[Originally published November 17, 2009]

Hello! My name is Cara and I’m the author of The Friendly Frugalista, a new blog dedicated to sharing the frugal lifestyle. While I’m no expert at frugal living, I have been a fan of frugality for my entire life. As the first of two children born to an enlisted father and a stay-at-home mother, I grew up knowing and loving phrases such as “Let’s go to the Flea Market!” or “So-and-so gave us a bag of hand-me-downs.” What bliss! Hand-me-downs have always been one of my favorites gifts to receive. Since I am now a stay-at-home Mom with 3 children of my own, I know how valuable it is to find ways to save money by using coupons, finding freebies, requesting samples, re-using items, etc. In addition to the traditional wonders like flea markets, garage sales, clearance sales, and newspaper ads, we now have the entire World Wide Web at our disposal. Most everyone (save the most Internet-shy) knows about eBay, Craigslist, and Freecycle. But, more recently, I’ve found that subscribing to e-newsletters is a virtually endless treasure chest of gems for the bargain-hunter. I now receive email updates from a myriad of companies willing to offer me freebies, coupons, subscriber-only sales, and more just because I took the time to sign up for a newsletter! How much easier could bargain-hunting get? Well, it CAN be even easier than that! There are lots of folks out there like me who are serving as a bulletin board of offers. They provide places where the frugalist expert–or beginner–can go to find what they seek–A NEW WAY TO SAVE MONEY. I’ll never claim to be the best, or brightest, or the one with the most free time to devote to the cause, but I’ll strive to do my best with the time and resources that I have. I may never know who YOU are, if you like my blog, or if you recommend me to your friends (or not), but I thank you for dropping in to give me a chance. Have a great weekend!

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[Originally published February 25, 2010]

I’VE BEEN KEEPING A SECRET!   BUT, IT’S TIME TO FESS UP!

One of the great things about becoming a blogger is that I have become a blog follower too.  It is a lovely thing! I learn about the lives of others who, just like me, have joys & fears, hopes & sorrows, and visions for a better world.  Making the world a better place isn’t necessarily easy, nor is it free. Sure, smiles are free.  But, they don’t put food in hungry tummies!   So, I was delighted one day to discover that there is someone out there who is making a difference and that he has come up with several ways for people like me to help without breaking our own budgets!

His name is Jeffrey Strain and he is a blogger.  He is also a financial advisor.   One might even say he is a lover of pennies.  One day, he saw a penny on the ground and picked it up.  The snickering of a nearby group of teens caused him to think about the value of a penny and what pennies–lots of them–can accomplish in this world.  His musings led him to found Penny Experiment.  You can read about how it all began here.

I first became aware of Penny Experiment about one month ago when I read about it on another blog.  (I’d give that blogger credit, but I can’t remember who she was!)  She was participating in one aspect of the project in which couponers use their skills to purchase food for their local food banks and then get reimbursed for doing so by Jeffrey.  I was very intrigued and decided to find out more!  I liked what I saw, so I contacted Jeffrey for more information.  I decided to become one of the coupon blogger participants and told him that I’d start blogging about my couponing prowess (LOL!) at the beginning of February.  Little did I know that winter weather, trips to the ER, and more winter weather would thwart my efforts to get any shopping done for my local food bank. Since I have only been able to purchase a couple of items for the project, I have decided to hold off on blogging about them until the end of February…or whenever it is that I actually have something to blog about. Soon, I hope I’ll have had time to do more shopping and can blog about it all at one time.

MEANWHILE, I came across a blog post about Penny for Your Thoughts books and was pleased to discover that the book project was another aspect of Penny Experiment.  100 volunteers would be launching books into the world in hopes that those books would be returned to Jeffrey, scanned, and sold to raise income for Penny Experiment.  After learning the details of the book project, I quickly offered to launch a book.  Jeffrey assigned me the number 22. I needed a good sturdy blank book of some sort to use.  But, as with the couponing, weather and other unexpected delays thwarted my efforts to buy the book in-store.  I fretted and second-guessed myself.  I like to lay my hands on something before I buy it!  But, I didn’t want to put it off too long.  I finally decided to order one online and it arrived in early February.  But, then, I had to decide what to do with it.  I am certainly not an artist.  Even my stick figures are pathetic!   I decided to have my daughter add some artwork.  And I’d just stick to labeling the front and back covers, thank you very much!  I finally found the time and inspiration to prepare it for release on February 12th (while I was happily immobile during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics).  I poked around in my scrapbooking supplies and found some suitable letters and decorative stickers to use for the book. I proudly decorated the front cover,according to directions.  Here it is…

I also asked my 15 year old daughter to add her artwork to the first page.  This is what she drew…

The next day, as I was preparing to launch the book, I decided to look at the Penny Experiment web site to find out about other books that had been released.  That’s when I realized that my careful attention to details hadn’t been quite careful enough.  While I had printed the text for the inside front and inside back covers of the book WORD-FOR-WORD, I had failed to refresh my memory of what the front cover was supposed to say. Using mostly letter stickers, I had labeled the front cover, “The Penny Experiment Book 22.”.  But, it was supposed to say, “A Penny For Your Thoughts Book 22/100 Penny Experiment.”  Whoops!  Uh oh! Time to put on the dunce cap! Notice that dunce starts with the sound, “DUH!”  I didn’t even have room to add more text to the front cover!!!  Well, I could’ve, but it would have looked squished on.  Really, really squished! Thankfully, I had enough scrapbooking stickers to decorate the back cover of the book too.  Here it is…

Once the book was labeled on both covers, I was ready to release it into the world.  But, that’s just it.  I wasn’t ready!    I had invested my heart into the book and I didn’t know what to do with it. Should I give it to a trusted friend?   Or leave it for a stranger?   Who would thoughtfully–and expediently–invest their time in it and remember to send it on its way?  Since my daughter and I were planning a weekend trip to Gatlinburg, TN, for a youth rally, I finally decided to leave it there. It would be far away and, presumably, in the care of strangers.  I might never know what happened to it.  And, that, in a strange way, relieved my fears.  During our trip, I left it on a coffee table in the hotel lobby.  Later that day, it was gone.  I looked around to make sure it hadn’t been pushed aside to a nearly hidden place. Satisfied that it really was gone, I smiled and went on my way.  Now, I know there’s a chance it was picked up by hotel staff and put aside as “lost”.  But, it is clearly labeled on both the front and back cover, inside and out, so it couldn’t take long for them to realize it couldn’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t becaged in a Lost & Found box.  I hope it has found its way into the willing hands of another artist, poet, writer, or any other caring person willing to add to it and send it on. Perhaps someone will send Jeffrey an update on the book’s progress as it moves along.  If not, we will all have to wait and wonder…wait and wonder…wait and wonder where it goes and how long it will take to make its way back to him.

Please let it make it’s way back!  After all, it is for a GREAT cause!  :o)

By the way, if you’re interested in becoming a couponer for the Penny Experiment, or if you’d like to see what other coupon bloggers have accomplished, click here.  If you’d like to learn more about Penny for Your Thoughts books, click here.  Also, check out the Penny Art Gallery, where 48 of 100 penny-related postcard art projects have been posted (so far).  It’s cool.  Way cool!   I would tell you which one is my favorite, but I can’t decide! Click on each thumbnail to see a larger version and/or to post a comment.

[The image below is from the web site, PennyExperiment.com.]