Money & Americana

I've been reading this book called Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robinson and Joe Dominguez. Far from a get-rich-quick kind of book that you see everywhere (or seem to hear about, anyway), its kind of a get-rich-slow-and-steady thing.
I have not yet gone through all the steps that are suggested, but I have read it cover to cover first, as recommended. In a nutshell, the book is a programme designed to make you more aware and conscious of how much money you have earned in your life and where your money has gone and continues to go. Spreadsheets are involved. Keeping tabs on your spending is involved. Accounting for every penny that goes out and realizing exactly without a doubt where your money goes. The end goal is to decide on a sum that you need for living, and working towards becoming financially independent so that you no longer have to do anything you don't love doing for money, and money comes in. Not loads of it, but enough for you. On a smaller scale, the action of keeping strict accounts for a while of where your money goes sparks a creative and frugal instinct. Basically, although some things are inevitable expenditures, we can be quite creative in getting our needs met when we are very clear as to what they are. Well, friends, let me tell you that I have been extremely inspired and excited by all this frugality! I love it! It has given me a sense of clarity the likes of which I have not seen in a few years for sure! And so when my good friends J and A lent me their yard sale copies of the entire series of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books (which I have of course read in the past many times), I've been devouring them with the idea of frugality front and center. In my opinion, if you ever get tired of listening to Tea Party this and GOP that and even the liberals talking smack about Obama (fools), pick up Little House on the Praire or On the Banks of Plum Creek or any of the books really. They will restore your faith in Americans as being adventurous, self-sufficient, hard-working and creative - and frugal! So frugal! Truly understanding the relationship between work and money in a way that we in this post-industrial era don't really. We think we do, but we don't. Here's an excerpt from Farmer Boy, where Almanzo, who is nine, wants a nickel for some lemonade at the county fair. Almanzo's father uses this as a teachable moment to teach Almanzo about the value of money:

"You know how to raise potatoes, Almanzo?"
"Yes" Almanzo said.
"Say you have a seed potato in the spring, what do you do with it?"
"You cut it up," Almanzo said.
"Go on, son."
"Then you harrow - first you manure the field, and plow it. Then you harrow, and mark the ground. And plant the potatoes, and plow them, and hoe them. You plow and hoe them twice."
"That's right, son. And then?"
"Then you dig them and put them all down cellar."
"Yes. Then you pick them over all winter; you throw out all the little ones and the rotten ones. Come spring, you load them up and haul them here to Malone, and you sell them. And if you get a good price, son, how much do you get to show for all that work? How much do you get for half a bushel of potatoes?"
"Half a dollar," Almanzo said.
"Yes," said Father. "That's what's in this half dollar, Almanzo. The work that raised half a bushel of potatoes is in it."

Almanzo's dad (how come more people aren't named Almanzo these days? Watch it become the It name soon) goes on to give his son a half-dollar and tells him that he can spend it on whatever he wants - lemonade bla bla bla OR he can buy a suckling pig and raise it and sell the piglets next year etc. I'll keep you in suspense as to what nine-year-old Almanzo decides to do ;-) - but I will give you a clue: the book is called Farmer Boy and not Spendthrift Boy. (The book also inspired me to make a huge spelt pancake fur lunch yesterday - yum)

Now, you are asking yourselves, what does this have to do with anything today? We do not sow, neither do we harrow. But many of us do wake up daily and put gas in our cars and wear expensive clothing and carry expensive bags with expensive computers (ahem) and go on vacations to 'get away', and this is in essence the same thing. So if we are trading our lives for money, we'd better know where that money is going and we'd better spend some time thinking about some better ways to spend it or make it. The Little House Books have the potential to bring us back to a simpler time when men built their homes and women sewed the family's clothes. There's a huge crafting resurgence going on these days, with knitting circles and weaving cloth. People are growing their own herbs and some vegetables and bread baking is big too. Barter is back as well. I'm sure people are writing about this new time and what it means. I'm hoping it means that there is a rethinking about what is important in life and to what we assign value.

What are some frugal things that you do? I'm looking for all ideas.