Frugalizing

You know, I've discovered a few things over my 30-ish years on the planet, and one of them is that more things are flexible than we think.  One of those things is price.  In our free trade, capitalist society, people put a price on something based on the value, not always the actual cost of the item.  That value is a bit subjective (can I get a holla' from my garage-saling peeps?), and more things are open to value interpretation than meets the eye.  That's how places can put out coupons and still stay open for business.  What they actually charge (even with the coupon) is still usually more than what it costs them, but when someone's using a coupon even for a measly amount they feel like they're getting a good value...beating the system in a way.

In our family, we take advantage of the flexibility by trying to find any way we can save money on something (without wasting too much time).  So, now whenever dear hubs or I have an idea to do something, we always think of ways to do the same thing but for less money.  I call it frugalizing but you can call it whatever you want (just don't call it late for dinner).  It's a fun exercise in creativity and actually gets us using the old noggin instead of the old wallet. 

For example, we love going out to eat.  It saves me from the time in kitchen and the clean up afterwards, but it doesn't save much in the way of money.  So, we've started to compromise and when we do go out we frugalize and go someplace that's running a special or has a coupon out.  One of our favorite eateries offers a free drink on Wednesdays with the purchase of a tostada (our favorite meal at said eatery), so we save up our dollars and our calories...tostadas aren't cheap on the waistline either, and head over when we can get our drinks for free.  Considering they offer free quesadillas for kids under 6 every day (that just gave my favorite eatery away to some of you ; )  ) we save a few dollars just by timing our visit to the day they're running the special.  There are so many Taco Tuesday deals at all sorts of Mexican restaurants, you can buy enough to last the week and put 'em in your freezer ***not really sure if you can freeze them but it's worth a try in a pinch***.  They might charge $2.50 every other day of the week, and it's not like tacos cost less to make on Tuesdays, but marketing to people's desire for a good value drives their business and hopefully builds repeat customers who come back the other six days of the week.  Another thing we do to frugalize when we go out to eat is share one meal between the two of us.  Not only does that help save money, but it helps save some calories in the meantime.  This is one of the most obvious ways we save on food when we go out, and you're probably thinking "duh, doesn't everybody do that?"  Nope.

There are a million ways we can frugalize things...have swap parties with friends to trade clothes, or books, or kids toys to save the cash but get something pre-loved and fun...check out the free section on Craigslist or sign up for freecycle.com to get furniture that you can slap a coat of paint on and call it a day...cut off the top of dated notepaper to use as general scratch paper...and so much more.

The next time you want to do something that you're not sure your bank account can support, just frugalize it.  You'll be super surprised at how far you can stretch your dough when you add a dash of frugal into the mix.

When have you frugalized to save money, time, or other resources?