Stuff: Frugality

I was doing my weekly load of laundry the other day, pulling items out of the dryer. When I pulled out a colorful bath towel, I observed it had a hole and a rip. As I folded the towel, I laughed because it reminded me of a family story:

My mother entered the kitchen and found two of her boys making oatmeal cookies. One of my brothers had promised to bring cookies to school for some celebration or another. Nothing amiss here.

Except they were both giggling while they spooned cookie batter onto the cookie sheets, so my mother knew something was up. Upon interrogation, she learned that they had used oatmeal recently brought home from the country cabin, which unbeknownst to her, but discovered by my brothers, had meal worms in it.

My brothers were ecstatic at the prospect of taking these protein-enriched cookies to the classroom for sharing!

My mother intervened and made some non-buggy oatmeal cookies for my brother to take to school. And my brothers ate the meal-worm cookies with gusto. Win-win.

So back to my hole-y towel.

Hole-y towel

I've got a few fabric items that are on their last legs. The towel, a winter nightgown, an ancient fleece jacket, and an over-large sweatshirt. This is the last winter for both the nightgown and the sweatshirt. The former is falling apart and the latter is stained. My Plan A is to relocate to the Middle East in 2015, so I'm counting on that tired jacket becoming obsolete.

It is pleasurable to look upon these items and know that come winter's end, I'll be recycling them into cleaning rags. And before I move next November, they'll be tossed.  Some day soon, probably on a whim, I'll cut up that towel for rags, but for now, I am reluctant to give up its color. It had already done someone service in a past life, then had been donated to Goodwill, where it was bought for my use.


I like frugality when it feels good in some way. If it doesn't feel good, then it's hardship. I've done both.