Sunday, September 18, 2016

Frugal in Wisconsin, new adventures

  2 years later, a little update. My household is bigger- I now have 3 children. My daughter is 3, and I have 9 month old twin boys. We now live in Baraboo, WI and have my sister in law with us, as a live in nanny. I guess I'll have to rebrand this blog if I'm going to keep posting, aren't I? During my tough twin pregnancy and the infancy of the twins, not to mention the cross country move, many of my formerly frugal habits fell by the wayside. Is it strange to feel guilty for not being frugal? Here is a list of things I'm still doing frugally, in an effort to remind myself. I hope to regain more frugal habits again now that things are calming down.

Frugal things I still do (that require little effort/time!):
-I grocery shop almost exclusively at Aldi because I can trust they have the lowest prices in town without having to do any research.
-I buy almost all of my clothes second hand, recently more online at swap.com)
-I say YES PLEASE to any and all hand-me-downs for my kids. Just this week I was given a fabulous dollhouse that a colleague's granddaughter outgrew.
-When my kids outgrow things, I give away what I can to friends/family (what goes around comes around!) and then sell what I can of the remainder at consignment shops or online. What I can't pass to my crew or sell, I donate. At this time in my life yard sales take too much time to be worthwhile.
-I stock up on things like groceries and diapers when I find a great deal (though I need to get in the habit of doing more of this again since I've got more storage space again now!)
-When I can (which hasn't been a lot in the last 2 years) I do batch cooking and freeze prepared food for quick meals later. This saves time of course but also money- quick meals from the store or takeout are usually pricey! Today I did a double batch of baked oatmeal (muffin size servings) and froze most of them) for quick breakfasts this week.