Stupid of Frugal?

August 17 2016,

Ok - so I have been quilting. I wound a bunch of bobbins, and when I get to the end of a column (straight quilting) I replace the bobbin if I think that there is not enough thread left on the bobbin to finish another row.

So, instead of unspooling the unused thread, I used whatever is left of it on another project. Sometimes there is barely any left - but I still use it.

Do you do the same or do you just unwound whatever is left and throw it out?

The question is, is it worth the effort to change the foot of the machine from a walking foot to a regular foot and stopping and sewing other stuff, or throw away the thread so that you can wound the bobbin.

Quilt & Bitch

Do I have to do the Dishes?

January 28 2014,

This past weekend, I went to a neighboring town for breakfast. I've gone to this place 5 times so far. I went by myself and ordered some breakfast. I was done and the bill came out to $10.30 something. I looked in my purse for my wallet. Low and behold, my wallet was not there.

I panicked.

Crap.

Double crap.

Maybe they'll hold my purse for hostage, my purse is probably worth $100 after depreciation. Maybe they'll hold my library books? I had two in my bag for reading purposes. Maybe a CVS gift card worth $100.00?

Now I remember.

My wallet was sitting uselessly at home in front of my computer. The night before I had taken it out of my purse to buy something online, and had not remembered to put my wallet back in my purse.

I pulled the waitress over and quietly said, "I forgot my purse at home".
She looked at me and said, "Ok, hold on".
She went out back and then came back and said, "What town do you live it?"
I mentioned the next town.
She said, "Write your name and your phone number, and come back with it."
I said, "I am so sorry, I will be right back."

I went outside to the car. I had parked at the next shopping center because I was going to go to the supermarket.

I remembered I had emergency money in the sun glasses compartment. I pulled it down, and counted $3.00. A few months ago I had $40.00 or so, but somehow that disappeared and I was still working on building up the fund. I think the money disappeared when we had the car valeted in New York.

$3.00 was just not going to cut it. Then I remembered I had quarters! I had quarters! I had four rolls I quarters, each roll was $10.00. I have quarters in there so when hubby goes downtown he can feed the meters without having to worry about not having quarters. I took two rolls in and gave the waitress both rolls. it was going to be $8.50 worth of tip, I didn't care. Off to the bank for more rolls of quarters.

This is the second time that I forgot my wallet. The first time was at a gas station after I finished pumping gas. Luckily the guys in there knows me so gave me a credit. It pays to be a regular.

This reminds me of a time when somebody didn't have money and I offered to pay for her. This happened in a fabric store that I frequented. There was a lady in front of me who bought $5.00 worth of fabric. She had a credit card, but she only had American Express which the store did not accept. There was nothing else she could do. I offered $5.00 to her. She asked for my name and address and said that she would send a check to me. I told her not to worry about it, and gave her my name and address.

Two weeks later, a lovely card which looked like it would have cost her $5.00 and a check for $5.00 came in the mail. I cashed in the check.

Speaking of mail, this this came in my e-mail last week.

I'm in the top 13% of savers! Woo hoo! That's not bad. This includes using expired CVS coupons, email coupons, manufacturer coupons, and weekly ads. Yeah for me. I am not yet an "Extreme Couponer", but I do have 8 bottles of deodorant in the bathroom and 4 bottles of mousse. It's not bad when you can get deodorant for free or for under $1.00. These savings does not include the stuff I buy with hubby's CVS card (you know when they only limit an item to 1 per customer). I'm so proud of myself.

Quilt & Bitch

Call me frugal, but don't call me Cheap.

February 2, 2009 (Part II)

I was surfing the web and found that Boston.com is looking for the most frugal New Englander. Basically you have to write an essay, 500 words or less, and if you get selected, you get something.

I should write into it. I'm nuts when it comes to sales. Every week, I look forward to Sunday, because that's when the sale circular are out. I go online and check my two favorite drug store sale circular. On Friday's I check out what is on sale in our local Shaw's supermarket. I use to go to Shaw's, but realized that there pricing was way out there. It was just way too expensive. The only thing I buy at Shaw's now are Betty Crocker's brownie mix, only when it is $.99 per box. Occassionally butter, but they are sneaky with butter. When their butter goes on sale, usually the salted butter goes on sale and not the unsalted butter. For baking, I use unsalted butter. So look carefully at the ads before heading out. They usually don't say it in their ads, you have to look at the picture.

About 2 years ago I started going to the next town over and started shopping at Hannaford's. On Thursday mornings, I do my weekly chores. This involves getting gas for the week (super Thursday at the Exxon that I go to, which means I pay medium grade price for premium gas). I love my gas guys. They are great. Every quarter or so, I bake them stuff. Cheese cake, banana bread, chocolate cake, cinnamon buns. They are really sweet to me, so in return, the least I can do is bake something for them.

Then I go to the Hannaford's and get what I need to feed the two of us. Usually I buy for three meals, because this ensures that I don't have much waste. And I cook so that we have leftovers. Three meals will usually cover us for a week. Plus we do eat a little bit of frozen Trader Joe's in between.

Next if there are any good sales at the two local drugstore, I would stop in there. And finally, if I need to drop off my library books, it is right there. So within .5 miles, I have everything I need to do.

The next town is approximately 4.1 miles away from our place, but the overall savings are huge. I don't buy the newspaper for the weekly coupons. Because we live in an apartment complex, there is a paper recycling bin out back, so I would shuffle through someone else's newspaper to see if there are any coupons I can use. I know, I'm nuts. Sometimes I even grab other people's unwanted, clean, unused paper bags so that I can reuse them for my own recycling.

When there is something on sale, I will stock up. For things that I need day to day, I know exactly what is a sale price and the regular price is. I even have a spreadsheet saying what stores are advertising what items, including the item quantity and item sale price. So I can benchmark it every week. For example, we use Irish Spring Soap. One week, one drugstore will advertise it that it is on sale for $2.00 for a three-pack. Yes, it's on sale, but really, it's not a great price. The best price is getting the three-pack at $1.00. So I'm always on the look out for these type of sales and stock up on them. I don't go overboard, because we do live in an apartment so there is not much storage space.

I would not classify myself as a "cheap" person. I am frugal. I am careful with spending, but I will spend generously with friends. If somebody needs something, I will be the first person to offer it if I can. I remember a time when I was at a quilt shop. A lady did not have enough cash on her to buy the fabric, and they did not accept amex. So I said, here's $5.00. She asked for my name and address and she said she'll send the check. A week later, the check with a lovely card came in the mail. The card itself must have at least cost $5.00! But it's nice to know that there are still people like me and people like here out there. Haha.

So yes, call me frugal, but don't call me cheap.

Quilt & Bitch