Making Do

I was thinking about the trend toward frugality these days. It's kind of a fashion, isn't it? Like, things that are okay to do now would not have been okay before.

For instance, when I was growing up, I got a lot of my clothes from garage sales. And it wasn't cool or trendy back then. Back then, if I'd gone to school wearing one of the popular girls' hand-me-downs... Well, it would've been bad. You know how high school girls are.

Luckily for me, when I was in high school I was the size of a fifth-grader, so there was never any danger of being seen in one of their outfits. Maybe one of their little sister's, but luckily high school girls are so self-centered they wouldn't have noticed.

The new clothing I got came from outlet stores, which were also not cool back then. People go crazy for these place now.

I frequent Goodwill now. (Well not in a while. I haven't had any time to. But I want to.) I find all kinds of stuff there. So do a lot of other people, judging from how crowded those stores always are.

Gardening and preserving food is also something that was not a cool thing to do back when I was growing up. We did it. But most people didn't. Nowadays, people grow all kinds of stuff in their home gardens, from the pedestrian to the exotic. (I think popcorn in a backyard garden is exotic.)

I will admit, I'm not always vigilant about spending money on stuff. Sometimes, it's just a time thing. Like cutting the grass. It's worth the money to not have to spend two hours cutting the grass.

Of course, yarn is a different story. Someone asked me if I saved a lot of money by knitting Christmas gifts. Obviously, this person has never bought yarn. Knitting is not a frugal craft.