Thank you to Chellie Mills and KFOR in Oklahoma City for their story on The Crafty Dollar today and thank you for visiting my site!

It has been a week and I am following up on my reduce, re-use, recycle challenge. The challenge wasn’t incredibly difficult since we already recycle; however, I did pay closer attention to what we were throwing away out of convenience.

We started the challenge with an empty recycling bin and it was my goal to put more into the recycling bin than into the trash. It didn’t happen, but one can always hope. Just for the record we ended up with two and a half bags of trash and a full recycling bin for the entire week. We would have had more in the recycling bin, but I was unable to persuade my husband to get on board with the challenge.

One of the difficulties I encountered with recycling is that our recycling program limits what it will accept. They accept the usual plastics (1-7), newspaper, glass, and aluminum but they don’t accept accept any type of cardboard or cereal boxes. I have found an alternative for the cereal boxes and I will have to locate a recycling center that accepts cardboard from the public.

After some research it was evident that I should probably set up a small composting area in our yard. We can use the composting on our garden, and it is a good teachable lesson for our children. The cereal boxes and some other things that were thrown away can be discarded into the compost bin, as well as all of our fruit and vegetable scraps. The things that weren’t recyclable were the plastic bags (frozen vegetables, cereal bags), and meat packages (styrofoam).

Recycling isn’t difficult but it sure does make things look messy with containers laying around to dry after they’ve been rinsed out. I had forgotten that the cans from our pantry could be recycled as well so we added tuna, vegetable, beans, and tomato cans to the recycling bin also.

I subscribe to the Wednesday and Sunday newspaper, mostly for the coupons on Sunday. About two months ago I started receiving the paper for the days of the week that I hadn’t subscribed to. I received a call from our newspaper stating that I would receive complimentary copies of the remaining days of the week because I was a loyal subscriber. I only read the Sunday and Wednesday and the other days immediately go into the recycle bin (I don’t have time to read the other days of the week). I need to make a call and cancel these complimentary days I’ve been receiving.

I have noticed that almost any time I order from a company online I begin receiving catalogues from the company which are sometimes delivered up to twice a month. I still want to do business with the company, but I don’t want to receive the unnecessary catalogues. I’ll need to remember which companies send me the catalogues and make a note to call them to get this part of their service cancelled.

I used my reusable shopping bags more than ever this past week. I always bring my reusable bag with me to Aldi, but I find it difficult to remember to take these into other stores with me. I almost always remember the bags as I am checking out and scold myself for not remembering since I keep these in the car now. It is something that I will have to turn into a habit to bring into the store with me every time I walk into a store.

Overall I am glad that I started the challenge, and will definitely continue with the three R’s. I know I am only a small part in the whole scheme of recycling, but I feel like I am making a difference and I like the lesson that my kids receive about recycling.I am sure that with my new recycling habits and soon to be working compost pile I will be using less trash bags saving a minute amount of money over the year.

We had a big discussion about what it was that had enlightened us both about practicing thrift, getting out of debt, avoiding debt, getting good deals, driving old cars, or whatever it happens to be on a particular day. I read a commentator’s opinion recently that frugality is simply a trend inspired by a struggling economy and that once the economy recovers, Americans will be back to their free spending ways. In fact, many think that “being frugal is in” whether it’s urban vegetable gardening, thrift store shopping, or rabid coupon clipping. This could be, but in our lives frugality is definitely here to stay.

For us, I think practicing thrift is here to stay because it’s now part of our identity as a married couple. It’s a matter of principle for us at this point.  It’s also a matter of what example we are showing our children on a daily basis. We save because there is always something around the corner – college, a vacation, a big car repair, the possibility of purchasing or repairing a home, or a wedding for our daughters. When we decided to be thrifty, it was partly due to an awakening both spiritually and practically, but also it happened because we had been thinking about what America’s problems are. Americans spend more than we have while folks in other countries tend to save more of their incomes (despite their being taxed more heavily).

Are you being frugal simply because you are inundated with negative news about the economy? The reasons for being frugal should be that your money is hard earned and that you want to hang on to as much of it as possible. It is our responsibility to live within our means, regardless of the state of the economy. I enjoy being able to reflect on the changes we’ve made and see that not only have we improved financially, but our quality of life has improved as well.

During the summer months my kids and I tend to be out of the house more often for the various activities that we do to keep busy during the summer. I have learned to be prepared for these trips to keep everyone happy and still having a good time. These are great items to keep in the car for the entire year, but I find them to be the most necessary during the summer.

Keep a bottle of water in the car – It never fails when we are in the car, someone is thirsty and needs a drink. My three year old usually has a sippy cup, but I also keep a bottle of water in our car for emergencies as well. If I had to stop to buy a bottle of water from a convenience store every time someone was in desperate need of a drink it could cost us a good chunk of change each month. It’s a rare thing to find a bottle of water at a convenience store for less than $.99, so if I have to stop ten times a month to pick up a bottle of water it would cost us $9.90 a month and over the course of a year could cost us $118.80.

Snacks to keep in the car – Like keeping a bottle of water in the car, I also like to keep a few bags of snacks in the car for emergencies. Good snacks to keep in the car are bags of cereal, pretzels, nuts, dried fruit, or a combination of the four.

Emergency Bag – An emergency bag has nothing to do with food, but has been a lifesaver on many occasions. I keep a small bag in the car of things that we may need while in the car, on a trip to the zoo, or some other short trip. I keep band-aids, ointment, Tylenol, Rolaids, lip balm, and anything else I think we may need while out. Because of the heat in the car during the summer I take this bag inside the house daily so that it doesn’t do any damage to the items in the bag.