(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you’ll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)
By the author of the FREE online course Growing Self-Sufficiency: The Whole Picture
I’m guessin’ that most of us Frugalites have a role model or two along our thrifty journey of life. If we are so lucky, we might even have a Frugalite Hero. In this article, I will share some of the ways that my Mom inspired my own thrifty journey in life through her awesome example.
Things are tough for many of us these days. This light-hearted article is a celebration of gratitude. Want to learn more about practicing gratitude? Check this out this article on gratitude journaling, and also this great article on radical gratitude.
I hope this article will inspire all readers to consider what they are grateful for and who modelled thrifty living for them in their early lives or even later in life. I hope that many of you will share your stories about your own Frugalite heroes below, whether they be about Mom or a special someone else.
So, here we go!
Accomplished Seamstress
Some of my earliest memories are of wearing dresses that my mother made herself. And not just any dresses either! Mom enjoyed making matching dresses in different colours for my sister and I to wear in family photos. Yes, I was bummed out that I got blue and she got pink, as I don’t remember there being a vote. But hey, maybe that’s for another article!
One of my favorites was a dress with beautiful smocking. Only those of us of a certain age may even know what smocking is. For you young ‘uns, you know what to do…just put it in your highly encrypted search engine (and that ain’t G**gle!). Mom also made us our own jeans, too. At the time, I didn’t really appreciate just how cool that was.
At Hallowe’en, we often had the best costumes in the neighborhood, all handmade. I remember my angel costume was a favorite, with a beautiful multi-colored material with silver sparkles.
Refinisher and Decorator
When I wanted a cool bed for my teenage years, Mom found an old, weathered metal bed out in the garage. She helped me paint it white. When brush painting wasn’t working for the eyelet metal cutouts on the headboard, she showed me how to use a spray paint can properly. It turned out very nicely.
We also wall-papered my bedroom together. I remembered her use of the plumb bob to line up each sheet and the great care she took to use that fuzzy wallpaper brush to make sure there were no bubbles remaining.
Boat Builder
Ya, this might not be very common, but my parents built a fiberglass sailboat in our garage. It was 22 feet long and slept all five of us. Mom said that because she was smaller, she had to do some of the most demanding fiberglass work under the boat and in the smaller spaces. Yay, Mom, show him how it’s done! We sailed all over Lake Ontario on that boat and it was a great little sailboat, a Bruce Roberts design. When Mom could no longer use it, she donated it to the local Boy Scouts, for which I believe she got a tax receipt. Thrifty thinkin’, Mom!
Great Gardener
Back in the early seventies, having a big vegetable garden wasn’t that common out in the ‘burbs. Mom didn’t care what the Joneses thought, and we all benefitted. A good portion of the backyard was dedicated to growing great food. One of my favorites? Going down to the garden to grab a juicy fresh tomato to make a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich with. Yum yum!
What wasn’t my favorite? When it was my turn to take the compost down to the compost pile, which was dug into the ground and had a wooden lid. The compost stunk. At the time, I didn’t realize how great it was that all our food scraps were feeding our garden instead of the local dump.
Mom’s thriftiness didn’t stop there, though. She would also buy bulk produce at harvest time and freeze it. I can still remember how fun it was to make strawberry milkshakes with the strawberries she had frozen in the summer. We used the frozen strawberries as a topping for ice cream, too. I remember the great flavor they had. They tasted so fresh!
Roofer
For a number of years, I lived in a little Corsair trailer in a beautiful conservation area with a small lake. Three seasons of the year, it was my little slice of heaven. In the winter, I would find a small apartment in town or rent space from a friend.
Problem: the aging trailer’s roof sprung a leak. One weekend when Mom was visiting, she was more than a good sport, spending time up on the trailer roof painting all of the seams with special tar paint. It sure is helpful to have another pair of hands around, and it does save some money, too!
Want Savings? Mom’s the Word!
I enjoyed this trip down my frugal memory lane. I can see how it helped to have a Frugalite Hero in my early life. What about you? Do you have a Frugalite Hero of your own that you can share with us? Please tell us in the comments below.
About Colette
Colette is passionate about sharing her knowledge of thrifty living and self-sufficiency. She has developed her skills in self-reliance living in the suburbs, the city, and more recently, on her own Half-Acre Homestead. Colette lived five years completely off-grid and without running water in an eight by 24 foot tiny home while designing and building her own 18 by 24-foot eco-cabin. Her website, Half Acre Homestead is attracting followers from around the world who want to become more self-sufficient. Colette invites you to stop by the Homestead and check out all of the great resources including the practical How To Guides, A Tiny Home Resource Center and her organic gardening stories on her blog. She shares her wholistic model (body/mind/spirit) for achieving self-sufficiency in her Free Course, “Growing Self-Sufficiency: The Whole Picture.” Stop by the Homestead today to register free of charge!
6 thoughts on “My Frugalite Hero: My Mom”
Can’t resist but smocking refers to a gun of which a former president doesn’t realize is spelled smoking.
My direct family line were all frugal, even the toxic grandma had endless frugal skills/abilities despite her penchant for spending money – mostly on others. So hard for me to pick a single person.
Hi Selena, Ha ha ha! That is quite the combo in your grandma….frugal skills and spending. I’m glad that you see many frugal role models in your direct family line! Thanks so much.
I grew up in a midwest farm culture where most of the ancestors had arrived in the late 1800s via covered wagons. Every farm had a junkpile where anything that might possibly be used someday (even if only in parts) was stored. That culture was firmly established long before Rural Electrification came in about the mid-1930s. Decades later when wall-crank telephones were replaced by dial phones … the hand cranked oak cased ones went to heaven in the junkpile. That’s where I finally retrieved the hand-crank magneto that I used to shock some 8th graders when the 7th grade sponsored their annual Halloween party.
Nothing of significance could go to waste. My Dad was a farmer and cattleman. I remember once when a spring broke on the de-horning chute and strangled the steer inside before the men could come to the rescue. So that steer was immediately trucked into town to be butchered and preserved in the town’s rental freezer space. Later I recall it was very tasty.
Dad was a skilled roper and the lead founder of what became that state’s largest night rodeo. He was also the guy the neighbors phoned whenever any of their cattle broke out and needed to be caught and returned. I was taught how to drive a tractor before I ever learned to drive a car and truck. When plowing the fields I was taught how to avoid the occasional buffalo wallow so as not to flip the tractor upside down on top of me. Saving one’s own life and equipment was a mandatory part of that life.
Most farms of that era had at least one or two dogs to protect the chicken house and its contents from skunks, raccoons, possums and badgers That was all part of preserving the family’s chicken meat and egg supply.
There was also a tradition of protecting the neighborhood coyotes when possible because they were vital in keeping the number of rabbits under control. Otherwise the rabbits would eat and destroy many of the local crops. That’s why there was a constant war against coyote hunters. The wild pheasants were also protected from hunters when possible so the family could have a cooked pheasant for Thanksgiving.
Since all of those farms were established long before electrification … there were the usual hand-cranked wells and multiple out-houses at a sufficient distance to hopefully not contaminate the well water. An old story from Missouri was about the county water inspector who would pour a little kerosene in such out-houses and then wait to see if the owners complained of a kerosene taste in their drinking water. If that taste was sensed .. it was time to move either the outhouses or the wells or maybe both.
Mom was the stay-at-home Mom, the family gardener, the clothes launderer, the house cleaner, the family cook and pressure-cooker user, and child raiser. It was a necessary division of labor because Dad was fully occupied with taking care of the cattle, the horses, and the field work. Everything was done to conserve family resources whether time, energy, financials and good health.
By about 1930 the number of families living on farms with gardens had dwindled to about 30%. Today that number is down around 1-2% and the globalists want to destroy them and steal that land. It’s sad to see that culture of self-reliance fade away.
–Lewis
Hi Lewis, Thank you once again for taking the time to reflect deeply on the theme of the article and share valuable memories from your own experience. I have often felt that I was born in the “wrong” time and have had a passion for learning skills that date back to my great grandmother’s day, before electricity on our local farms here. As the number of farms has similarly dwindled here, I have felt quite sad. Your comment did bring a smile to my face as I recalled the countless hours spent as a child in the farm “junk pile” with my young cousin. It was always so much fun to look at and play with all of the parts and machinery in there! I had never thought about how coyotes would control rabbit populations. Thanks again for sharing!
A couple things my Mom did to improve my thriftiness: She was never too proud to take a job or reuse something another person didn’t need but we could use. She went with the Gleaners group and my dad to pick leftover produce, when that was possible. She’d pick nuts or apples or berries or whatever to supplement our food supply. She and my dad would do all kinds of things to supplement our food.
She loved, and loves, yard sales and thrift stores. I still do though I stay out of them most of the time – I have almost all the stuff I need for now. She loves plants and gardening and we still talk quite a bit about what’s growing in our yards. She didn’t demand expensive presents at holidays and appreciates thoughtful gifts over expensive ones.
She also introduced me to one of my all time favorite books, Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living, which archives a lot of those skills Lewis writes of above. I’ve grown up knowing how to deal with a wood stove and appreciating the ability to fix and reuse things, and knowing a thing or two about small livestock, and don’t ever want to change. A lot of that is because of my folks and their influence.
Hi Redbranch, Thanks so much for your reflections on your mother. I enjoyed reading about her, and especially how she appreciates thoughtful gifts over expensive ones. Wishing you a wonderful season in your garden! Much appreciated!