtains and curtain rods, and thrift stores are filled with blankets, comforters, and sheets that are much less expensive than similar amounts of fabric purchased from a craft store.

Our son has very soft, fine hair with a slight wave.  He has what I think of as surfer hair – a bit shaggy and all over the place, with little curls here and there.  I knew that the waviness would help cover any errors, so I headed in.  I put him in his highchair and distracted him with food and various kitchen utensils – otherwise he just wanted to grab the scissors out of my hands.  He’s a touch more wiggly than my husband.  And I really didn’t know what I was doing.  I remember reading a post Kelly wrote about cutting a little boy’s hair, and tried to keep the basics in mind.  But a 16 month old doesn’t sit still or tilt his head on command.  So I was basically winging it.  I trimmed around his ears and the back of his neck, and then started lifting sections around his head and cutting vertically (I figured that would help to eliminate the bowl-on-the-head look).  After about 15 minutes, I was amazed by the transformation.  Gone was my little surfer-dude, and in his place was a somewhat clean-cut little boy.

I was thrilled.  We saved $10 – $20 (depending on the place, that’s the range for a kid’s cut in our town), and I developed a little more confidence in my ability to do new things.  I had absolutely no experience with cutting hair without an electric trimmer, and our son’s cut turned out great.  He was a good guinea pig, since he’s a toddler who doesn’t have to impress anyone with his haircut.  By the time he’s heading off to school someday, I should be an expert and he should be much better at sitting still.  And since this attempt was successful, I will continue to cut his hair for as long as he’ll let me.

At our new house, it’s $30/month to add TV to our internet service.  We both agreed that TV wasn’t worth anywhere near that amount to us.  So we are TV-free.  We actually packed our 400 pound, 1995 era TV into storage back in April and stashed it in an empty house that my parents own.  It’s still sitting there, along with a few other things that we need to go pick up.  So I guess we’ve actually been TV-free since April, but we still got TV programming (and could record it using Windows Media Center on our computers) until we moved.

Now, all we have is internet.  But that means we have Hulu, and we can still watch DVDs on our laptops.  So far, we’ve been so busy since we moved that we haven’t been to Hulu at all, or rented/borrowed a single movie.  I’m thinking that once winter comes, we might have a little more couch time, but I think we’ll be just fine without TV.  We didn’t want our son to be exposed to TV during his first few years, and now it’s easy to make sure that is the case.  In our living room we have a couple of big floor pillows and lots of toddler toys in the spot where one might expect to find a TV.  We’re both very happy with this arrangement, and the $30 a month that we’re saving is a nice bonus.

How expensive would TV have to be for you to decide that it’s not worth it?

So, a shopping trip was in order.  You all know I’m a huge thrift store fan, but for things like socks, underwear, and swimsuits, I prefer places like TJ Maxx, where the clothes are much less than mall prices, but new (it’s an off price retailer, and they have all sorts of name brand stuff at discounted prices).  We have a TJ Maxx just a few minutes from our house, and I went browsing through their swimsuit selection over the weekend.  I found a suit with it’s original retail tag still on it ($109 – yikes!), a perfect fit, and a TJ Maxx price tag of twenty bucks.  The tag said it was irregular, but I can’t find anything wrong with it at all.  Score.  Now I don’t have to worry about flashing the babies in the wading pool.

I also got a nifty sun shade for the jogging stroller, for five dollars.  Our son pretty much always rides in the Moby Wrap or Hip Hammock, but when I go for a run, I put him in the stroller.  I don’t really like putting sunscreen on him, so he tends to wear long sleeves and a hat when we go out.  The stroller is old (it was a hand me down, which we happily accepted) and just has an awning over the top.  The front was completely open, but my new sun shade clips onto the awning and works perfectly.  We were out for a couple hours yesterday afternoon while our house was being shown, and he was in shade the whole time.  Five dollars well spent, even if it was an impulse buy.

I found lots of pajamas (including two piece sets that have not been treated with flame retardants, one of which had never been worn).  In addition to the pajamas for our son, we found all sorts of other goodies.  We spent a total of $46 between the two stores.  Here’s a look at our loot:

Two pair of zip-up pjs, a sleep sack, and a cute little shirt.

A Columbia jacket for me, two pair of shorts for my husband, a big saucepan for our solar oven, a yoga band, a garlic storage container (I currently store all of my produce in one huge bowl on the counter.  So my garlic snuggles with my mangos.  Now the garlic will have it’s own little home), and a Hip Hammock.  The Hip Hammock was only $3.50, and I tried it out in the store before I bought it.  I still love my Moby Wrap when we’re walking long distances, but it’s not the easiest thing to put on.  The Hip Hammock took about 5 seconds to get on, and our son happily rode around in it while we finished our shopping.  I checked it out online when I got home and found that some had been recalled a few years ago, but this one is a newer model that hasn’t had any problems.  Not bad for $3.50!

And more stuff for the little guy:  Two sun hats, a pair of swim trunks, two more sets of pjs, a really cool jacket that I think is handmade (it doesn’t have any tags or logos in it.  It’s amazingly well made), a pair of little guy slippers, a soft book with all sorts of little person-friendly activities that our son didn’t put down the whole time we were in the store, and a sweatshirt.

All of that for $46.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love thrift stores?  I can’t imagine ever shopping anywhere else.  Even if we made twice as money as we do now, I think I would always see it as a waste of money to buy things brand new.  Not only are there bargains around every corner when you shop second hand, but I love the idea that you never know what you’ll find when you go thrifting.  It’s always an adventure.

Then my husband asked how much movie tickets cost these days, and our friend replied in an offhand manner that “it doesn’t matter”.  Now it was our turn to be amazed.  He and his wife just have regular jobs like us – they aren’t doctors or lawyers.  We assume they might have some family money, but we don’t know the specifics.  I suppose we’ve gotten so entrenched in our frugal ways that we just can’t imagine spending money without caring about prices or cheaper options.  For us, renting a movie for a dollar (or free if we get it from the library) is a far better value than going to the theater.  And if we watch a movie in our living room we can wear our pajamas, make our own snacks (much better for us than movie fare), and hit the pause button whenever we like.  And now that we have a baby, we only plan outings where he can go along.  So a movie theater isn’t really an option anyway.

Yesterday I bought a used carseat for our son.  I know, I know – that’s the one thing that you’re not ever supposed to buy used.  Well, that and a crib (but we already got a used crib, so I figured I better go two for two and get the carseat too).

A few months ago, I orderd a Britax Marathon carseat online.  It was $220, which was apparently quite a bargain – every other place I’ve seen them they tend to be at least $250.  I love that carseat.  It’s solid and secure – it feels like it’s part of the car.  And it’s just buckled in with the seatbelt – our cars aren’t new enough to have the LATCH system.  But Britax makes an awesome buckle-in system, and I love how safe the seat feels.

We’ve been using an infant seat that my best friend lent us (gasp – another used carseat) in our other car.  Her baby is two now, and outgrew his carseat last year, just before our son was born.  But now she’s pregnant with number two, and we’re going to give her seat back to her.  Plus, our son weighs 19 pounds now, and the infant seats are only rated to 20 pounds.  So we needed another carseat for our other car.  It’s quite a process to get the seat secured into the car, so taking it out and switching it from one car to the other isn’t very practical (although I did actually consider that as an option).

I knew I wanted another Marathon.  They’re rated to 65 pounds, so they’re really the only carseat you ever need.  And I just like how safe they feel.  I was willing to pay full price if necessary, but I decided to just take a quick gander at craigs list first.  Sure enough, someone was selling a seat that was virtually identical to the one we have – for $75.  I got the model number and checked the Britax website to make sure that it hadn’t been recalled.  It looks like it’s never been used – the lady said it was the carseat in their second car that rarely got used.  The house was in a very fancy part of town and worth about a million dollars.  There was a brand new Audi in the garage and everything was shiney, new, and obviously well taken care of.  They assured me that the seat had never been in an accident, and I believed them.

So there you have it.  We got a super safe carseat for $75, and saved the world a bit by recycling rather than buying new.  Each to their own, and I’m sure some people wouldn’t feel comfortable buying a carseat used.  But it’s easy to check recalls online, and my mindset is to buy used whenever possible.  I know that we could get a new carseat for not much more than $75, but I prefer a gently used but top-rated carseat for the same price.  We rarely use my car anyway, but when we do, I’ll feel good knowing he’s in such a good carseat.

How about you?  Have you ever gone against the prevailing wisdom and bought a carseat or a crib used?