Continuing The Frugal Lifestyle

Our month of frugal living went very well. We were able to sock away a fair amount of $$ in savings, and it definitely helped us see where we were wasting money. A good $50-$100 a month was going to Half-Price Books for dvds and books. While we still love our dvd and book collection (we re-read and re-watch everything we own), we've gotten used to using the Net for free entertainment. W has discovered his fav show, Avatar:The Last Airbender on Nick.com, S and I have been using Hulu, plus channel websites to watch alot of shows. S has class 4 nights a week, so he uses it alot more than I do. The downside: having to watch on our computers. We get a little closer to getting rid of cable every month, but just can't bring ourselves to do it just yet. We have a great t.v., a freebie from a friend who never watched it, that won't use a remote control, so the digital box is on it, so we can change channels. Still, if we have to get rid of cable altogether, that tv will probably be used for the Net thing.
Broadband is the one thing we all agree we are not willing to give up. We have three computers (All build by S for much cheaper than buying a prebuilt) and we all game online. Another thing we are not willing to give up is our WoW accounts. We play evry day, and would rather give up cabvle than these. It may yet come to that, seeing how the economy is heading south in a hurry.
Food has been one thing that is easiest to deal with. Since I cook, and cook well, I know how to use cheaper ingredients to make scrumptious meals. Some are healthy, others not so much, but we don't lack for good tasting food. Do I get tired of spending 3-6 hours a day just on food prep? You bet! It is a hassle and takes up alot of time, but saves us so much money that it is totally worth it. We also have our chicken women, 4 lovely hens I got for my birthday last year. They give us the most marvelous eggs, and eat all kinds of things like peels and stale foods that would otherwise go into the compost or trash. Don't worry tho, the compost still gets its share of stuff, like shredded junk mail, leaves and citrus, which the girls don't care for. We also have a garden, altho we lost most of it this year to extremely high temps coupled with massive drought. We're looking forward to planting the fall garden, hopefully it'll do better.
One thing we've done in put every electronic on a plug strip and turn it off when not in use. We even unplug the microwave every time we use it. Sure, we no longer have a clock in the living area, but so what, we can walk a few feet to another room and look at that one. We also use a clothesline for drying, and then run the clothes through the dryer for 10 minutes to remove the animal hair from the 11 cats and one Chow dog. These few things have saved us about $30 a month on our electric bill.
Pet food does make up a fair amount of our monthly expenses, but we've found feeding the cats a better quality food results in healthier and happier kitties. We don't advocate dumping pets when times get tough, they are living beings with feelings and you CAN keep them and cut back elsewhere. All of our cats are strays or rescues, and they bring us much joy, and sometimes are a hassle (like our last housemate who left her cat, and he sprays), but we do like having them around. The dog is more of a worker than a pet, he is a guard dog, and living in a city, is something we need to help protect ourselves.
We will be continuing the frugal lifestyle for the foreseeable future. Xmas is taken care of, my surveys net us between $200 and $400 a year, all used for Xmas presents, and none of us want a whole lot, so we don't go overboard on spending like we used to. So, things are going well, and while other ppl are having major problems hanging on to their homes, cars, etc, we are doing well so far!