Our “normal” frugality (more like “spending see-saw”!) went a few steps further this past week, mainly due to the lack of paychecks I have endured to go on a monthly invoice with all clients (first month’s always a b—h when you try to adjust to a new plan – with no savings.)

I was delighted to find that we not only survived, we actually learned quite a bit about ourselves and thrived on the process of living simply. It was last week, while cutting Hubby’s hair, when I could feel the real sense of gratitude from him, that I remarked, “You know, I have to admit that sometimes I actually LIKE being poor.” We talked about how many things we would just go “out” and do, so many things we would go buy to “save time” if we had the money. So many long talks and healthy living aspects we would miss out on if we hopped in a car every time we had to go somewhere, or still had credit cards to buy impulsively at every turn.

With that in mind, we really stretched ourselves over the next few days. It’s not uncommon nowadays for us to go with only a few dollars (or negative a few dollars) to our name for at least a few days out of each month. And I mean, really. No credit cards to charge with, nothing in the bank, searching-couch-cushions-for-coins kinda broke. That means bills and even groceries, and mostly all those “wants”, have to wait until the next paycheck. Which always seems to come, eventually, and bills get paid — I add with much gratitude for the way life works.

I don’t share this because I want pity or charity or to toot our horns –(that’s the LAST thing I hope you get out of this!). I share because our journey of going into “credit card withdrawal” and making steps on the other side (which might sometimes appear fairly impoverished for many Americans but in reality we are rich in so many ways) has been incredibly insightful, and I hope it’s making lasting impressions on how we view life.

As I said, we had zero dollars to spend going into the weekend. Low on many groceries, including “staples”, we really had to improvise on how we ate and how we spent our time. One of the things we’ve been talking about lately is USING “negative” emotions as a fuel for the energy needed to find solutions and work on something that needs to change, rather than view them as either “bad” and ignore them — OR view them as reasons to indulge in selfish, impulsive, “acting up” types of behaviors and attitudes. We had just such an opportunity for this on Saturday. Completely broke, we could sit around thinking of ways to make or borrow money, or gripe and fight about our dissatisfaction, or complain about our low blood sugar (as I tend to do with my sweet tooth and no food in the house)! But instead we said, hey, let’s use this dissatisfaction as fuel for creative energy! (except we didn’t sound as cheesy as that.) We dug into some old (low VOC!) paint supplies and put our brains to work on some of the crappy furniture in our house we always complain about.

I swapped my office shelves (free on the side of the road last year) for him to use as a media tower next to the tv (which he painted dark brown with the same paint he used for the tv stand we painted last summer). I in turn took the smaller, 70’s “ugly” side table (with missing door) that we got for $5 at Rerun and painted it gray and did some artwork on top, to use as a printer stand in my slowly-being-funkified-office-corner.

We also became geniuses about our constant complaining of lack of counter space, wishing we had a small table or island for under the kitchen window on which to put our baskets of produce each week, when we realized we could take a table we got last year that is currently not used in the studio and rearrange the legs to make a small “half” table under the window! It was a fabulous way to reuse things we already had when we were itching for something “new” — and something to DO! — on a rainy Saturday.
We continued the reorganizing/cleaning/decorating fest long into the evening.We had a large bowl of popcorn for dinner and blackberry pie for dessert (from the frozen blackberries I picked while camping last Fall!). (BTW, have to share that we found a few things to make pancakes on Saturday morning – whole wheat pastry flour, 1 1/2 cups of yogurt, and a handful of frozen blueberries- topped with a drizzle of honey once cooked! It was YUM!)

For Sunday, we HAD to leave the house for church, so we finally bit the bullet on a “to do list” item that’s been on the backburner. We pushed a cart of seriously TONS of books all the way to Powell’s and guess what – we got FIFTY BUCKS! (Boy, we felt like royalty!) On the way there, Hubby looks over as we huff and puff, me with my ol’ preggo self, and says, “Babe, I love you. And I love living in a place where it’s totally okay to be broke and pushing a granny cart of books down the road to get cash at the bookstore!” Again, we were having fun doing something that, were we NOT “poor”, we wouldn’t have experienced. We got a few essentials at the grocery store and headed home with money to spare for bus passes or whatever else “comes up” this week while we await our income. AND we finally have room on the bookshelf and aren’t complaining that we need a bigger one (two birds with one stone!). We spent the afternoon webcaming with grandparents while Hubby made his lunches for the week (quinoa, kale and beans — a seriously healthy, filling, and frugal lunch and a TREMENDOUS change for a guy who used to spend easily 50 bucks a week sometimes on lunch and snacks “out” at work!). Dinner was some frozen veggie hotdogs on whole wheat bread, followed by the simplest, cheapest cookies you can make: 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar (or healthy alternative!), and 1 egg. Bake at 350 for ten minutes and you got yourself some damn fine po’ folk pb cookies

Hubby also entertains himself quite a bit lately with yoga, (and if you know Hubby, you know this too is twilight zone behavior!) He won’t let me snap a photo of him, but I grabbed one of kitty. Both Lil’ E and Paz like to copy Hubby during his stretch time in the living room. We call this one “Jump-Out-and-Scare-Someone-Matrix-Style-Pose”:

I seriously doubt we would remain joyful about having no money (hence: no cheese, no coffee, no outings, no nuthin!) for an extended period of time (weeks?) but we certainly made the most of it and I’m proud of our little family for adjusting to ever more extremes of the “simple” life over the holiday season. (Hubby wants to avoid getting toilet paper until our next paycheck but that is where I DRAW THE LINE! lol) I’m also more convinced that time spent in relationship far outweighs time spent working harder to “make more”, and so long as we can manage the bare essentials of bills (no extra minutes, no home phone, no cable, no car!), the rest is worth the time and energy to learn to make home-made, play board games, reuse stuff around the house, get creative, and most of all- LAUGH together. May 2009 continue to be as frugally fun as our first weekend of the year!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some pb cookies to devour

P.S. “WHO TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS!?” I just have to add that it has also been interesting being frugal about the weird circle light in the bathroom that went out two weeks ago — hmmm… pooping and showering via candlelight — for realz. I just hope our electric bill thanks us! (Don’t worry, we plan to make a trip to the hardware store for a few much needed items like this on Saturday.)

P.S.S. Sorry for all the “!” and ” “, a bad blogging habit of mine.