Showcase: Lords of the Manor

Posted by: kimc on Thursday, December 20th, 2007

Jennifer blogs at Lords of the Manor about her kids, frugal living, and whatever else is on her mind.

What does "frugal" mean to you?  What do you think it means to other people?

To me, being frugal is a means to become disgustingly rich. When I was working, I got really lazy. We ate out a lot, I didn't shop sales at all, because I didn't have to, even though we were able to pump up our savings somewhat, I look back and think I threw away so much money. Now we are on one income, in a bigger house, and everything just costs more-more ultilities for a bigger house, higher taxes in this state. Our last job we had a privatized account, now we pay both social security & DH's retirement. It adds up, and DH's big raise actually nets us less money each month with more bills to pay, never mind that I also quit working. I decided I want to be able to be debt free, pay for my kids college, be able to not worry about money, ever. So for me being frugal means ensuring my future and my kids future. I want to be able to help my kids if they need it, I want to be able to spoil grandkids rotten.

I try to center my choices on only buying things that will last. For instance, I don't buy things like clothes, furniture, or anything marketed & manufactured by a certain discount store chain. You go in and pay less for their brand, but it breaks or falls apart in the wash 2 days later. So I try to save up to buy really high quality items that will last, and forgo it completely if I can only afford the shoddy cheap ones. My taste really out paces my budget, if you look at sticker prices. I want the best of the best, name brand clothes for my kids, beautiful, quality furniture, great cars. I've found that if I put some energy & patience into it, I can have all that stuff for the same price as buying crappy stuff & replacing it constantly. I try to avoid paying interest. I used to be a telemarketer for a mortgage refinance company. One man I spoke with laughed at the idea of refinancing and paying interest. He said, "I don't pay interest, other people pay me interest." That has always stuck with me. Now, I work very hard to avoid debt, especially high interest debt, and I try to keep things flowing so that we are accruing interest & equity in things, rather than paying to use, maintain, and replace them .

Do you think there is a downside to being frugal?

I like instant gratification. So it's hard to be patient. It's hard not to subscribe to retail therapy when I'm down, it's hard to make myself cook when I don't want to. I created a second blog simply to save myself money on eating out.  By forcing myself to try new recipes, plan meals, shop for & cook nice dinners, I am less inclined to eat out. So even though my grocery bill goes up, overall our expenses go down because we aren't eating out. I've had to train myself to do that, but I've turned it into a fun family activity. I like good food. I hate to cook it. I want to be waited on. I'm a princess at heart, its hard to be Cinderella slaving away & pinching pennies, waiting for the day my servants can bring me my dinner on a gold platter. That for me, is the downside of being frugal.

Did it take you a while to "find your voice," or do you feel you've always been the same as a blogger?

I've always been a writer, and since I haven't published for awhile, I thought blogging would give me that outlet again. I don't want the deadlines of being a professional writer; I want to write what I want when I want. Blogging gave me a captive audience. It's mostly funny & crazy stories about raising kids, my humor is a little sardonic, but I think that appeals to my readers who also wonder at the irony that they went to college for 4-7 years only to spend their days picking up Cheerios off the floor and trying to find a way to save & use the entire bottle of shampoo your toddler dumped into the bathtub while you were on the phone. (By the way, shampoo is really good for cleaning stubborn tub rings, and it cleans toilets as well) I started my blog because it's an outlet for writing, and it also saves me millions by not scrapbooking. I can back up pages, share them with family, and its all free. Meantime my family & friends also have to listen to me expound on the mysteries of the universe.....

What do you know about your readers? What do you think draws them to your blog?

I think its probably like a train wreck, they can't look away. What will she do next? I make fun of myself, I make (goodhearted) fun of my kids. I try to remember what it was like to be a kid. My background is in psychology, I like to make fun of the "experts" when they are wrong, and make fun of what I thought raising kids would be like. My blog has taken a frugal turn over the last few months, and that gives me another thing in common with my readers. We share ideas, and some of my readers are local so we pass along where the good deals are in a given week. I seem to have readers from a lot of different ages and backgrounds, but they seem to come back. I try to visit everyone who visits me, and that builds friendships. Blogging isn't superficial for me, everyone who comments is a real person with real struggles, I can commiserate with their problems, & share their triumphs, even if its something small like forgoing chocolate for a day or saving $2 on a Halloween costume. My readers are people I can reach out to, and make new friends.

How important is frugality to you?  Casual interest, hobby, lifelong habit, or insane fanatical obsessive compulsion?

It's important, its sort of an insurance policy for the future. I have definite plans of where I want to be when I retire, and its not where my grandparents were. I don't want to be a burden on anyone. I want to leave copious amounts of money to my children. One dollar saved today is hundreds in the future. I'm an anal person in general, but when it comes to frugality, I try to be within reason. I won't drive all over town for the best deals, spending $2 in gas to save 50 cents on paper towels. Instead I try not to use paper towels often. I figure out what stores have the best deals that week, I go to two of them that have the very best prices and I buy only what's on sale. Sometimes I buy overpriced milk because its cheaper than driving to the store with the best price, but I buy just one gallon, and stop at the better store when I'm in the neighborhood already. I don't usually reuse ziploc bags, I just try to avoid using them unless I really need one. I will reuse them, say to put cheese in, if it had cheese before. But washing them out? No thanks. I will sew, but only if it saves me both money and time. My time is important, and sewing gives me a headache. It has to be really worth it for me to sew.

Define frugality in your own words. Do you think it means different things to different people?

I absolutely think it means different things to different people. One "frugal" site I visit sometimes really doesn't seem frugal to me. The ideas are all based around buying new stuff. To me, I'd like to avoid buying it in the first place. I won't buy something just because its on sale or a good price or had a good review. I have to need it too. My kids don't need more toys just because of Christmas clearance sales, or new clothes that are insanely low priced simply because they are on sale. If their drawers are full, who cares if I can get a shirt for a dollar? Unless of course, I can sell that shirt on Ebay for $5...Do you have a favorite frugal site? I try to read as many frugal sites as I can, I don't always use the ideas, but I really just need the boost. Reading about it makes me think about it, so then I'm more likely to do it. Hearing about why other people are frugal helps me remember that I have goals too. Right now I have on my feed reader:

We all have moments of glory and brilliance that we want to relive for the rest of our lives, right? What was your best ever frugal idea?

I think I am an amazing car buyer. I worked in retail long enough to know that even if something is sold at a loss, it frees the business up to spend that income on something else that will sell for a profit. So I look for cars that have really good reputations, but that have been on the lot for a really long time. I do all my research before I even walk onto the lot, consumer reports, online forums, awards its won, what the mileage is, what the retail value & trade in value, and private party value is. Then I go to the car lot with many things in mind. Car dealers try to get you to focus on the payment, I go with both a payment (if I have to finance), a total price (including taxes, registration, fees, etc), and a term. For instance, we just sold DH's truck & bought a sedan. I knew what the truck was worth and insisted they take for trade what I could get selling to a private party. I took the truck to the carwash & had it detailed beforehand, so it looked actually nicer than it probably was. If they didn't give me the exact deal on the Lexus that I wanted, I was going to walk. I always take my kids with me, and I go at either dinnertime or naptime so the kids are cranky. That way the dealer knows I have other things on my mind, and will walk out at a second's notice. (Maybe this is mean, but then I take the kids to McDonalds so they forgive me. I spend $8 on Happy Meals and save tons every month, so we all win.) I haggled right down to where we were haggling over $8. And I was really going to walk if they didn't give me the $8. Ultimately, I won. I got the Lexus for $3500 less than its value, I got private party price for the truck, I got the price I wanted, the payment I wanted, and the term I wanted, and a better interest rate than they initially offered. And my new car payment is $6 less than I paid on the truck. Plus the gas mileage is better and the Lexus is funner to drive. But no one believes that I really spend less money to drive a Lexus than to drive a old beater Dodge work truck. On cars I will haggle until they add on a full tank of gas, and if they don't even balk at filling it with gas, I ask for something else too-a free oil change in 3 months, or anything else they will tack on. I squeeze until I know they can't go any lower.

What was your worst or craziest frugal idea?

We all have good & bad days at being frugal. The other day, I thought nothing of buying a massive quantity of Chinese Take Out, not even making my own rice at home, or my own soup, just throwing caution to the wind, $26 of Chinese food for just 2 people...then I was at the hospital last week and I'm sitting there going, "they are going to charge me $6 for every warm blanket, and they are going to charge me $8 for an ibuprofen so I won't ask for for it, I'll get it at home later..." This makes no sense, I mean, why not skip the Chinese food and enjoy the warm blankets and get some pain relief? Never mind that the insurance pays for the majority of the hospital stuff.

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5 Responses to “Showcase: Lords of the Manor”

Bridgette Says:
December 20th, 2007 at 2:13 pm

I just love reading your articles. You always have such great ideas! Thanks

Lyn Says:
December 20th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

I appreciate hearing your views on what frugality really is to you. I, too, believe that being frugal doesn’t necessarily mean buying every deal out there, even if it’s a thrift store or almost-free item. Sometimes not buying anything and making do with what you have is a better & more frugal choice. I’ll be visiting your blog – thanks for your thoughts!

Jennifer Says:
December 21st, 2007 at 9:44 am

Thanks! I appreciate the opportunity to be spotlighted here, its so fun to find other mamas & papas with the same or similar goals & swap ideas.

Thanks again Kim!

Ice Cream Says:
December 21st, 2007 at 12:39 pm

I loved reading this. You are frugal in exactly the same way I am (or was). I need to get back in my old frugal mindset. After surviving my husband’s 8 months of unemployment (2 weeks after buying our first home) and living on, sometimes literally, nothing for 2 years while he got his masters degree I kind of got burn-out from being so frugal all the time. Well, it has been three years now and I think I’m ready to start pinching my pennies again.

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