We usually eat out once a week, but this week we were out both Sunday night (friend's birthday) and Monday (F's birthday).

On Sunday our friends provided the pizza (but I bought a small gluten free one for myself). So we didn't need to feed all three of us - deal!

I had heard that a restaurant downtown has a Monday/Tuesday special where one kid eats free for every adult entree. I suggested the restaurant to F (without mentioning the deal) and since it's one of her favorites, she decided that was where she wanted to go on her birthday. (I'm sly, right?) F and I went with a another mom and her daughter. F and I ate for $10 - another deal!

So, we didn't blow the dining out budget for the week, even though we ate out twice.

The other day, D accused me of being overly-frugal when I mentioned that instead of using a paper towel (those are for EMERGENCIES like cat puke) he should have used one of the cloths that I keep in the kitchen. (I apologized for being so controlling and he apologized for being sensitive; and he even said that he knows that all of my scrimping has allowed us to spend money on the things we WANT to spend it on - or save it - rather than on paper towels).

I was just watching a tv show (my favorite show: Cash and Cari on HGTV) on the internet (we don't have tv or cable and therefore no cable bill).

And I am about to leave to go to the library to pick up a book I reserved (I usually just order them online rather than browsing). This one is for F. I need to figure out what book I want to read next.

OK, enough scrimpiness for today.

I stopped using our dryer about six years ago in favor of the handy-dandy Solar Dryer (aka - clothesline!) which I rigged up under our portal.

We live in the dry southwest, with 325 days of sunshine a year. In the summer humidity is below 20% three days out of four. This means that our clothes dry within about an hour outside.

I had a clothespin holder that a friend made me out of plarn (that's plastic yarn) and it fell apart in the sun, so was keeping the pins in a little plastic bowl. I got sick of bending over to grab pins, so I just made this canvas bag out of one of F's hangers and some leftover canvas from a pillow project. I looked at tons of bags online and came up with my own pattern. I'm not an expert seamstress, but it'll do!



Anyway, I've got to go: there's a load that needs to be hung up!

I haven't decided if it's frugal or not to join our local pool. It's open from Memorial Day to Labor Day (which is pretty much the extent of pool season here, unlike California where I grew up; we were in the pool all year screaming Marco Polo at each other).

So I am (naturally) tracking our pool usage this summer to see if $400 for the family is a good deal or not (versus $1.50 for F and $6 for D and I at the public pool). We have gone 4 times so far. We would have spent $36 (we are not yet up to $400, but there is an entire summer left!)

Some advantage of the pool membership over our public pools: you can swim all day (no restricted hours), the chemicals aren't as disgusting, we see the same people over and over so for F it's like a playdate, the water is warmer, there are lounge chairs, it's an outdoor pool, the locker room isn't gross, the showers are warm, there are other amenities like bbqs/pool table/foosball/table tennis and a little playground for the kids.

I think I just convinced myself that it's worth it. Oh - one little bit of frugality to note: I shower F and wash her hair at the pool after she swims; that's her bath for the day, so we don't have to use water at home!