Frugal Way of Life

It is surprising how frugal one can be if you set your mind to it. We had a very bad drought in our part of the country a couple of years ago. We had to conserve on the use of water and it was amazing how much water we saved by quick showers--cutting the water on to get wet, soaping up, and turning the water back on to rinse. This routine has stuck with us and now we just continue this and don't even think about it.
As soon as my husband retired, I set up bookkeeping in Excel and I watch every penny we spend. We have been able to save some and I just think if we had done this all our married life, 48 years, we would be rich. Ha!
I watch the weekly specials at the three major grocery stores near by and we buy only what we usually would buy--no extras. We stopped our local paper but I can access it on line. We do buy the Sunday paper and that way, I can clip the coupons for grocery items we use. We also buy in bulk at Sam's or Costco. When we first started buying from Sam's our son came home from college and said he thought he had come to the "land of the giants". Ha!
There is one thing that my DH and I need to really work on and that is our over use of paper towels. When you have made it a habit of grabbing a paper towel, it is so hard to change. I'm getting old!!!!!
We are content to stay at home and enjoy our screen porch, read books, and I do needlework, and weather permitting, my DH loves to work in his flowers and of course we enjoy the computer. I use our local library instead of buying books. During this past winter, friends and I swapped jig saw puzzles and put them together. This was something my family did as I was growing up. There was NO TV so we always had a puzzle on the card table and would work them as we listened to the radio.
Now, before I buy anything, I ask myself if it is a WANT or a NEED. There are lots of things I want but don't need them. When you get down to it, I need to get rid of some things I already have. I can just see our kids trying to deal with all this stuff when we are gone.
We will definitely have to watch our pennies next year because we are not going to get a cost of living raise in our social security checks. There was re-evaluation of real estate property in our county this year and that mean our taxes are going up. Our water and sewer fees for the city have also increased. I am going to put every thing in God's hands. We are truly blessed and much better off than lots of people in our country and the world.