Looking Back

Today is my 4 year anniversary on this blog. I was thinking about what content I want to put on this new blog. Do I want things to stay the same or can I change. I thought it would be fun to go back and see how I started this blog. My first post about frugal, healthy and simple living was on May1 2009. I was comparing the three. I feel those choices have become second nature to me now. I automatically think health, frugal and simple because those are important to me. What started out as an experiment has become a lifestyle.

I think I've learned a lot in the past few years. One of the things that has worked for me is to just not shop. My dd is a great shopper and finds all kinds of deals, but it's too much temptation for me. I'm better if I know what I need to purchase and I just look for that and nothing else.

 Recently I had a little windfall, extra tax money and I've used part of it to invest in things that will save me money in the long run. I was able to look at the list of things I thought I wanted or needed and say I can either wait or do without it. I've found that a lot of things I think I want and need are passing desires that go away given time.

Also allowing myself certain luxuries makes it easier to say no to others. I allow myself to use my printer pretty liberally because I really enjoy having a hard copy of something I want to study and keep. So when I say no to something else I know that I'm making a choice based on what is most important to me.

My experiment with homemade cleaning products didn't always give the results I wanted and so I did switch back to buying organic products which are expensive, but I am choosy about which ones I decide to buy. Sometimes good enough is ok and sometimes it isn't.

I had visions of learning to walk more and use my car less. I do use my car less but I'm not walking more. This may just be wishful thinking on my part.

As far as cooking and stocking up with my diet changing so drastically I have focused more on learning to cook low carb and less on stocking up. I also found a lot of things that are frozen don't hold up very well. I ended up this year increasing my food budget so that I could buy organics and better quality food. I chose health over frugal in this case. I am going to reduce my budget a little as I am finding I'm doing pretty well and don't need as much money as I thought. I simple don't buy as much and really don't eat as much. Learning to stretch what you have is another frugal strategy.

I could go on and on about this subject and so I may continue to write about it on my new blog.

The new typepad blog is still being set up by my dd, bless her.  :-) I did go back on google+ so that I can comment on those blogs on it and being no one could comment on mine before at least now the google+ people can and I can see my comments now. I'm not saying this was google's fault I'm not very teck literate, but I'm still not happy with them, enough said about that.

Linda