Frugal in the Fruitlands

I think it’s required that if you write a blog and do monthly wrap-ups, you have to say “It was another great month here on X!”

This is me not doing that.

Here are the key posts from this month, if you missed them:

• Nine Ways to a Frugal, Unconventional Wedding was my entry in a Moolanomy’s Best Wedding Tips and Stories contest. This was my first time writing for a contest, but I think it was a good inspiration.
• In What Alternate Clutterverse Am I Living In?, I reflected on Peter Walsh’s organization/decluttering book, It’s All Too Much.
• Vacation Bloat is my confessional tale of Too Much Vacation Spending.
• Also this month, I succeeded in making an $1800 repair to the Subaru without going into debt (not even a little).

If you missed any of these stories, and don’t care to miss anymore, I’d recommend subscribing to my RSS feed. This little WikiHow article will show you how to add an RSS feed to your personalized Google homepage or to Google Reader.

How did I do on my May goals?

• My fitness goal for this month - to exercise 30 minutes daily, followed by a 5-minute stretch - was even less successful than in April, with only 15 days exercised. I also wanted to start adding in a strength workout, but clearly I wasn’t ready for that yet - I only managed this on three days! Still, I feel like I’ve at least got the habit of exercising two or three times a week down, and that’s a start.
• Google Reader tells me I have a grand total of 9 readers as of this month. Somewhat like Key the Metal Idol, I need 100 readers to meet the goal I’ve set. Don’t let this little robot down.

And my goals for June (I’m feeling ambitious this month):

• My longest consecutive stretch of days exercised is 10, so I’m going to attempt to beat that in June. (I’m not going to make exercise a monthly challenge, though). I’ve exercised for the last three days, so just 8 more days to go. Weekends are the hardest, but my husband just put the DDR (Dance Dance Revolution, a movement-based video game) setup back together, so I can do that now, too.
• My ZenHabits June challenge is to work on my blog for 30 minutes daily. Hopefully this means you’ll be hearing more from me! I’ve even set up a system of rewards. You can read more about my goal here.
• I’m participating in Give Me Back My Five Bucks’ June Dining Out Challenge, challenging myself to spend on $100 this month on eating out.
• I have another crucial goal which I’ll write more about at a later date. I’m such a tease.

Alas, I haven’t gotten Frugal in the Fruitlands its own domain name yet (Matt?) or written any money memoirs, so those are also On the List.

See you in June!

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Some months I do more “wrap-up” posts than I do “normal” posts. Thankfully, this month was not one of them. April brought a few new readers (thank you!) and a theme (health and finance) that inspired… well, only two posts:

• Five Reasons to Skip the Gym Membership. This was a bit controversial, but I stand by my assertion that Fitness Begins At Home.
• Four Frugal Fitness Resources. Since I wrote this I’ve gotten to know RealAge.com a little better and I like it even more now. There are ways in which it’s more commercial than I like (such as prompting you to email family and friends about the site every time you update your real age assessment), but it’s a handy way station for medically-based health and fitness information. That becomes more and valuable every day, as we’re constantly bombarded with fatalistic “Obesity Epidemic” warnings, fad diets, and telecommercials for torturous exercise equipment.

Also this month one of my cars developed transmission issues, and I developed an action plan for dealing with it.

My own fitness goals were moderately successful. My goal was to exercise for 30 minutes each and every day, and I did this for 19 days out of 30. I exercised every day for the first 10 days, and then fell off the wagon due to sickness, exercising an average of three or four days a week for the rest of the month. Given this, I’ve decided to recommit to this exercise goal for May. In an attempt to add more strength training and flexibility training to my fitness routine- -since most of my exercise was walking - I’ll also attempt to add a five-minute stretch after every walk, and try for a strength training workout three days a week.

Things to look forward to in May:

• Frugal in the Fruitlands will get its own domain name this month. I have a free one that comes with my webhosting that needs to be repurposed.
• I’d like to start writing some “money memoirs.” Some of you - especially those who read from LJ - probably think my near-obsession with money and frugality makes me an odd bird, and I thought you might be interested in where that mindset comes from. Would you find this feature interesting or insightful?

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This lovely New England March has come in like a lion and out like… well, a feral kitty with sharp claws. It will still be several more weeks before the garden goes in, but I spent a good portion of my weekend at Home Depot, preparing seeds, pots, and all those goodies. I’ve also been working on a costume for the Festival of the LARPs this weekend, a weekend-long (free!) live-action roleplay convention at Brandeis University. I will be running my first LARP here, too, though it’s not one I’ve written. I’m prepared for adventure!

Here are some the best posts from March, in my not-so-humble opinion:

• No Kids, No Debt, No Problem
• The Mystery Cash Box and the Sunk Cost Fallacy
• The $20,000 Manicure Question

And here’s a little bit of link love for you, not all related to personal finance or frugality:

• An oldie (April 2007) but a goodie: Unclutterer’s Tough Questions for Your Things. My favorite one is not on this list: will I have to dust this?
• Write to Done’s Research Sources for Writers: A Guide to Backing Up Your Words. The availability of peer-reviewed journal articles to unaffiliated individuals is a major issue in making research relevant to the masses. This article helps you to seek out those resources that are free to everyone.
• H&R Block’s Tax Calculators. I like these better that the governments’ (and the last time I checked, the IRS’ withholding calculator was down!)
• Fancast: a free, legal repository of TV and movies, past and present - so you can, yanno, relive your childhood with Doogie Howser episodes.

Hoping to catch up on some of my health and fitness related goals, my April goal is to exercise every day for thirty minutes. I tried this last year at around this time and was only able to accomplish four days at a stretch before losing the habit. I’m just a Morlock by nature, alas. I also have absurdly high cholesterol by nature, too, so that’s nothing to be proud of.

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I successfully completed my restaurant-free month yesterday! All in all I was incredibly successful. I avoided the urge for pumpkin lattes, asiago cheese bagels, and bloody rare steaks for an entire month. Caveat: I did once use a vending machine, and once hit up a convenience store when I forgot my lunch in the fridge; and I was treated to a meal at the Culinary Institute of America as part of work. All in all, however, my pocketbook - and my goals list - thanks me for my turn toward the abstemious.

My goal for November is to implement my evening routine daily. It will be a point-based system, where I have a list of 7 evening tasks, each task confers one point, and I will require 5 points in order to consider that day a success. These tasks are:
- Pick out clothes for tomorrow
- Pack up lunch/bags for tomorrow
- Kitchen cleanup
- Clean up one “hotspot.”
- Take medications
- Brush teeth
- In bed by 10:30pm

To further close out October, here are my better posts from this month:

• I asked myself the question: Will My House Keep Me From Being Rich? I had a lot of input on the LJ side of things, and the consensus was that I should keep doing what I’m already doing. Husband and I also chatted about it, and decided that we needed to make home maintenance a bigger part of our life.
• I explain how veal saltimbocca can fit into a frugal meal plan with Luxury is the New Frugality (Frugality is the New Luxury?).
• I talked about the times when it’s hard to be frugal in When Frugality Gets Derailed.

Grayson at Modern Worker has graciously allowed me to write a guest post for his blog - so look for that in the next week or so!

And, as always, if you wish to subscribe, here’s the link to the Frugal in the Fruitlands RSS feed.

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