The Frugality Experiment, Part 1

I just finished reading a great article, Side Effect of the New Frugality: Happiness, and am inspired. I really do want to start living frugally.

Stop laughing.

I know I have an astonishing Target addiction, coupled with a penchant for Acapulcos' happy hour, a strong dislike of cooking, and a love of shoes that caused a college roommate to refer to me as "little Imelda," all of which will make living frugally difficult; however, I like the idea of getting off of the "work-spend treadmill" and living and working for things that make me happy, instead of just "things."

My idea of living frugally amounts to taking baby steps towards a less materially driven life. The simple act of cutting out those things we don't need and valuing the things that we already have. Moving towards making our wallets not hurt and bettering us as a family.   So, for the next few months, I'm going to challenge my family to try cutting out/down on unnecessary expenditures.

The first challenge starts today: Two weeks without eating ANY meals out. NO meals out whatsoever. That doesn't mean we will never again eat out, but that, for the next few weeks, restaurants, drive-thrus, diners, food courts and the like are off-limits to us.  No quick pretzel & Diet Coke at Target, no Acapulcos' happy hour, no Foster Freeze Twisters... NADA.

This will take a lot of forethought. Dinners need to be planned & shopped for, lunches must be prepared before work (though we usually do this anyways), car trips and shopping trips need to be planned so that we have food at hand if our path crosses with a meal or just random hunger. It will be more work, but I think in the end our bank account (not to mention our waistlines) will thank us for it.

On the parenting side, I think about how few & far between our visits to restaurants were when I was growing up. Dinners out were always a special occasion and something exciting to do. I'd like that for Cooper. I don't want him growing up thinking it is normal to go out to dinner all the time. I think about how this is depriving him of a very simple pleasure that I had as a kid.

I don't know what our next frugal adventure will be, but I'm actually excited about the prospect of cutting out the unnecessary and creating new adventures as a result!