Life Lesson: Learning to be frugal

With the terrible economy, and the twenty million trips to the BX because you don't have anything better to do, I decided the time has come for me to be frugal. I've never been good at the frugal concept. I like something, I want something, I get something, simple as that. Of course within reason, I still don't own a ferrari or anything.

But being a single income family, I feel it is my duty to learn how to save more money and limit our spending on the things we don't really need. The next couple of months will be hard for me to venture down this path given the move and the 6-8 weeks of living out of a suitcase while in Missouri and waiting for our goods in Maryland, but I will get there, I swear. Some days I feel guilty because I am not bringing in as much income as I could, but I remind myself that with the money I am saving in child care costs and the security I feel in raising my children rather than someone I don't know and don't trust, I try to get over the dollar signs. But the debt to income ratio still needs to be in our favor.

I've been doing some research on how to live more frugally and I've found some pretty interesting things. For starters, I've been hearing Dave Ramsey's name every time I find a new site. It is like this man is a god or something. So today I downloaded one of his podcasts from his radio show. I have to say, so far I am intrigued. He seems like a very smart man who knows his way around anything and everything financial, plus he tells it like it is, which I like. But one thing I didn't like was that he is supposed to be helping people by teaching them how to make their money work for them, and yet charges you around $100 to be a "member" to his site before teaching you anything. Ok ok, I know, he has to make a living somehow, but when I had read his praises from all these different people and I go to check him out, and am asked to fork over $100, of which I don't have, which is why I'm looking into him in the first place, I was kinda like "what?!" I'm sure I'll get over it, and maybe one day I will break down and buy his membership and/or take his "Financial Peace University" classes, but in the meantime, I will learn what I can from his podcasts.... which are FREE.

I have also discovered this site which has a ton of information about domestic living, but for the topic of this blog I will talk about their frugal bliss area. Last night I was reading about how to save money with laundry. It was a two part series here and here, but I got more out of the second part. I learned how to make my own laundry detergent and dryer sheets, but more importantly, it talked about drying clothes. By line drying (Sorry Osan-ers, this won't apply to you for a little while) you are not only saving money in electricity by not using the dryer, but also prolonging the life of your clothes. This article talked about how that lint in your lint trap, used to be part of your clothes. By putting your clothes in the dryer, they are being beaten (basically) and breaking down the fibers, which is how you end up with lint. Hhhhmmm, I hadn't ever thought of it that way. Sure I don't wash my jeans every time I wear them and I try really hard to remember not to dry them, but that is more because of the fact that I have a hard time finding jeans that fit around my big 'ol booty just right, so I don't wash them as much because I don't want to wear them out as fast and I don't dry them because I don't want them to shrink! But alas, there are even more reasons than I thought for taking such measures! I'm kinda excited about moving back to the states and line drying my clothes, of course it won't be right away otherwise my clothes will be ice clothes instead of dry clothes, but still.

If any of you know of any great frugal ideas, tips, tricks, or sites, please share!