As I shared last week, April is the NINTH anniversary of Frugalwoods! To celebrate, I’m typing down memory lane with reflections on some of my most influential old posts. Nine years is a long time to do anything and I’m curious to see if I agree with my old self or if my thoughts have changed in the intervening years.

Old Me vs. Current Me: A Showdown

The first post I want to reflect on was a real zinger when it came out and generated quite a bit of controversy and discussion (288 comments!). Published July 27, 2015, it’s my oft-cited “Less Makeup, More Confidence: My Frugal Beauty Manifesto.“

When I wrote this, I was 31 and didn’t have any kids. Re-reading it now–at 39 with two young children–my thoughts have changed. First of all, the writing is bad.

Continue reading Revisiting My 2015 Beauty Manifesto: What I Got Right, What I Got Wrong at Frugalwoods.

I started a clothing-focused mini-series over the summer wherein I managed to devote two ENTIRE posts to the topic of just me and my clothing alone:

• My Ever-Evolving Relationship With My Clothes
• The Clothes I Wear For Comfort and Confidence

Riveting as that was, a number of you requested I write about the clothing of the other people in my house. In response, today I bring you a deep dive into the closets of my children, Kidwoods, age 7 and Littlewoods, age 4.

The Hand-Me-Down Train Continues

We’ve been on the used/hand-me-down train since before the girls were born and haven’t disembarked yet. I get the bulk of their clothing (and shoes, toys, books, puzzles, etc) from three sources:

1) Garage sales.

The vast majority of their clothing (and everything else) comes from yard sales because it’s often one-stop shopping AND they have the best prices.

Continue reading How I’ve Saved Thousands of Dollars on Clothes for My Kids at Frugalwoods.

Last month I shared a journey through the recesses of my brain, or at least, the clothing and appearance-related recesses of my brain. If you haven’t read that post yet, I recommend you go there first since today’s article is the second in this mini-series. Today I’ll take you on a journey through my closet, with far less emotional toil and far more practical lists.

Now that you all know how I FEEL about my clothing, I know you want to know what clothing I wear. Right?!?

My Uniform

Given my past penchant for bizarre outfit concoctions, I never pictured myself as a uniform person. But now, with two kids, one job, nine chickens and one homestead? Uniform me up, baby. I didn’t intentionally set out to create a uniform, it just happened as I realized that I want to wear comfortable clothing every single day.

Continue reading The Clothes I Wear For Comfort and Confidence at Frugalwoods.

I have a hectic relationship with clothing. In my 20s and early 30s, I worshipped it. I stuffed the closets of our various rental apartments with beaded slip-on loafers I bought at an outdoor market in Strasbourg, France; a vintage bubblegum-pink stewardess dress I liberated from a Goodwill in rural Kansas; a red Banana Republic raincoat I found (with tags on) at a consignment store in Boston.

Recently, a number of readers–mostly also young (am I still young?) moms–have asked me what I wear and how I approach my relationship with clothing these days. Longtime readers will recall my three-year-long all-out ban on buying clothing. I successfully went three years without buying anything because I desperately needed a re-set. I bought clothes at thrift stores and yard sales constantly. I had enough to clothe an entire soccer team. Several teams.

I’ve only recently realized how intertwined my clothing obsession was with my previously undiagnosed depression and anxiety.

Continue reading My Ever-Evolving Relationship With My Clothes at Frugalwoods.

I’m a known thrifter. Unlike known grifters, this is a good thing. Since becoming Mrs. Frugalwoods, I’ve tried to buy everything second-hand. This doesn’t always work out and sometimes I choose to buy things new (such as my mattress), but on the whole, my household is awash in used goods.

Today, I want to talk about three aspects of my buying used strategy (oh yes, it’s a strategy):

1. Focus on things that make the most sense to buy used (using depreciation to your advantage)
2. Why I plan ahead and buy ahead (even though I might not end up using the stuff)
3. The non-monetary benefits of buying used (I started buying second-hand because it saves tons of money; I’ve continued for that reason and all the non-monetary benefits I’ve discovered)

If you’d like a primer on where and how to find used stuff (which I won’t be covering today), check out: How To Find Anything and Everything Used: A Compendium Of Frugal Treasure Hunting.

Continue reading How to Thrift Like a Rockstar: Plan Ahead, Buy Ahead and Focus on Depreciation at Frugalwoods.

I was pregnant or breastfeeding for four years. Starting in March 2015, when I got pregnant with Kidwoods, straight through to April 2019, when I weaned a 14-month-old Littlewoods. There was a one-month hiatus in 2017 after I weaned Kidwoods and before I got pregnant with Littlewoods. Other than that, my body’s been in full-time mama territory.

Today is an exploration of how my relationship with my body–and by extension, with clothes–evolved as a result of my pregnancies and parenting. I’m learning it’s more nuanced than the fact that my hips will never go back to their original shape. The physical changes are the most obvious, but the mindset shift is the most affecting.

Body positivity, acceptance, finding a balance between vanity and neglect, breaking my clothes-buying-ban, and spending money are all wrapped up in this experience.

Four Years Of Maternity Clothes

Four and a half years ago, I was determined to cobble together a hand-me-down maternity wardrobe and baby nursery.

Continue reading How I’m Learning To Love My Body, Find A Middle Ground, And Buy Clothes Without Regret at Frugalwoods.

Today I mark a frugal milestone: my clothing ban is over! Well, it’s not actually over, it was simply suspended a tad. On January 1, 2014, I decided to stop buying clothes. And I mean fully stop. I didn’t have a list of items I was allowed to purchase and I didn’t make exceptions for anything–not even during my nine months of pregnancy. The rules of my self-imposed ban were as follows: no buying any clothing, which includes shoes, coats, jewelry, accessories, socks, hats, belts, underwear, and of course, any and all clothes! Really I could’ve just said “no buying clothes,” but I felt like making a list. Since I know everyone will ask about this, I own these undies, which I consider to be pure magic. I’ve had them for 7+ years and they’re still going strong with nary a stretched-out elastic and not a single rip.

Continue reading Why I Broke My Three Year Clothes Buying Ban at Frugalwoods.

When people ask why we moved to Vermont, I always answer “the woods!” And it’s true, we love our woods. We love looking at them, thinking about them, discussing them, photographing them and, most of all, being in them. However, as you might’ve noticed from my recent photos on Facebook and Instagram, we are currently in the depths of a typical Vermont winter–in other words, we won’t see our grass again until sometime in late spring/summer (TBD) on account of the prodigious snow cover .

But that hasn’t stopped us from frolicking in our woods. For wintertime sports, it’s all about the gear and the mindset. And I use “sports” very loosely because I am not a “sport” person–anyone who has ever had the misfortune of playing on a team with me will attest–I’m terrible at actual sports. But pursuits? Activities? Frolics? I like those.

Don’t Let The Cold Stop You: Get The Gear And Get Going

I used to have a serious aversion to going outside in the winter for any extended period of time.

Continue reading How We Recreate In Winter: The Gear, The Mindset, and The Baby Sled at Frugalwoods.

We begin today with a satirical rant, which will, I promise, eventually wend its way around to some possibly useful advice. 

Used stuff is gross. I mean think about it, someone else sat on my couch before I owned it. Someone else petted my dog before I adopted her. Someone else WORE my clothes. My cars were driven by another. Even my cloth napkin was pre-dabbed.

Therein lurks a very real threat to many a would-be frugal person: the fear of the used.

Sitting as I am at this very moment, in a deluge of used items, I contemplate this peril. Indeed, I’m perched on a used chair, at a used table, drinking from a used coffee mug, glancing over at a used high chair. A second-hand sideboard haunts the corner. Pre-owned baby toys are tangled in my feet (thanks to Babywoods’ current interest in putting things on our feet).

Continue reading The Myth Of The Gross Used Things at Frugalwoods.

Amid all the massive life changes Mr. Frugalwoods and I have going on right now–from moving to our Vermont homestead to buying two cars to becoming first-time parents–I want to pause today and reflect on something that has continued on in the background for the past 2 years and 5 months. I’m speaking, of course, about my clothes-buying ban!

In January 2014, I set forth a self-imposed and self-created goal of not buying clothes for one full year. I was successful in this pursuit and after my one-year mark passed, I decided to re-up the ban for a second year. That year also elapsed without a clothes-purchasing event (despite my pregnancy) and I’m now 5 months into my third year of not buying any clothing whatsoever.

Today’s post is the latest in my series on the experience of not purchasing clothing. You can check out the previous installments below:

• Why I’m Not Buying Any Clothes in 2014
• What A Year Without Clothes Did For Me
• Pregnancy Hasn’t Foiled My Clothes-Buying Ban: Here’s How
• Maternity Clothes Are Like Christmas Trees: The Clothes-Buying Ban Continues

Frugality: It’s Always About More Than Money

My initial reasons for enacting this ban were financial.

Continue reading Why I Haven’t Purchased Any Clothes in 2.5 years (and counting) at Frugalwoods.