Frugal Thoughts

"...if we could just admit, even if we never quite believed it, that a tender sizzling rare grilled tenderloin was a luxury instead of a necessity."
From 'How to Cook a Wolf' by M.F.K. Fisher

At times one profound sentence reminds me of the simple life my Spouse and I are trying to live. We dwell on our actions less than we used to as a result of carrying them out for so many months: it is hard to believe that we have been involved with this for so long, it has almost become ordinary in its necessity; Spouse and I have been trying to lighten our material load for the better part of a year now. So, returning to the original, frugal-minded roots of my writing, I mean to recapitulate on a number of things that we have changed about our living style.

1. Economising on the space we live in.
We have been preparing for a time when we might not be able to afford a two bedroom apartment with living room and kitchen. A studio, we feel, might be a viable personal option in the near future. That said, we have since discovered that we appreciate the smaller spaces and working together on our independent projects. We have reached the liberating point where full half of our living space can be written off, in a manner of speaking. We know now that we can live in a compact space half of what we currently rent. For now, that extra space seems a luxury.

2. Examining our grocery receipts.
I imagine that the money we saved through meticulous scrutiny of receipts during the year would not, now, enable us to even buy a gallon of milk. The majority of errors found and corrected involved mere cents. They were, however, our cents, our hard earned money, and the habit allowed us to understand prices and recognise increase in prices long before newspapers reported inflation. A head start and working knowledge of prices is valuable in such times.

3. Evolving our cooking processes so that bulk and staple foods are the majority of our supplies.
Our grocery bills have reduced since we began to use a lot of cereal, flour, frozen fish and rice as part of our daily recipes. I make all of our bread now and as a result our ability to make dough never diminishes. Our determined motto of once-a-week-grocery has not failed us yet.

4. Drawing most of our entertainment from the local library.
We cannot imagine ever again setting foot inside a video store in order to rent movies. The library offers concerts which we look out for, and all sorts of self-help, financial and educational programmes. Our library is a splendid one and we become better in our hearts for visiting it once a week. It gives us all that we need in terms of books: should we find something we cannot seem to live without we will buy the book at a discount price online after establishing that it is indeed a masterpiece. Of course I make reference here to my current reading enjoyment, from which I took the opening quote.

5. Reducing the output of waste.
We use grocery bags for our trash disposal and go down to the dumpster only twice weekly. It seems that we fill less bags than we used to; perhaps the buying of bulk foods, the absence of plastic packaging from bread and other goods are some of the reasons.

To reiterate the superb M.F.K. Fisher, certain things are luxuries, others necessities, and we ought to know which is which.
Some days ago I observed one of my neighbours driving one hundred feet to the mailbox, whereupon they collected the mail and reversed smoothly back to their apartment.
As a walker; as a lover of fresh air; as an individual who tries to understand the difference between want and need; as a frugal person; as somebody whose aim is to live more gently for the sake of our fragile environment- I find it hard to identify with that careless sort of action.
All that the rest of us can do is keep our chin up and our eyes open wide, perpetually ready, ever careful- and always having a wonderful life.