Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it, most of the time it’s a weird game to see how very frugal we can get. We ditched cable and just have netflix (streaming through the pc attached to the tv). We don’t have a home phone and just use our cell phones (still on my mom’s family plan too). We buy in bulk, usually store brands and with coupons when we have them. We frequently shop craigslist. Andy’s brought home drywall and lumber from the dump and installed it in our house. He’s gathered free firewood there also which we heat our home with. Andy hunts and we have a freezer full of deer steaks, chops, ground and stew meat. I breastfeed and cloth diaper, we spent $250 for diapers and supplies and I’ll never have to buy more. Washing them costs around $1/week (we were spending $20/week on disposables). Andy fixes our cars himself, lawn mower, refrigerator, computers, washer, the list goes on…

My beef (ha) with frugal living is food and that in order to eat healthy you’re required to spend a bit more money. I’m not talking organic necessarily, but even buying plain old fresh fruit and vegetables is costly. Especially when they’re not in season. Then there’s whole grain breads and pasta, brown rice instead of white rice, it adds up.

It makes me sad to think that some families can’t afford wholesome, fresh food and instead opt for fast food meals because they’re cheaper. In the long run not so much, but if you can plop down 99 cents to feed your kid a happy meal (which they won’t complain about being icky) then you’re less likely to find a healthy alternative.

I’m not really sure when I’m going with this.

We were just making bread and it got me wondering if it’d be cheaper to make it regularly rather than buy a loaf at the store. It would certainly taste better! Andy actually goes grocery shopping now that his work moved right down the road from Wegmans and he always comes home with white bread. It’s not going to kill you, but it sure isn’t as good for you as the whole wheat bread. Which costs more. So where’s the balance between health, quality of life and being frugal? I think we’re still working on that.