Thrifty and frugal thoughts

On the run up to Christmas 2008 my husband, Craig, was using the words "thrifty" and "frugal" a lot. That wasn't usual. Something was definately up. Peak oil, climate change and the credit crunch were all playing their part.

Here are some of the books I received that Christmas;

• The thrifty gardener by Alys Fowler,
• The thrift book by India Knight,
• Make do and mend (actually I bought Craig that book),
• How to feed your whole family a healthy balanced diet, with very little money ... by Gill Holcombe.

The thing is, I love these kind of books.

Was my husband coming around to my way of thinking? Will I be able to store bits of old "junk" on the off-chance that it will be useful at some point without having to go through that dreaded "clear out"? Will he no-longer complain about the smell of clothes from second-hand shops? Only time will tell.

On a more serious note, this is a year long experiment to see how much we can reduce our footprint on the planet. It's going to be fun.