Since the first and second installment of our frugal habits, I thought I’d put out a new one.

Clothing
We’ve started purchasing clothes from the thrift store. This fits in with our environmental concerns (buying used) and our wallets. There is a great thrift store not very far from our place and we’ve found pants and shirts that look and feel brand new. Now we plan on purchasing socks, shoes, and undergraments new.

Utilities
We’ve started washing our clothes in cold water. I was analyzing our gas bill since we began tracking our bills and found our gas bill a bit high. I couldn’t figure out why. I knew that we were cooking nearly all our meals at home, but that didn’t explain the increase in our gas bill. I finally figured out that it was our washer (we used to use hot water to wash our clothes). While we’re lucky to have a washer and dryer at home we do wind up paying the water and gas bill and water is heated with gas.

Food
We’ve come very, very close to eliminating all packaged food. While we’ve completely eliminated processed food, occasionally we do buy something in a can or something shrink wrapped. Between the farmer’s market and a local food market (that supports locally and organically, grown produce) the amount of processed stuff we bring home has fallen greatly.

Debt
We’ve attacked our debt very strongly. Husband began a new, much better paid job recently and we have had no desire to do anything with the extra money but save and pay of debt.