How can I be more frugal?

Hmm, well, the first thing to understand is that there's a difference between being frugal and being cheep. Cheep is just being cheep, like that woman in New York in the 1920's who was worth $200 million (which means multi-billionaire in todays money), and was guardian of a nephew, and when he got sick with an infection, she spent two or three days running around until she found a charity hospital to take him, such that the kid ended up with an emputation that didn't have to happen if he'd just got attention right away. True frugality is an *art*, and it's a good art to have on an overpoulated planet, and as a matter of fact, I think I have a bit of it myself.

I recycle batteries, by saving them up and grinding them down and chemically separating the stuff, and believe it or not it pays for itself. But that might not be true frugality, because it's more motivated by me getting annoyed thinking about how toxic the constituents are and to think of that going into a landfill that could leech into groundwater... plus I think I do it a bit just to relive happy days doing chemistry stuff in a lab... actually using my degree for a change... I have a jones about recycling compost. It's so darned easy to compost cooking scraps like onions skins and egg shells that it just bugs me to not compost and use it on my vegetable patches in the spring, but that's just being conservative, and is probably not true frugality... I don't like to throw away paper, but I have a woman friend who collects that and she mashes it and makes a sort of parchment like stuff out of it, but again, I think that's just being ordinarily conservative and not frugal in it's highest sense.

However, I think I've got one that counts: One day I opened a bottle of aspirine and I got to thinking about the cotton in the top. The first thing I wondered was how the volume of cotton I was looking at corresponded to a length of thread, and then I got curious about the process of making thread, and then I got curious about how people made thread before there were looms, so I took it and started playing with it... stretching it out and and combing it and twisting it and all that stuff, and before long I couldn't *believe* just how long a string I could make from just the cotton from an aspirine bottle, *and* how blinkin' strong the thread was if I'd combed it out and twisted it just right! I finally understood all the hype about cotton.So, to this day, I've got an ever expanding ball of lumpyish cotton string that I tie new segments to every time I twist a string from bottle-top cotton, and my friends know about it and sometimes they remember to save theirs for me, and some day something's going to be made from that string... I don't know what... maybe I'll just double it back and wind it up and made some rope... I dunno... but it's cool, and it's not going to waste, and I look at bottles of medicine on drugstore shelves wondering if people know just how much string there is in all those bottles.

That's frugality... and it's an *art*! So... you wanne be *more* frugal? Well, understand that it's an art, take a look around, and get creative.

If you would like an online resource for tips to save money, Google hosts a site titled "Tip Jar" where anyone can throw a saving tip into the jar for others to read. They are also rated for how effective they are at helping to reduce spending.

One of their #1 tips to spending less money is to just drink water (from the tap too). I look at that tip and agree that I would spend a lot less money if I bought less Coke and Beer, lol... but hey, we all have our Necessities.

On my Mahalo page I have several ideas and techniques for living low debt, low cost, and low stress. Go to Mahalo and search simple living.

I freeze my fruits and vegetables in the summer usually. So I will have frozen fruits to use in smoothies, cakes and muffins. I cut the old Tshirts in to strips and crochet them in to a rug to use on the balcony.

I don't do composting or gardening, because of the space limits. I can't think of the wrapping the seed part in the question. It seems too gross for me.

I make yogurt most of the time. Reuse the plastic ice cream containers as freezer containers and fridge containers to keep food. Most people do that, I guess.

I wash the vegetables really well before peeling and save the peels to make vegetable broth in the slow cooker. I use this broth to cook my rice. I buy yarns from the yard sales and thrift shops to make scarves and caps and donate them back to the thrift stores.

I will add some fabric color and stitched embellishments to older clothes to give a new life. I print both sides of the paper. Use the cut envelopes to write grocery list.

I am addicted to reading. But don't buy books unless I desperately need to own them. I lend books from library read them and return them.

I give donation to library instead of buying books and magazines.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Buy used products whenever possible. Don't buy harsh cleaning chemicals, buy recycled paper, don't buy plastics, reuse any plastics that you already have.

Wash your clothes in cold water. Don't leave your lights on when you aren't using them. Try to use energy efficent light bulbs, they last longer and don't use as much energy.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.