for Chiquita's fuzzy tummy

Zoe took this picture of her the other night, and I think it is so cute!

Also, her short back legs make me giggle.

for my car

Sorry, not sorry, I am still in car heaven. Hehe.

I still feel almost like I need to pinch myself to believe this is mine! I've never had such a nice car, and I am still amazed that it belongs to me.

No matter how many comments I get on my Instagram post about my car, saying, "It's just a Civic." (they trickle in here and there!), my joy cannot be smushed. 😉

that I only have one more residency class

We have a last class at the beginning of July, and then we all graduate from residency in August.

The residency classes are not hard, but on those weeks, I have to be at the hospital an extra day, and depending on how the work shifts are arranged, it can feel like a lot at once.

Soo, I will be thrilled to be done. We are so close!

for my co-workers

I know I say this a lot, but I love the people I work with: my fellow nurses, the techs, the case managers, the director, the cleaners, the supply stockers...and also the doctors. 😉

Sometimes I know nurse/doctor relations are strained, but I feel like we have a great nurse/doctor rapport on my unit, and I am grateful.

How fortunate I am to have landed in such a great spot for my first nursing job. 🙂

for this rental house

I was remembering how terrible it was to try to apply for rentals four years ago, since I had only my self-employment income (complicated to prove on an application!)

What a mercy it was to find this house, which is rented out by private owners, not a big company.

If I ever need to rent again, it will be simple to apply because I have my W-2 nursing income. But back in 2022, I was riding the struggle bus, trying repeatedly and unsuccessfully to find a rental.

So, I guess this is two thankfuls: for this rental, and now also for my normal job with easy-to-prove income.

for beautiful surroundings

I am grateful to live in a place where green spaces are so easily accessible.

for sparkling water

I try to minimize my sugar intake, and a can of sparkling water is a nice little fix when I get the urge to have a drink that is slightly more interesting than water.

And the Aldi store brand is very affordable, so, a double win. I do think my favorite sparkling water is the Trader Joe's Blackberry Vanilla flavor, but I don't find myself at TJs as often as Aldi.

So the Belle Vie is usually what I have in my pantry. 🙂

for the feeling of being the policyholder

You know how when you call and give a doctor's office your insurance info, they ask who the policyholder is?

For most of my life, it has not been me.

But now, I have real insurance through my nursing job, and I feel so delighted when I answer this insurance question with, "Me. I'm the policyholder."

It's like a happy little reminder that I did this. I changed my life. I went to school, I started a new career, and I take care of me. Independently!

What are you thankful for this week?

The post Thankful Thursday | a fuzzy tummy appeared first on The Frugal Girl.

(And here I mean "cheap" with all of its negative connotations. We're in the neighborhood of things like "miserly", "skinflint", and "scrooge", ok?)

My theory has long been that when you exercise extreme frugality in ways that only affect you, it's fine, but when you start negatively affecting others, then you're veering into cheap territory.

I wrote about this in some greater detail in 2022 (Am I frugal or just ridiculous?), but some examples:

If you use a raggedy bath towel for yourself, fine. If you make your guests use a towel with holes in it, that's cheap.

If you get a free unopened bottle of ketchup from your Buy Nothing group, fine. If you take 32 packets of ketchup from the cafeteria, that's cheap (your excess use affects the cafeteria, not just you).

If you serve yourself beans, fine. If you serve beans to someone who hates them, that's cheap. Get some chicken, and eat beans some other time.

Basically, if you are selfish and inconsiderate in the ways you spend money, then you're being cheap.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I suppose there are other ways to be cheap. For instance, if you save money by staying in a beach hotel that is a dump, that might be cheap, whereas if you find a discount off-season in a nicer hotel, that would fall into the "frugal" category.

Or, let's say you took free food intended for hungry people, even though you are not anywhere near going hungry. That seems cheap to me, and it also seems to fall under the "selfish and inconsiderate" umbrella.

Help me come up with a working definition!

I want to hear all of the things you think of as cheap behaviors, and then we can figure out how we define cheap vs. frugal. I do think my "Who does this affect?" theory at least partially explains it, but it feels incomplete.

So, tell me: what money-saving behaviors have you observed as cheap, not frugal?

P.S. In this context, we are only considering instances where money-saving is a choice. In other words, this is not a discussion of poverty, because in such cases, there is little choice involved.

The post What does it mean to be "cheap"? appeared first on The Frugal Girl.

My most comfortable pair of scrub pants is from a store called Scrubs and Beyond. Unfortunately, they are the pants I accidentally bleached at work.

I have been making do by scribbling the bleached area with a Sharpie before a shift, but I really wanted another pair. They don't make this exact pair in black anymore, though, so I hopped onto eBay and found a pair.

I don't mind that it's just the pants with no scrub top; I like to have the pants to wear with my hospital t-shirts (like the fundraiser ones we buy during Nurses Week).

2. I repaired the seam on my bleached pair

My poor pants with the bleach marks also developed a little top-stitching problem.

So, I snipped the extra thread off and used my machine to do a repair.

Not perfect, but certainly functional enough for a pair that already has a bleach issue. 😉

3. I got my fridge pretty empty!

As a person who tends to have a full fridge, this is an accomplishment, made possible by fairly minimal grocery shops for two weeks in a row.

This has forced me to use up what's already in there, and I took advantage of the emptiness by doing a thorough cleaning (like, taking all the shelves out and washing them!).

Now my fridge is tidy, I know exactly what's in there, and it feels like a fresh start, which is always good when you're fighting food waste on the regular. 🙂

4. I got a free tire repair

One of Zoe's tires had a slow leak, so we made an appointment at the Midas near us, because they offer free tire inspections and repairs.

Apparently, the problem was a previous plug that had come a little loose, so they replaced that and now her tire is good to go.

I don't think every Midas offers this service, but if you have one near you, it's worth it to check! I've gotten lots of free tire repairs over the years this way.

5. I meal-prepped

I work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week, so yesterday I did some food prep. Boring and predictable, but hey, it consistently saves me money.

I've been eating lots of overnight oats recently, but this week, I switched it up and made a batch of egg bites to cover me for breakfast (in the morning, I just heat them up and add a piece of toasted whole grain bread, plus some fruit.)

And then for lunches, I made some chili-over-rice bowls, with cilantro-lime sauce to go on top.

Your turn! What frugal things have you been up to lately?

The post Five Frugal Things | scrub stuff appeared first on The Frugal Girl.