Klowns in my Koffee

I've always been cheap. I've bought one new car in my life and I drove it until I traded it in with pieces of the trim and side panels in the trunk for safe keeping.

There is significant overlap between frugal and green living since both value the preservation of existing resources. Here are some entries from my Favorites list.

Frugal Blogs and Sites:

Suddenly Frugal http://www.suddenlyfrugal.com/ -- Good links and wide ranging topics. Little that you probably don't know if you are already a careful shopper but the blogger has a fairly broad audience and dishes up a sunny, "suburban lite" kind of frugality.

http://frugalliving.about.com/

Thrifty Resources:

Everyone knows about Craigslist. http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ Check out the free, garage sale and barter sections, though use common sense in evaluating. I bought a riding lawn mower in perfect shape last year for pennies on the dollar. The lawn mower had belonged to the guy's in-laws; he was in the midst of a divorce and was liquidating anything that had to do with maintaining a house since he had moved back with his parents.

Twin Cities Free Market http://www.twincitiesfreemarket.org/
My favorite alternative to Craigslist. Smaller, less sophisticated and generally friendlier. I got rid of the rest of my infant supplies and gained a NordicTrak and a set of twin beds. The woman who picked up the baby things in December said that they were for a young unmarried pregnant woman who had come to the Cities with her fiance, they were without a home and she was going to give birth any day. [Hmmm, December 24th, young pregnant woman ... it could have been a fabricated story but I chose to think it could have been a glimmer of holiday magic.]

Thift Stores:

Goodwill - If possible, plan trips to take advantage of the calendar sale days. Children's clothes are discounted on most Thursdays. Sunday and Monday discounts are 50% off a different color price tag each week. Wednesdays are Senior discounts. http://www.goodwilleasterseals.org/site/PageServer?pagename=shop_calendar

Bethesda Thift Shop -- Terrific, no-frills store run entirely by volunteers. They have just moved to a new and larger location. [Odd observation of the day: They have a large selection of books and most are 50 cents or so. Except for copies of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" which are $9.99. How does a thrift store amass so many multiple copies of a relatively new book and why do they think they can charge more for it? Are people buying new copies and then donating them as soon as possible?] http://www.bethesdathriftshop.org/about.html

Haven't been here yet but I hear good things. http://hopgaragesale.com/

Home Improvement:

http://www.thereusecenter.com/index.html

http://www1.umn.edu/reuse/

Coupon Sites:

http://www.retailmenot.com/ There are a lot of these out there. Just google to find several.

Activities:

Michael's -- Coupons and free crafts for kids on most Saturdays http://www.michaels.com/art/online/home

Miscellaneous:

A resource for businesses: http://mnexchange.org/

Resources You Are Already Paying For:

Public Library (books, videos, classes, computer resources, resume review services, online tutoring, language instruction, museum passes and much more -- all free!)http://www.hclib.org/ -- you can even borrow an energy meter to check the power consumption of household appliances

Annual Memberships/Free Admission:

Buy annual memberships for a small amount to get free admission for a year while supporting the work of these organizations. Generally, the cost of the membership is about two visits for a family of four.
Minnesota Zoo: http://www.mnzoo.com/
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum: http://www.arboretum.umn.edu/
Minnesota Historical Society: http://www.mnhs.org/index.htm