Becoming "Frankly Frugal"

Are you unemployed, yet still shopping the malls on the weekend, or clicking away online lured by the hot bargain on O.com? What are you thinking?

If you haven't gone through the five stages of grief after losing your job, it's time to get on the fast track, and go from denial to acceptance. You can't live your old life (when you had a job and a paycheck) anymore. Well, not for awhile at least. It's time to take a good look at the narrowing gap between your savings and your bills and get "frankly frugal."

Being frugal, which means not spending money if it isn't absolutely necessary, is an old habit, made into an art by the depression-ear babies. No, not this one. The BIG one. Around 1920's or so. My parents were children of the depression, and even after they got out of it, they kept their frugal habits, which allowed them to acquire a tidy bit of wealth without masters degrees or corporate jobs. They just didn't spend money if it wasn't necessary. To illustrate, my mother, who never had two nickles to rub together when we were growing up, once gave each of us six grown children $10,000 because "the banks will only insure $100,000."

Now, necessary is the pivotal word here. Today, we've been duped into thinking the latest app, or version of the IPhone (one every three months) or a 62" flat screen TV with DVD and 3D (oops, that was last week's model) is a necessity. Or at least the way to escape embarassment because EVERYBODY has one (it, them.) Really, none of those things are necessities. In order to sustain life...that's more a definition of necessity. Not QUALITY of life. Many of people are going broke and broker trying to gain or sustain a completely unnecessary quality of life, even though they no longer have the income to support it. Really, we need very little to sustain life. Food, shelter, clothing, meaningful activity, love, companionship. You can add your own, but there aren't that many more.

Let's look at what costs so darn much these days, and how you can get frankly frugal. You can go down your monthly bills for great examples. First, the electric bill. I'm sure you don't want to go back to conditions during my childhood when we didn't have air conditioning, but it is true that human beings actually did survive without it. Plus, the electronics we feel we can't live without all need to be plugged in or kept charged in order to provide us with entertainment, connections and other comforts we were able to live without somehow. Unplug. Open a window. Go outside and talk to your neighbors. Take a walk. There are plenty of ways to entertain yourself, or keep cool without making your electric meter spin like Disney's teacup ride on meth.

Next is the phone bill. The constant connection to everything that we can't live without comes with a hefty price. In money, and in concentration, distraction and interruption to the point of rudeness. Not to mention the $200 or so phone bill every month. Frankly frugally speaking, do we need to be constantly reminded of where are friends are eating lunch or how they are feeling every minute of the day?

I have been struck lately, driving through Savannah, that there are very few areas that have clotheslines. While we are all running the dryers all day, other people are getting exercise, and slipping into fresh, air-dried clothes and sheets, free of charge. One of the hottest selling air freshener today is "fresh linen." So, for an extra $4.99, you can pay to have your house smell like mine did growing up. If you have ever hung clothes out on a clothesline, you know you had some great exercise, bending to pick the clothes out of the clothes basket, stretch to hang them on the line above your head while squeezing the clothespins to secure the clothes, and doing it over and over again. That was an easy way to get 45 minutes or so of great exercise, fresh air and save a bundle by not running the dryer and then spending $5 on air freshener (which is really a bunch of chemicals that, we'll probably hear on the morning news, are probably going to make you sick some day.) I have strung a clothesline between the queen palm trees in the back courtyard at home and hung sheets and towels to dry, and what a luxury (and trip down memory lane) to slide inbetween those air-dried sheets at night. Things that take forever in the dryer, like rugs or sweatshirts, when hung on the line are a real money saver. Those little wooden dryer stands are great for sweaters. Soak hand washables in the bathtub with a little woolite, roll them between bath towels to get most of the water out and drape over a wooden dryer stand or lay flat on a bed to dry overnight. Takes a bit of planning, but the savings on electricity, dry cleaning and driving to take and pick them up adds up.

Unemployment, or just trying to save a few bucks to pay the bills, can be an adventure. Unplug something tonight before you go to bed. Just because you unplug your laptop from the charger doens't mean you're saving money. Unplug the charger from the outlet as well.

What is your hot to for becoming "frankly frugal?" Leave them in the comments section. More to come on another post.