In my quest for frugality, I’m trying to separate how to be frugal without being cheap. Frugal is cool; cheap is, well, not so chic.
For example, buying only the necessities (plus a cute hat for $9.99 ON SALE) at Target is cool.
I got the hat when I went to Target again two days later. For more necessities, of course.
But saving the remnants of a partially eaten (and ripped) bag of Goldfish instead of pouring your kid a new one, not so cool.
I mean, seriously people, even my husband agreed that we couldn’t throw this bag out. Then again, this is the man who saved three, count ‘em three pieces of elbow macaroni when we moved houses.
“Finding” $500 worth of unused gift cards and store credits in my file drawer was really cool. (Now I know what Oprah means by “found” money.)
That $10 gift card to Target is going to go a long way. Crap, I could have used it to buy my hat.
Using those gift cards to buy my friends’ kids birthday presents, hmmm… debateable.
In the quest to spend less money and save more, I’m finding myself just running into dilemmas like this: do I spend the $4 in gas to return the $10 worth of chicken salad that I bought from the store which spoiled in 2 days which I only bought in the first place so that I wouldn’t eat lunch out as much?
See what I mean? Being frugal cool is a lot of work.
I think I’ll go blow that $40 store credit at the Gap on myself tomorrow. It might clear my cheap head and I might look a little more chic in the process. I can only hope.
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