By Dagne Goodwin, The Real Frugalist There’s something about the smell of dinner when you walk in the door that just feels like home. I was chatting with a dear friend today—one of those heart-to-hearts where you nod so much your neck gets sore—and she told me about her boys, 17 and 20, coming home…
Let’s be honest—mornings are a whirlwind of chaos. Alarms blaring, coffee cups half full (or half empty, depending on your vibe), and a sudden realization that you should have prepped something for breakfast but didn’t. If your idea of breakfast is shoving a granola bar in your mouth while sprinting to your car, friend, we…
Today was one of those “let’s do all the things” kind of days. You know, where you start with a single goal and somehow end up scrubbing shower grout like it insulted your ancestors. It all began so innocently. I made my garden reel first thing this morning (because content is queen and vegetables wait…
Every frugal journey has a beginning. Ours started somewhere around Date #3 or #4, when my now-husband looked me in the eye and said something that most people would be too awkward, too proud, or too full of excuses to admit: “I don’t have the money to go out again right now. We probably shouldn’t…
By Dagne Goodwin Summer stretches, long and wide, A patchwork quilt of heat and haze Some days heavy as a wool coat, Others cracked open by thunder’s praise. Mornings start with quiet sips, Coffee steam and garden tours, Hen-song and dew-kissed rows, The bed gets made, the list begins But time, it hurries through open…
Welcome to another episode of What Fresh Disaster Is This: Home Edition, where the flour is flying, the baking soda is always pretending to be baking powder, and the smoke detector is basically just our cooking timer now. You know those tidy little recipe reels on Instagram that end with a perfect drizzle of icing…
Let’s face it—when you hear the word frugal, you might picture someone hoarding paperclips, washing Ziploc bags until they disintegrate, or declining social invites because they’re “saving money.” But here’s the truth: Frugality isn’t about suffering. It’s about smarts. It’s about saying, “Hey, I worked hard for this money—let’s make it count.” So if you’re…
This week at Frugalist Headquarters (aka our slightly crooked but very cozy home), we stretched our dollars like a pair of old yoga pants—and let me tell you, they held up beautifully. Let’s start with the basics: food.Thanks to our trusty Hannaford Rewards, we knocked $9.32 off our stock-up grocery run. That went straight toward…
Let’s face it—paying a small fortune every month just to get spam calls, spotty signal, and data that mysteriously disappears faster than your kid’s Halloween candy is not the dream. Luckily, you don’t have to keep forking over your grocery budget just to keep your phone alive. With a little digging and a dash of…
There comes a time—usually after opening the mail and letting out a sound only dogs can hear—when you realize: Yup, it’s time to trim the fat again. And oh boy, did that time come. Things were inching up all over the place. The electric bill, the grocery bill, and (cue dramatic music) our homeowners and…
