Frugal Friday

I have not done a Frugal Friday post in forever and thought I was due for one. Some of the reason has been the sheer busyness of ministry and some of it has been that I don't feel like I've really saved much of anything lately.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day and I'm so thankful for her wise insight and advice. The ministry I do for our district is volunteer. I do receive a very small monthly stipend for the ministry I do for our church. Between the two ministries I put in about 30 hours per week. The example I had in ministry as a young adult was that you live by faith, don't ask for what you need, and you just pray and wait on the Lord. That's a wonderful model, but I think I may have taken it too far. 

Some of our debt is because I have been afraid to ask for what I need or because I think it shows that I have less faith, or that it's putting a burden on the ministries. I went on a missions trip a few years back and never asked a soul for money to help fund that trip and so, we incurred debt. I have purchased numerous ministry-related items throughout the years and never ask for reimbursement because I feel guilty and so, more debt or expense. I've done speaking engagements where travel expenses haven't been reimbursed and I've used money that we really don't have for extras.

I'm working through some of those deeply ingrained values and emotions as I work on this. It's not a good thing if in order to do ministry, we have to incur debt and so I'm working on it. I wish we had a large salary or salaries to contribute out of our own pocket, but we don't, and so I need to ask for what I need. I love being generous but not if we are going to end up not able to make ends meet because of my generosity.

But here are a few ways I've saved this past week:

$ Dan and I went to the regional farmer's market yesterday and for $22 I got the following: 8 mini-cucumbers, a pint of cherry tomatoes, a pint of radishes, a basket of potatoes, a quart of strawberries, a pint of blueberries, a bunch of bananas (obviously, not regional), a quart of green beans, a bag of micro greens, and a bag of spinach. Not bad!

$ I took cash to the grocery store and tried to keep what I bought to the amount I had. I went over by a $1.54. Woot! I think we may be doing this every week. 

$ I went out and picked dandelions yesterday and steeped the heads in hot water. Today I'm making jelly with them. If the opportunity presents itself this summer, I'd like to participate in a farmer's market or two.

$ It looks like staycation is in the plans for this summer so I'm going to be looking into free or cheap places to visit locally.

$ We are headed to our National Council at the end of May in Orlando, Florida and the hotel is outrageously expensive. The ministry pays for it, but I still was feeling badly that it was going to cost so much. The food in the hotel is expensive too. So anyway, I booked an Airbnb and we will have an entire condominium to ourselves for half the cost of the hotel. We have to rent a car to get back and forth to the hotel but even with that it was still a few hundred dollars less than just staying in the hotel room. I can cook which will save us on food expenses.

$ I went to Ohio last weekend for ESL training and someone put me up for the night and that saved me the cost of a hotel room.

So it's not a lot but every bit counts!