Meet a Frugal Girl reader | Kristin from Going Country

This year, I wanted to add in a feature that I think will be fun for all of you.

You all hear from me a LOT, since, uh, I’m the only one who writes here, officially.

But I am most certainly not the only frugal soul who hangs out around here.

And since there’s a lively comments section on my blog, there actually are some other people who faithfully write here. So, I thought it would be delightful for you all to have the opportunity to get to know your fellow readers a little bit better.

To get things going, I sent emails to some people who are super faithful commenters because I thought they’d be good people to go first.

The very first person I emailed was Kristin from Going Country, and happily, she agreed to answer my questions.

Kristin and I share a name, but our personalities are also so similar, we sometimes say that she’s the country version of me.

Our answers to the Kristen Prompted questions are often nearly identical…I’m Suburb Kristen and she’s Country Kristin!

Anyway, I hope you have fun getting to know Kristin a bit better.

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I have four children, one husband, two dogs, a horse, 9 chickens, and an ever-expanding number of meat rabbits and sheep.

We live waaaay out in the country in New Mexico, in one of the least-populated counties in the United States.

I grew up mostly in suburbs, but thanks to the man I married, I’ve lived rural for many years now. I can’t imagine living any other way anymore.

2. How long have you been reading The Frugal Girl?

I’m not actually sure. Many years. Maybe nine? I know I found the site by searching for recipes for homemade yogurt. I still use Kristen’s yogurt method, incidentally.

 

(Note from Kristen: Here’s the yogurt method!)

3. How did you get interested in saving money?

I’ve always been a naturally frugal person. Being otherwise is actually hard for me, so I think it’s hardwired.

4. What’s the “why” behind your money-saving efforts?

I answered this in the comments here once, and I think I said it all there, so here it is again: We live the way we do so we don’t have to work so much to earn money. I guess that’s the simplest answer.

We moved to where we are and live the way we do so that we–most especially my husband, who has been the main earner since we started having children a decade ago–have more time for our family and can enjoy life more.

For us, all the frugal choices are a good trade-off for a life in which my husband and I are home most days, and we don’t have any significant work-related stress that impacts our family life.

5. What’s your best frugal win?

Probably helping our neighbor butcher a fatally injured bull. We got 200 pounds of beef for free out of that effort. 

6. What’s a dumb money mistake you’ve made?

I literally can’t think of one. That’s not say there isn’t one, just that my memory is leaky as a sieve.

7. What’s one thing you splurge on?

Winter coats and boots for my children. Cold-weather gear for kids is not the place to cheap out.

8. What’s one thing you aren’t remotely tempted to splurge on?

Uh, anything else? Regular clothes particularly, I guess. Our family is very hard on clothes.

9. If $1000 was dropped into your lap today, what would you do with it?

Put it towards our (almost paid off!) mortgage.

10. Share a frugal tip with other Frugal Girl readers.

Being willing to do work that other people don’t want to bother with can save a lot. We’re kind of known for being willing to butcher animals. We have gotten countless roosters this way (do you know how much organic, free-range chickens costs to buy? A LOT).

Also sheep, rabbits, and the aforementioned bull. Same idea applies to finding furniture that needs to be repaired or just painted (Kristen has many, many tutorials about this :-), clothing that needs mending, forageable foods that the owners don’t want to bother picking, etc.

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Thank you, thank you Kristin, for being the first one to participate in this series!

If you’d like to follow along with Kristin, she blogs at Going Country.

And Kristin did a guest post for me about how to grocery shop less frequently.

If you have any questions for Kristin, I’m sure she’d be glad to hop into the comments and answer them.