Surely the whole point of Frugal Living is that everyone is different, everyone has different reasons to live the way they do and different ways to do it. Probably one persons frugal tip is another persons extravagance and vice-versa. But that doesn't matter, it is up to individual choice.
Our reasons for being frugal are over on the sidebar and so is the way we do things. We've often been told we are lucky for owning a smallholding but we are old and started way back when houses were cheaper and we were able to buy cheap, do them up and sell a few years later. We did this 5 times including living in a caravan for a year with 2 children under 5 and working late every night on a house that had been declared uninhabitable by the council. But we made choices to do that, like buying childrens clothes at jumble sales and not Mothercare as was the norm at the time. Later when the children were older we choose not to holiday abroad, even though they said all their friends were, and camped in this country instead. We choose not to have new or even newish cars and we were lucky because Him Outside can turn his hand to most practical things. Yes, we were lucky as we didn't have debts and a big mortgage and we were able to pay it off early but we choose not to buy things that we couldn't afford. Our first new sofa was bought only a few years ago and we've been married for 34 years! but that was our choice. Yes, we were "lucky" that my Dad died a few years back and left us some money to build a kitchen extension and to modernize the house to make it more fuel efficient so it was cheaper to live here, but we choose to do that rather than go on a cruise or whatever. We are so lucky to have a choice and I know some people will say they have no choice to do what they do and I'm sure that's true and that's the sad thing about the world. But we can only do what we do and as far as I know we don't upset anyone doing it. So I shall carry on being frugal in our own way and enjoying it.
