Trying to be as frugal as I can...

seems like I could/can do better.
1. We rarely go out to dinner, when we do, it's for a special occasion (ie. Saturday when a friend (Marine) came home to visit before being deployed to Afghanistan after 2 tours in Iraq.

2. I cook from scratch. No prepackaged or ready to use foods. This is where some of my higher costs come in. I buy only organic food and in the last year (when it became cool to be green/organic) the prices of some things have almost doubled.

3. I garden and can A LOT.

4. My pets eat a raw meat diet (much of which is free) so it's cheaper than kibble.

5. I cannot convince my husband that we can do solar (at least partially) so we have a good sized electric bill. We DO conserve, lots of sweaters and wool blankets in the fall, winter and spring. We "winterize" our home (plastic over the inside of the windows, draft blockers, etc).

6. My husband carpools, I only drive to go to work (3 minutes) and to take the kids to school and back (no carpooling options, unfortunately). I can bike to work in the summer, but would be taking my life in my own hands in the winter (I would have to ride on a state highway in icy weather, no thanks).

7. Very little in doctor or hospital bills.

8. Cheap entertainment. :) We combine family vacations with historical reenactments. Food doesn't cost anymore since we don't go out to eat,maybe once in two weeks while we are gone. We camp for free and get the admission to forts and museums for free since we are "participants".

9. We use rainbarrels for watering plants and gardens. I can't convince my husband that harvesting grey water would help and isn't as hard as it sounds.

10. We rarely buy herbicides or pesticides, if we do, they are organic. Since those are pricey, we try to find other ways. I have a huge compost pile.

11. I try to barter and trade as much as possible. We just had $350 in car repairs done just for the price of parts ($40) and some "homemade" frozen dinners for the bachelor mechanic.