Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: Save The Bottles

If you're just tuning in, I've been reading through *very old* books on homemaking and frugality, and sharing with you some wise insights.

Today's tidbit of wisdom  from the past is about not tossing glass bottles:

Save vials and bottles. Apothecaries and grocers will give something for them. If the bottles are of good thick glass, they will always be useful for bottling cider or beer;

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 251-252). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

In 1832 when this book was written, everything didn't come in plastic bottles, and there was not curbside recycling pick up.  I'm pretty sure that they sat out milk jugs to be refilled (a type of recycling), and selling them as she mentions is a type of recycling, too.

However, around the house, there are many uses to be found for bottles and jars.  Many times I have used containers that would have been tossed for another purpose around the house, and it has saved me from having to buy something to fill that purpose!

• Freezing things!  I use margarine tubs *all the time* for my freezer meals.  My whole family has always done this, so it just seemed like the thing to do to me.  But, it saves me from buying plastic containers/bags.  I also use glass jars (think pasta sauces) to freeze liquid items--my homemade salsa and pizza sauce for example.
• Bath Toys!  I cleaned out some empty spice containers and tossed them in the tub. My kids had the greatest time sprinkling each other at bath-time.  I got this idea when I saw a group of children bring a whole bag of such items to a splash park.  All of us mommies were sitting around in awe that the most popular kids there were the ones who had brought their TRASH as playthings!
• Storage!  I've not yet done this myself, but I've seen many people use glass jars to store bulk foods like beans, rice, spices, etc.  They look nice, and you can easily see inside.
• Projects!  I'm not good at these, but I'm sure all of the homeschooling mom's out there can give tons of examples.  My daughter's Kindergarten teacher just requested plastic bottles with lids for a science experiment, and they have been collecting cereal boxes for quite some time now for their 100th day celebration.  I'm quite interested to see what they are doing with them!

What other ideas can you share?

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Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: Cut Out The Middle Man

I'm still reading through The American Frugal Housewife, and last told you about not paying for convenience items.  Now, she would say that even shopping at stores is a convenience that costs extra!

"Buy your woollen yarn in quantities from some one in the country, whom you can trust. The thread-stores make profits upon it, of course."
Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Location 215). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

These days, there is a lot less people "in the country" that you can go to, but that doesn't mean we are stuck with shopping in stores and letting them reap the profits.

• Shop farmers markets, and look for signs that say "local farmers"  (if they aren't local, chances are they bought it from a store!)
• Find a local farm or co-op.  I know of people buying beef, etc direct from farmers with herds.  I know people who have produce boxes delivered to their door, or someplace nearby.   (I'm interested to find these types of places near Dallas, so if anybody know's of one, please leave a link in the comments).
• If you have room, try growing some of your own food!  I love gardening, but I've not had much luck with the soil at our place.  I've been working on some composting, and plan to give it another try in the Spring.

What are some other ways you've shopped directly instead of from the store?

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Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: The Price Of Convenience

Welcome to the new series I'm doing called Practical Wisdom from Yesterday's Women  (read the intro here).

So far I've shared with you great tidbits about not wasting,  having a budget, living within your means,  and being generous.   All of that wonderful wisdom came from a few introductory chapters of the book I'm currently reading through, The American Frugal Housewife.

Now, I'm delving deeper into the text, and am finding some specific things that should be done as opposed to the broader ideas I've already shared.  Since this book was written in 1832, obviously there will be some things that do not hold true for today, but I am still finding plenty that do!

Take this one for example:

"...those who are under the necessity of being economical, should make convenience a secondary object."

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 173-174). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

The passage was speaking specifically about purchasing baked goods from a bakery as opposed to making them at home.  This is not news to most of us!  I see cute pictures floating all over facebook from my friends making their kids own birthday cakes and such...and the kids are just as happy, if not more happy with them because of the time and dedication and love that goes into them.

The book also made a point about the types of ingredients used by the baker as opposed to the ones you might use at home.  It is a very valid point she makes, but that is another topic entirely!

The passage got me thinking though....in 1832, they certainly didn't have nearly as many "conveniences" as we have these days, and you really do pay for these conveniences!

• Single serving bags of snacks or drinks  Have you ever stopped to think why a 20oz drink always costs as much if not more than a 2L??
• Bagged ready to eat salads.  A $1 or less head of lettuce contains more than you get in one of those bags, and it takes very little time to cut and wash it.
• Frozen, ready to pop into the microwave items, especially breakfast.  You can buy a box of pancake mix and make 4 times the amount of pancakes that come in that box of pre-made ones for less money, and then freeze them yourself!  I've also made my own hot pockets, breakfast burritos,  and uncrustables.

These are a few kitchen specific ideas, and I'm sure the list could go on, and on.    

What are some conveniences that you choose not to spend extra for?

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Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: Frugal Does NOT = Stingy

The last bit of wisdom I shared with you from The American Frugal Housewife involved not spending all that you had available.  We did not discuss the subject of what to do with the excess, but Ms. Child would not say we should hoard it away for ourselves!

"Economy is generally despised as a low virtue, tending to make people ungenerous and selfish. This is true of avarice; but it is not so of economy. The man who is economical, is laying up for himself the permanent power of being useful and generous."

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 154-156). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

She makes it very clear that she is not encouraging extravagant giving from those who already have great debt, because this is not fair to his family or his creditors.  To those who have no debts, she advises that "true economy is a careful treasurer in the service of benevolence."

In other words, if you have been blessed with excess, be mindful of those whom you could help.

Now my family is not debt free.  We are thankfully credit card free and no longer acquiring any more debt, so we are on the right path.  We will get there, but we aren't there yet.  But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't heed this piece of advice.

There are many other ways that we can be "useful and generous" that do not involve handing out actual cash.  We can share the fruits of our couponing!  We can share a coupon we won't use.  We can share a meal with those going through a rough time.  We can even just give of our time.

Lately couponers have gotten a bad rep, especially in this economy where many are becoming desperate to save money and feed their families.  There is shelf clearing.  There is rudeness, both to cashiers and other customers.  There is no need for that to be us.  As the quote above says, that is the definition of avarice, not economy.

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Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: Live Within Your Means

The last bit of wisdom that I shared with you from The American Frugal Housewife was about making a budget. Now normally, when we make a budget, it is so we know how much money we have to spend, but if we take a lesson from 1832, we will attempt to spend much less than that:

"If you have enough, and more than enough, to get everything suitable to your situation, do not think you must spend it all, merely because you happen to have it. Begin humbly. As riches increase, it is easy and pleasant to increase in hospitality and splendour; but it is always painful and inconvenient to decrease."

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 121-123). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

Once you become accustomed to a way of life, it is very hard to give up that way of life in order to scale back and cut costs, but many of us are finding it necessary to do just that right now in this economy.  The author of this book, I believe, nails the reason that it is so hard for us to scale back, too--pride!

Now, of course the things they needed to scale back on were much simpler than all of the options we have these days.  She simply talked of decorating ones home, or husbands and fathers wanting to have their wives and daughters adorned in the finest clothing and accessories so as to keep up with appearances in their social class.

We may not have set "social classes" today, but our society does dictate many of the things that we "must have" to be accepted as "doing ok", and to be quite honest it truly would hurt most of our pride if we had to go without some of these things.

I'm not going to make a list of things we need to do without, because different things are of different levels of importance to different people.  If you are spending everything you make each month, however, I suggest taking a lesson from the past, and having a close look at the things you are spending on.  Set your pride aside while you think about what truly can be scaled back on.  Look for ways to save money on those things you want to hang onto.  It may be as easy as a call to your cable company, who will lower your bill like they did ours!

I'm certainly speaking to myself here, also.  It's been a long time since we've sat down and had a close look at our expenditures.  We've cut back on many things in the past that seem to keep creeping back in.  Fast food is a big thing for us.  It's going to take a little bit more extensive planning on my part, but I know that is one change we need to make.  I'm sure we will discover that there are many more!

If you must make these sacrifices, do not be of the mindset that these are things that your family has to do without.  Think instead about the debt that many people accumulate trying to make sure they have it all, and know that you are making things much better for your family by avoiding that path!

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Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: Have A Budget!

I'm still reading through the introductory paragraphs of The American Frugal Housewife (free for Kindle), and I've come across yet another bit of wisdom:

"It is wise to keep an exact account of all you expend.  This answers two purposes; it makes you more careful in spending money, and it enables your husband to judge precisely whether his family live within his income. No false pride, or foolish ambition to appear as well as others, should ever induce a person to live one cent beyond the income of which he is certain."

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 107-109). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

The book goes on to give a few examples of daily wages (which were between $2 and $0.50) and how whatever your wage, or your husband's wage I suppose, you should spend only roughly 80% of that.

It also goes on to talk about how trying to keep up with those of a higher social class will come back to haunt you when calamity arises, and you've not saved up anything.


I don't think these are very hard to relate to today at all!  Here are a few of my thoughts:

• You need to have a budget in place and STICK TO IT!  My husband and I will be revamping ours when his next paycheck comes.  There have been some changes to our income and finances since we last took a look at it, and we've been spending through some money we'd saved up so we need to take a very close look at that.
• Unlike then, now there are credit cards.  Don't use them.  If you don't have the cash to pay for something, don't buy it.  It's very tempting to want to buy that item on credit to "appear as well as others", but save up for it so you don't end up paying much, much more in interest.
• Use CASH!  We've gotten away from this system, as we always just seem to be too busy to go to the bank and needing to hit the store as soon as the deposit hits the account.  But I really liked using cash, and intend to go back to it because, like she said up there..it makes you more careful in spending money...when you can actually see in being spent rather than swiping a piece of plastic.

I will be working on making, trimming, and sticking to my own budget, but I'm going to leave you with one more thought that she had on this subject, and particularly on the topic of our children watching our actions.  I think it speaks volumes all by itself!

Self-denial, in proportion to the narrowness of your income, will eventually be the happiest and most respectable course for you and yours. If you are prosperous, perseverance and industry will not fail to place you in such a situation as your ambition covets; and if you are not prosperous, it will be well for your children that they have not been educated to higher hopes than they will ever realize.

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 115-118). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

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Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women: Nothing Should Be Wasted!

I told you earlier in the week of my plan to read through some really old homemaking books that I found free for Kindle and share with you the wisdom that I glean from them (you can click over and read my intro post if you missed it).

I told you that I was going to start off reading The American Frugal Housewife, and I did not even get a full paragraph into the introductory chapter before I had a great quote for you!

"Nothing should be thrown away so long as it is possible to make any use of it, however trifling that use may be; and whatever be the size of a family, every member should be employed either in earning or saving money."

Child, Lydia Maria Francis (2009-10-04). The American Frugal Housewife (Kindle Locations 89-90). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. 

The book goes on to suggest a few ways that this should be accomplished (written, if you recall, in 1832):

•  Knitting/mending our own stockings.
• Patching clothing.
• Teaching children to prepare and braid straw for their own bonnets (and their brother's hats!)
• Using feathers that fall from turkeys and geese to make fans to be sold for profit.

Now there are certainly a ton of things in this book that are not going to pertain to us anymore.  Obviously, not many of us knit stockings, or wear bonnets, and own geese!  But the main idea here is still the same today!

Some things that we can do today to make less waste:

• Learn some basic sewing so that small tears in clothing can be repaired.  (I'm certainly talking to myself here, because I'm not sure I'm equipped to so much as sew a button back on!)
• If the children want to create, let them color on the backs of those papers that coupons print on.  Let them cut pictures out of your old magazines.  Think about the items you throw away everyday and determine if there is anyway that you can reuse it.  I cleaned out some empty spice shakers for my girls to use as tub toys!
• If you have a skill (we all have skills), see if you can profit from it.  Make things to sell if you are crafty (I'm not!).  Tutor.  Edit essays.  (I've done both of these, though!)  I keep telling my husband that people would pay for his computer expertise.
• If you have things that you don't need, but they are still useful, try to sell them.  Post them on craigslist, or have a garage sale.

These few little paragraphs resonated with me because my husband recently had to switch to a different part time job that paid much less, and we are trying to find ways to make up for that loss of income.  He has applied for a tutoring position a few hours a week that will pay quite well given his teaching experience, but whether or not there is a student for him is up to chance!

We've been going through our house and doing a lot of purging (wasteful yes, but sometimes you just have to!)  We have sat a number of things off to the side in our garage, and we are planning to have a garage sale in the near future.

Of course, I am using this site to share my skills and knowledge with all of you, and continuing to learn more about blogging and always working to make this site better and more user friendly  (I'd love any suggestions!).  I love what I do here, and do not blog to make money.  In fact, I blogged for an entire year before ever signing up with any affiliate sites whatsoever.  But, I do spend a lot of time doing this, so I am always looking into ways to make my site become profitable.

I don't know if Ms. Child would say we were living up to her frugal expectations (I've definitely got to figure out the button sewing), but I truly believe it is a process, and everyone slips up from time to time.  We've not always been the most frugal people, but we are trying our best to get there!

Looks like the next frugal topic the book discusses is budgets, so stayed tuned!

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Introducing A New Feature: Practical Wisdom From Yesterday's Women

As time goes on, and new innovations are made daily, our society becomes more and more intelligent as a whole.  However, there is a lot of wisdom and skills that people today no longer possess simply because they've never had to!

I've often wondered how people lived without today's modern conveniences and how people got by on salaries that were so much less than they are today (of course, things costed much less back then, too).

Recently, while I was searching for some free Kindle book downloads to post on my other blog, I stumbled across some old homemaking books.  (And I do mean OLD!)  I suppose they would rightly fall under the category of Classics, which for they most part are always free for Kindle.

I downloaded several of these books, and since I have challenged myself to improve some of my "homemaking skills" (which are admittedly lacking!), I thought they would be a great resource for me.

Then I started thinking that I bet these ladies certainly knew how to save money!  That gave me the idea for this series.  I'm going to read through these books, at whatever slow pace I'm able to, and look for nuggets of wisdom that I can share.  I will link you to the book I'm reading in case you would like to follow along.  Or, you can simply glean from me the knowledge that I discover and deem worth sharing.

I'm going to be starting off my reading with The American Frugal Housewife, because I figure that is exactly what we are...now or in 1832.

When the opening pages contain the quote: ""Economy is a poor man's revenue; extravagance a rich man's ruin.", I think it's going to be a great read!

Stay tuned to follow along with what I'm learning.  You may wish to subscribe to Saving Myself Silly by email so you don't miss anything!

I'm still working out a blogging schedule for the new year, and will be posting this feature once a week.  I will let you know when I've decided on the best day, but it will likely stay on Tuesdays.

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