Doing More with Less

I was driving yesterday, flipping randomly through radio channels, and I heard some local-ish radio show called Doing More with Less. I didn't listen to the whole thing, but it seemed to be a call-in show in which somebody talked about this new age of frugality, and then listeners called to chime in with their thoughts and ideas about frugality.

I thought it was fascinating.

(Now, what does that say about me? I'm cheap. I'm old. I'm boring. Yep. Yep, and Yep. --But hey, frugality is the new FASCINATING. --What's that you say? It's not? Oh. Well...I know of a bunch of boring Lancaster County people who might say otherwise...)

Ahem.


Anyway. People called in and got kind of passionate about frugal living. One guy said something like, "Now that we've got this recession going on, all these people are jumping onto the frugality bandwagon. But I bet once they stop being so poor, they'll go right back to spending money freely."

No duh, dude.

As for me, I have a strong affinity for the frugal, not necessarily in any kind of consistent way, but I do love me some deals. And, usually, I find it very hard not to brag on them. Usually to people who aren't interested.

Oh, you like my shirt? SIX DOLLARS!!
What, you like my bag? SIX DOLLARS!!
My jeans, you say? I GOT THEM FOR FREE!

Yeah. Frugal AND tacky. It's an excellent combination.

Growing up, we weren't poor, but we definitely felt the pinch of the lousy economic situation in the late '70s, early '80s. (I mean...What are the '70s? I'm so young, I've only seen the '70s on TV...)

And back in the day, my friends, frugality wasn't nearly so glamorous as it is now. There were no frugalistas, at least not in my experience. I recall with a cringe and a shudder how generic cereal was packaged once upon a time.

(I quote from some random website I just googled: "In the early 1980s, generic products in the United States had plain white labels with blue or black lettering, or yellow labels with black lettering, describing what the product was (i.e.: "Yellow Cake Mix", "Tuna In Water", "Chocolate Flavor Syrup", "Deodorant Soap") with little other information, save for any ingredients and preparation information required, but no brand name at all on the front panel. This was during a sharp economic downturn when many consumers were placing more emphasis on value than on brand loyalty.")

Yeah. It was kinda traumatizing. Especially as a kid. Especially as a kid in a fairly poor-ish neighborhood, where even the kids who were poorer than we were had brand name cereal, while we had to eat genereric cheerios out of a big white box with black letters: "CEREAL."

Oh, and don't even get me started on the powdered milk. Yeah. We had powdered milk growing up. (shudder) --Blech. I despise that stuff. I think we had it because my parents hated me or something. My dad *claims* it's because it was cheaper, but I'm pretty sure the reason has to be more sinister than that. Because that stuff is NASTY.

My brother and I were talking about it once a few years back, sort of laughing, sort of crying. You know, because it was so horrible and we continue to be traumatized. And he started verbally re-enacting the process of reconstituting powdered milk.

"Ok, so you've got the powder. And you put it in the pitcher. You remember, right? That tan, plastic tupperware pitcher? You put the powder in, and the dust kind of flies up and makes you cough. (Cough! Cough!) Then you take the pitcher over to the sink and turn on the faucet. And the pitcher starts filling, and there are those big, watery milk-ish bubbles at the top. When it's full, you get the wooden spoon. You remember the wooden spoon, right? And then you start stirring."

And at this point, my brother does a perfect imitation of the sound made by that wooden spoon clunking around in that plastic pitcher with that watery "milk" sloshing around.

Clunka-clunka-clunka-clunka...

I tell you, I almost fell down into the fetal position right then and there.

But, instead, I started laughing. "Stop! Stop! It's too horrible! Ahhh, it's all coming back to me!! The milk was never all the way stirred! The powdery chunks! The terrible, terrible powdery chunks! And the luke-warmness of the milk. So terrible!!"

Yeah. I'm still not OK.

Anyway, my point is that I found frugal living to be fairly traumatizing as a kid. The un-cool snacks, the un-cool cereal, the chunky milk. Plus, our clothing was pretty awful. Never really the style maven, I don't think I really minded it all that much. But my brother still complains about grocery store sneakers (they weren't really from the grocery store...) and cheap, ugly jackets. Personally, my beef was with the bad home hair cuts, but there's not really anything I can do about that now...

(Yeah. It was pretty bad.)

So, with all of this childhood misery to draw upon, it's kind of amazing to me that I still enjoy being so frugal. I do love me some discount groceries. (Although, I still insist on name-brand cereals, just at deep discount prices.) And I love Marshalls and anything that even vaguely resembles Marshalls. I just love seeing the original price slashed through and the unbelievably low, low price written in its place.

I'm not even sure where I'm going with this except that I LIKE doing more with less. I like saving money here so that I can spend it there. I like figuring out what I can do without so that I can get the things that I consider to be really important, like extremely HIGH-QUALITY MILK. (Did you ever wonder where that weird Janet obsession came from, hmmm? Well, now you know.)

I don't need much. I'm quite content with my lot in life. But I've got to wonder which one of my weird frugal quirks will eventually put my children in therapy. Will it be cramming them all into a tiny clown car that is really too small for a family of five, simply because the car is already paid for?



Will it be the freezing cold temperatures in our frosty Pennsylvania home, simply because I can't bear to pay to burn oil? Or will it be the bizarre social experiment of having our neighbors cook for us three nights a week--which, of course, I LOVE!)

I really can't say. But I can say that it will never, ever, ever, EVER be the sound of chunky milk.

God Bless America!