LIFE

Frugal living means learning little lessons

Abbey Roy
Columnist

The girls and I retreated to Grandma and Grandpa’s house this past week so I could utilize two extra sets of hands and eyes while Mr. Roy was away on business.

Our two-day getaway was full of all sorts of fun, frugal activity: A trip to a gigantic flea market, where Grandma and I scored some fantastic local sweet corn while Grandpa took Little and Littlest Roy hiking and row boating and toad-catching; games of croquet in the backyard; washing the van “by hand” — you know, not in a car wash — and participating in abundant Hose Shenanigans (inexpensive cooling-off, no swimming pool admission required).

... Then we returned home, and it was one of me versus two of them.

Our first morning alone they surprised me by formulating an elaborate plan to be Mommy’s Little Helpers. They made their beds, washed a few windows with wads of toilet paper dipped in a mixture of water and hand soap and then asked if they could make a recipe.

“What sort of recipe did you have in mind?” I asked.

“Um, just a recipe I made up,” Little Roy replied. “With some flour and ... stuff.”

“Well, usually if you make a recipe you need to have a plan about how much of each thing to add,” I said, “or it might not taste good.”

“Well, it’ll have plenty of sugar and brown sugar,” she said, as if that could redeem even the most hopeless of concoctions.

The dialogue went on for a while as I attempted to explain that the reason people use recipes is so they know the right amount of each ingredient to add to make the final product edible, but for some reason Little Roy found my explanation unsatisfactory.

Finally, I offered them a boxed cake mix in the pantry.

This was a compromise that pleased all parties involved (Littlest Roy was ambivalent), so we got started immediately.

Everything went well until the egg carton was placed too close to the edge of the countertop, got bumped by the cake mix box and sent over the edge, shattering four eggs in a cold, slimy mess across the kitchen floor.

Little Roy immediately burst into tears and acted as if the world might end and it would be all her fault; Littlest Roy quietly surveyed the scene and sidled into another room, out of sight.

I maintained my calm the entire time, explained to Little Roy that sometimes accidents happen and that’s just part of life, and at least it was only four eggs and not a dozen.

It was a learning experience, and as I reflected upon the whole scenario later that day, I began to recall some of the frugal lessons I’ve learned during the time I’ve been writing the Bargain Advocate column:

•That sometimes you just have to be creative, and if it sounds weird, you should try it anyway. (Because I still use arrowroot and cocoa powder in my hair in lieu of dry shampoo, and toothpaste is good for a lot more than just cleaning teeth.)

•That if you take a second to do a web search, there’s probably a cheaper way to clean/fix/make/do whatever-it-is-you’re-trying-to-do. And if there isn’t, you might find a coupon. And if you don’t, maybe you spent so much time researching alternatives that you realized you don’t need the original item to begin with.

•That you shouldn’t compare yourself, your house, your stuff — anything — to anyone else’s. Because everyone’s story is different.

And finally ...

•That if you’re making chicken stock, you should put a bowl in the sink before you strain it. Or your preschooler will never let you live it down.

I could go on, but there are other sections in the paper.

As with the eggs on the kitchen floor, some of these lessons had to be learned the hard way, but there’s no sense in spending extra energy complaining about something that can’t be undone — and isn’t there enough frustration happening in the world these days, anyway?

The Great Egg Incident of 2016 served as a wonderful reminder for me this week that frugality — and most other things, for that matter — is a process of learning lessons. I was able to think back over the last several years to where I started (“Sooo, what’s a budget again, and how do double coupons work?”) and be thankful for all the things I’ve learned along the way, as difficult as they may have been to understand at the time.

I also realize I have a long way to go.

The point is that no matter where you are in your journey to become a better steward of your finances, you should take a moment this week to be thankful for all the little lessons you’ve learned — because thankfulness is something I believe we could all use a little more of.

If you have insight about a frugal living topic or an idea for a future column, please email me at amroy@nncogannett.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Happy saving,

Abbey