Meet a Reader | JenRR from the Midwest

1. Tell us a little about yourself

My current lifestyle would probably qualify as frugal-lite compared to many others. I was a bit intimidated by this, but then I figured I probably wasn’t the only person out there who isn’t ultra-frugal at the moment.

I have had times when it was necessary to stretch every cent, but thankfully we have more wiggle room these days.

I’m 47, married, and living amongst the cornfields in a college town in the Midwest U.S.

I’ve been an architect, day-care teacher to toddlers, and library clerk, but am currently a SAHM to a 14yo son and 9yo daughter. We share our home with a 70lb rescued mutt.

Before kids, I spent my free-time volunteering at a stray rescue shelter for dogs. After I had kids, I swapped that time to growing all sorts of interesting heirloom foods in my backyard. I’ve always loved historic architecture, exploring by foot, animals, swimming, reading, and just generally creating things.

My family loves watching movies and tv series together, and having regular game nights.

In January, the four of us put together a long list of games we wanted to play, many of which were just gathering dust in the basement, and it has become a joint New Year’s resolution to get through all of them before the year is over!

When the weather is nice, we love to find outdoor spaces to explore.

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

I started reading The Frugal Girl back in 2010 when Kristen’s kids were still itty bitty.

My oldest was barely a year old and I had just been laid off from my job as an architect. I was searching for ways to cut back on expenses and found this blog. I quickly became a daily reader.

3. How did you get interested in saving money?

At age 12, I started saving up my allowance and babysitting money to buy Christmas gifts for other children who were less fortunate.

The more kids I could “adopt”, the better! As an adult, it’s important to me to continue to be generous, as well as, provide financial security for myself and my family.

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

After I became a mother, finances became much more complicated. Besides dealing with my sudden unemployment when my oldest child was a toddler, I was hoping to figure out a way to extend my time at home with him.

The year after I lost my job, my husband got laid off. It was a rough few years, but I did everything I could think of to spend as little as possible and we got through it. It became very important to us to create a financial cushion and get beyond living paycheck to paycheck.

As our family and household income grew, my husband and I made it a goal to put more money aside for emergencies, retirement, college, home improvements, etc.

It’s important for my mental health to know we are doing what we can to protect our future selves.

5. What’s your best frugal win?

After going through some years of job instability, my husband got a great new job in another state. We rented at first, but the rental situation in our new town was poor. I was determined to buy a house that was less than we could afford.

While we were still renting an apartment, I researched areas with lower property taxes, scouted out my ideal neighborhoods, and waited for a smaller, less expensive house to come on the market.

We ending up buying our current home in 2015, when local prices and interest rates were significantly lower. Nine years later, the rent for similar homes in our neighborhood is double the cost of our mortgage!

Despite an increase in income, we’ve continued to stay in our small home so the extra money can go into our savings/retirement funds. Having money already set aside also means we can pay upfront for most home maintenance costs.

Another big win would be taking advantage of our great public library system. After nine years, we’ve checked out materials valued at over 100k! This doesn’t include the many free in-library activities we’ve enjoyed over the years.

6. What’s an embarrassing money mistake you’ve made?

My early twenties were pretty much one huge embarrassing money mistake!

I grew up with the misconception that a college degree pretty much guaranteed a comfortable income, and that I wouldn’t have to worry too much about money when I got a “real” job. The first few years after graduating, I racked up a large credit card debt and bought a new SUV that cost approximately the same as my annual salary.

At the time, I thought my income would quickly increase and everything would be easy to pay off, but I spent the second half of my twenties paying off that debt. I did drive that vehicle for 14 years, so it wasn’t a total loss.

7. What’s one thing you splurge on?

My garden.

I invested a decent amount of money getting things started because it was something I really needed and wanted for myself. I designed everything, built the cedar beds from scratch, put up wire fencing, built vertical growing structures, and hauled in the soil.

Over the years, I’ve invested small amounts at a time, extending my growing space, adding several types of berries, planting cherry trees, and growing an asparagus patch from seed.

I save money where I can, reusing old food containers for my multitude of seasonal seedlings, getting free five-gallon buckets from the bakery to use for extra growing space, making compost from our fruit and vegetable scraps, and starting almost everything from seed.

I carefully save my seed packets to use over several years and even harvest some seeds from my previous year’s plants so I don’t need to buy as many in the future.

Besides providing large quantities of food for my family and a creative outlet for myself, all of this allows me a means of being generous to my community through extra food, plants and growing supplies.

I am lucky enough to live in an area with groups that will redistribute home gardener’s extra produce to soup kitchens and food insecure families.

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

I think my answer to this is covered in #10.

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

I’d probably put it in our house improvement fund. We’ve been wanting to add finished space with a bathroom to our basement. Any extra money towards that project would be awesome.

10. What’s the easiest/hardest part of being frugal?

The easiest part of being frugal for me is being completely uninterested in trends.

I wait to find things that I love and then pretty much use them until they die. Our first house post-wedding was very sparsely furnished/decorated because I didn’t want to spend money on something I didn’t absolutely love.

The same goes for things like clothes. If they‘d still fit, I’d be content to continue to wear my clothes from the early 2000s. It’s probably a good thing they don’t!

The hardest part of being frugal for my family is food!

My son is allergic to dairy, wheat, nuts, eggs and peas. I’m allergic to shellfish and can’t digest certain foods like apples. My husband can’t have nuts, eggs, lactose, and several types of fruit.

Some foods, like my son’s allergy-safe bread, are so much more expensive than the more typical versions of the same food. It’s now up to $11 per loaf! Add to that that my kids are now 9 and 14 and have much bigger appetites. We spend a painful amount of money on groceries these days.

11. Is there anything unique about frugal living in your area?

I live in a fairly transient town with lots of college students. People are always moving and getting rid of stuff.

Every May, when school gets out, the lawns around campus are filled with items students didn’t want to bother bringing home. It’s unbelievable what they leave behind!

I tend to stick closer to my neighborhood, but if you were starting fresh and needed to outfit a new apartment, you could probably get nearly everything you needed with the right timing.

12. What frugal tips have you tried and abandoned?

I have given up on second hand kids’ clothing. When we lived in a bigger city, we had great resale stores for used clothing and toys.

Unfortunately, that was not the case after we moved. It was not worth it to me to dig through unorganized racks of clothing attempting to find something passable in a size we could use. The prices were not low enough to justify the time and patience required.

I really miss our old secondhand stores with good condition items sorted into specific sizes! I ended up switching to shopping sales, using discounts/bonuses, and planning ahead.

In order to best make use of sale opportunities, I started using a clothing inventory chart I saw in The Tightwad Gazette to keep track of what I had/needed in various sizes. It was helpful in making sure I had everything we needed without overbuying.

After all, accidentally buying too many shirts on sale isn’t exactly saving us money!

13. What’s your funniest frugal story?

I decided to try a recommendation for saving deodorant that I read about in The Tightwad Gazette. I saved up a drawerful of ends of deodorant sticks (the part you can’t use without it repeatedly falling out onto the floor), melted them down in the microwave, and poured everything into an already empty deodorant container.

It worked, but only created about 1/3 of a new stick! Definitely not worth the drawer space.

14. How has reading the Frugal Girl changed you?

I’ve been inspired to mend things!

I’ve now fixed so many hems and unstitched seams! On multiple occasions, I’ve received new items ordered online only to find seams already coming apart. When a company doesn’t want the item back, they simply refund the money and I am able to make the necessary repairs myself, saving money and landfill space.

More recently, I managed to repair my cloth grocery bags (all acquired for free) with things I already had around the house. I reinforced seams, closed up holes, and repaired seriously damaged handles that were almost worn through.

They will continue to be in use for many more years to come.

15. Which is your favorite type of post at the Frugal Girl and why?

I love many of the posts, but my favorite regular topics are Five Frugal Things and Thankful Thursdays. They help me to be more mindful of all the little things.

I also greatly appreciate Kristen’s honesty about all the real things of life. It’s much easier to relate to people who let you see beyond a perfect public persona.

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Jen, I loved all the pictures you sent! You do a great job of composing your pictures, and I especially loved the ones of the kittens. So cute!!

I noticed your daughter’s hair was curly when she was younger and now it looks straight; Zoe used to have curls as a toddler, and now her hair is mostly straight too. That picture of your girl with the okra is just TOO cute. I kept looking back at it as I put the post together!

I love that you are repairing your reusable bags. You have to use those bags so many times in order for them to be an environmental win, so whenever we can repair them, that’s awesome.

About allergies: I am in awe that you manage to work around so many conflicting allergies! I had a hard enough time with Zoe’s shellfish allergy plus Sonia’s dairy/raw produce/nut/seed allergies. I think you should just pat yourself on the back for getting any meals on the table, regardless of how much they cost. 🙂

Readers, the floor is yours!