I thought long and hard about writing this post. I write all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons, but I wanted to make sure that I'm not writing this post to pat myself on the back and show off "Look what an amazing person I am". Because if that was the intention I wouldn't be writing it.
I already am hearing detractors responding here saying "Come on, Penny, your whole life and blog is about showing off, telling everyone how amazing you are. How is this any different?"
To the outside eye maybe it all looks the same. I do a lot of things publicly. I share a lot of things. But overall my goal is one main thing. To help people.
When I share things, even if they seem like I'm "showing off" my goal is to help people get ideas, to maybe inspire people, never to make people possibly feel inadequate compared to me.
But this felt different. Maybe because I worried that instead of people saying "Oh, Penny is really good at frugal living/has great recipes" they'd think "Oh, she thinks she's all that, she wants to show everyone that she's a good, kind person." And that is what made me sit a few weeks on this before posting.
The reason I decided to write this, in the end, is that one of the things I've heard people say about not wanting to be frugal is because they consider themselves givers, and they don't want to turn into a "cheap" stingy miserly person. Because people might not be aware that being money conscious doesn't mean not being a giver, but it may mean being a giver in other ways. When I started my blog, I certainly didn't have any money to give anyone, but I knew I could help via sharing ideas. And fortunately, many people let me know just how much those ideas helped them. I also have started quite a few support Facebook groups, for frugal living locally, frugal cooking, mental health, divorced women, etc... Some giving can be completely free. Especially sharing of ideas. Or giving emotional support?
But what about giving actual, tangible things? That too is possible when you live frugally. And for me, if anything, being frugal allows me to give more easily because I don't worry that by giving, my family will lose out.
Last month, after so long being exhausted because of thyroid issues, I finally started having more energy. Still low energy, but enough that I wanted to be able to give back. I live in an amazing community and while I was under the weather, I had so many friends who helped me out in so many ways including bringing us supper quite a few times. My community has a kindness initiative and they purchased a freezer via donations, to be stocked with meals to give to families as needed. So while I didn't make anything when there was a drive to stock the freezer, once I did finally have enough energy to do something extra (especially since my kids were at their dad and I got a bit of a break) I decided to make some meals for the freezer to be given to families that need a meal.
Specifically, because I am frugal I was able to make these meals with very little cost to myself. But that doesn't mean it was any less appreciated.