14 Days of Frugality- DAY TWO

I want to make a clarification. Even though we are living frugally we are still eating natural/organic. All our meat is natural or organic, all our produce is organic. None of the food in our house contains artificial sweeteners, colors or preservatives. I am still buying Iggy's bread and have no intention of switching to Wonder Bread. This frugal experiment is an attempt to see what is possible taking in consideration how we live. I could easily cut our grocery bills in half if I was willing to eat differently, but I am not.

Now... today. Today we pretty much stayed inside the house. I am tired from a busy week before so Max and I spent the day reading books, building towers and taking a dip in the wading pool. We thought about going to the beach, but then realized that we decided too late and we wouldn't have a lot of time (the joy of two naps a day). However, both the beach and the wading pool are free! Actually, when I think about it, and I thought about it today, there are a lot of free things to do with Max in Portland. There are the beaches, parking is free... the splash pool, the many playgrounds, parks, library and I'm sure many more things that I have yet to discover. Entertaining a one-year-old isn't hard either... sometimes a trip to the grocery store is exciting enough.

I'm also excited that Max is about to receive some new toys, but at no expense to us. I have been saving the reward codes on Max's diapers and I just entered them all in and got him a set of 3 Alex bath boats. They are really cool. It will probably be a while before they are here, but it will be nice knowing that they are the result of a few minutes of my time and not $11.99 (what they sell for on Amazon.com).

For breakfast I made oatmeal and iced coffee. For lunch I cooked up a yummy pizza with ingredients that were in the house (I keep a few bags of frozen pizza dough from Trader Joe's in the freezer for pizza making) and of course a few pinches of herbs from my trusty herb pot on the deck. Growing your own herbs is a fantastic way to save a little. Often a recipe will call for a little of this or a pinch of that and your only option at the supermarket is to buy a whole package or bag of the stuff. I love oregano, but I don't know what to do with a whole package. Growing your own herbs is easy (if I can do it, it's easy) and really really inexpensive. Best of all, you have everything you need when you need it :)

More later...