Greetings one and all! Welcome to this Friday’s Woot & Grumble, my weekly opportunity to ramble wax poetic about the ups and downs of life in these here frugal woods.

Woot

This was a fantastic, A+ week and so instead of sharing a meager, solitary woot, I’ve penned a full run-down. Aren’t you in luck!

Frugalwoods is 6 Months Old!

Frugalwoods celebrated 6 months of existence yesterday–we launched April 9th with Uber Frugal Month: Challenge Yourself. Yes indeed, I’ve been menacing the world with my bizarre frugal musings for a full six months! I’m grateful to you all for indulging me by reading, commenting, emailing, tweeting, and just generally being very cool and friendly. And frugal! You all are some frugal people!

Help celebrate our six month anniversary by letting me know what you’d like me to write about on Frugalwoods. Send your suggestions to mrsfrugalwoods@gmail.com or leave a comment below. Before you ask, no I will not write about 101 ways to knit dog hair into sweaters. Some things are just not going to happen, folks.

Healthy Hound!

Frugal Hound attended her annual check-up at the Hound Doctor and received a clean bill of health. Hooray! Mr. Frugalwoods and I take Frugal Hound’s health seriously–not only because we love her and want her to be happy, but because we need her photos for the blog preventative hound care is cheaper than the alternative. While any number of issues beyond our control could crop up, we do everything we can to keep her healthy. We brush her little houndy teeth, trim her houndy claws, give her heartworm medicine, apply flea & tick treatments, feed her grain-free kibble (from Costco) and keep her at a healthy weight.

Frugal Hound: not a sitting animal
Frugal Hound: not a sitting animal

Frugal Hound demonstrated great bravery and didn’t flinch as the vet drew her blood and gave her shots. We were so proud. She also ate about 1,000 treats even though she wouldn’t sit on command (no one was surprised). All in all, a successful visit and well worth the cost of $176.

Free Food!

There’s been an abundance of leftover free food in my office lately. I may or may not be eating some as I write this. I’ve discovered that, since most of the food is for lunch meetings, it doesn’t appear on the leftovers counter until early afternoon–after most people have eaten lunch. Being a scheming frugal weirdo (armed with glass tupperware), I swoop in and pounce on the leftovers either for dinner or the next day’s lunch.

$0 chicken! Beans! Veg!
$0 chicken! Free beans! No cost veggies!

Most of the food ends up in the trash can, so I never feel like I’m taking from others who might wish to partake. I endeavor to avoid the baked goods for the most part (although, confession: I ate 1 raspberry tartlet today). Yesterday I nabbed leftover chicken, fish, grilled vegetables, and beans, which we feasted on for dinner. I can’t remember the last time we ate meat, so it was a lovely treat!

Made Friends!

This is just a photo I took of a tree.
This is a photo I took of a tree.

Mr. Frugalwoods and I attended our first in real life (brace yourselves) get together with fellow frugal folks here in Cambridge! A charming guy, N, contacted us after finding Frugalwoods though the joint hiking posts I did with the fabulous 1500 Days to Freedom. N kindly invited us to a party at his house–very sweet/brave of him given that we are unknown people from the internet. We almost didn’t go, which I admitted to N, because we are actually rather introverted folks.

But, our courage/curiosity prevailed and we had a lovely time with N and his buddies–especially P, a fellow fan of Mr. Money Mustache. I look forward to hanging out with these fine humans again (and others who have subsequently contacted me). I love that this here blog, and the MMM Boston thread, is opening Mr. FW and I up to a local community of like-minded people.

Hot Blog Action!

Here is some more free food.
Here is some more free food. Figured you’d want to know.

Might have been more interesting if that read “hot dog action,” but hey, take what you can get. Little ol’ Frugalwoods has been trotting around the world wide web quite a bit this week:

I recently created a Hire Me/Collaborate With Me page, which I hope might lead to freelance gigs and other collaborative endeavors. Hint, hint. Need a writer, editor or someone to take photos of your dog in costume? Hint: hire me! Frugal Hound also launched a new page all about her: Frugal Hound’s Funny Greyhound Photo Corner. I don’t think I need to explain that any further.

Frugal Hound playing her favorite game: drag the blanket
Frugal Hound playing her favorite game: drag the blanket

Grumble

I lack a grumble this week, except that… I wish I could write Frugalwoods full-time! I know Mr. FW and I are just three short years from financial independence, but, I’ve come to realize that I’d love to do this full-time. It’s a pipe dream since I’m fortunate to have a day job that pays me well, and, I look forward to having ample writing time post-early retirement. Alas for now, it is but a petite grumble.

What do you want to read on Frugalwoods? What’s your woot and/or grumble for the week?

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71 Comments

  1. Happy Blogiversary!!! You’ve just got a few weeks on me – mine’s coming up soon. I’ll “die” the same day. Halloween. Seems appropriate.

    So glad Frugalhound has a clean bill of health 🙂 and so cool you are meeting other weirdos -I mean frugally cool people.

    1. Thank you! And happy early anniversary to you–that’s a lot happening on Halloween for you! We are indeed quite relieved she’s in good health 🙂

  2. Congratulations on the 6-month milestone!
    Your food pictures are making me hungry. 🙂 I also eat office food leftovers from big meetings or events. I find though that there are many people in my office who will unhesitatingly grab free food, even if they’ve already eaten. Less food wasted overall!

    1. Free food really is the best! So much food goes into the trash in my office–I don’t know why other people don’t take it home for dinner, but, I try to do my part as best I can. Thanks for the congrats :)!

    1. I think she’s pretty cute too :)!!! Thank you very much! P.S. Meant to tell you that I really enjoyed seeing your photo on the Woman Crush Wednesday post :)!

  3. I’d love to hear more about your future homesteading plans. What’s going into the research, whether it’s unimproved land that you’re doing “off-grid”, etc.

    1. I would also like to know you are preparing for the homestead. Obviously you will be prepared financially, but there is a lot more to it. This is something we hope to do someday too but I would have no idea where to begin.

    2. Thank you for letting me know! That’s a great topic and one I actually hadn’t considered writing about before. Mr. FW has done some pretty extensive research into types of land, house vs. empty land, forestry management plans, land trust restrictions, general location searches, septic, wells, etc! Thanks again for the idea!

  4. Awe, thanks for the shout out. I’m blushing again! (I’ve transitioned to black shirts now and the red face doesn’t stand out as much.)

    Happy 6 months FW. Its really great to see you enjoying so much success. It is deserved.

    The “office leftovers” reminds me of my old days working at a big, corporate headquarters. I, along with a band of fellow Food Raiders, would check the conference room calendar to see where the lunch meetings were being held with the important people. At 1p, we’d sweep in and eat well. Just like your office, all of that food was headed for the trash, so we were doing something good.

    I knew all of the names of the directors and VPs, not because I cared much about the company, but because I cared about their fancy leftovers!

    1. Glad to hear the season of black shirts is upon us. Thank you so much for the good wishes–I really appreciate that.

      Love your food raiders story! That’s pretty much me except that I’m all on my lonesome. We ate leftover pizza tonight that I squirreled away after a meeting yesterday. It was abandoned pizza! Gourmet in nature, too. Somehow free food tastes better. Not sure how to scientifically prove this, but I’m certain it’s true.

  5. Congrats on 6 months. I hate to see any food go to waste so I’m really happy you snagged some. We have reps that bring breakfast food every so often, and I usually end up taking the leftovers home. You never quite know what you’ll get, but that’s half the fun!

    1. Thank you so much! I hate to see food wasted too! And, agreed on unknown foods–keeps life interesting 🙂

    1. She’s our rescued former racing greyhound. She looks more like a deer than a dog most of the time :). Greyhounds make wonderful pets–they’re very calm, gentle, quiet, and content little beasts. We love our Frugal Hound 🙂

  6. Congrats on six months (already?!)! Three years isn’t *that* far away, even though it might seem like it. I can’t imagine how much success FW will have had by then! It’s awesome you were able to get together with some other frugal people. I’d love to have a group like that around here. I’m very jealous of all the free food you snagged. That’s one downside to working from home!

    1. Thank you so much! I know 3 years will be here in a flash and then I’ll probably start panicking about the plan from the other angle :).

      I guess you can’t really score free food from your own home, can you…. 😉

  7. Congratulations Frugalwoods/Hounds! I am still surprised this site is so young. You guys are such pros at this! You know, you guys are practically Freegans with that food thing. I haven’t read where you’ve done the organized dumpster dives. Yet. But it is a fascinating lifestyle. Have you guys ever considered it? (idea for future post: hint, hint) 🙂

    1. Thank you so much! Glad I’ve got you fooled into thinking I know what I’m doing… hah! The free work food is quite a nice perk and I’m grateful for it. I don’t think we’re quite up for dumpster diving, but, hey whatever floats your boat 🙂

  8. Mrs. FW,

    Congrats on the blogiversary! The blogosphere is full of blogtastic support, right? 🙂

    Keep up the great work. I have no doubt you and the Mr. will be where you want to be a few years from now.

    Best wishes!

    1. Thank you! I am so thankful for all of the awesome PF blogger support and friendship. It’s an amazing community of people 🙂

  9. The honor was all mine having you guys (+frugal hound) participate in the investor style series – thanks for the shout out!

    Congrats on 6 months: may there be many more bi-annual anniversaries to come 🙂

    1. Awww, thanks again Steve! Here’s hoping we both have many more blog-anniversaries (of the annual variety and otherwise).

  10. Congrats on the 6 month anniversary. Wish my blog can be as successful as yours when I hit my 6 month blogiversary.

    Thumbs up to free lunches. I love free lunches too!

  11. I would have a really hard time staying away from the baked goods at the office, so kudos to you! Ha. I’d also like to hear more about the homesteading plans.

    1. Sometimes I do succumb to their baked goodness! I try to stay strong, but failure is an option :). I’m excited to hear that folks are interested in the homestead specifics–we’ll have to get to work on some posts.

  12. Hippy happy blogiversary to you guys! You’ve made quite an impression on many of us frugal weirdos and to that I say boogie on, sista! Hip hip hooray for Frugal Hound’s good checkup too! 😀

  13. Dear FW – congrats on 6 months. You have accomplished so much in such a short time and are burning up the internet. Also glad to hear FH is well. As far as future posts – I would love to hear more about the homestead plan. Where did your idea come from, hopes, fears, why homestead, goals etc.

    1. Haha, that made me smile :). Thank you for congrats—you are too kind! Good to know on the homesteading, I’m really glad I asked because I didn’t realize people wanted to know more 🙂

  14. Happy six month! With the popularity of your blog I would have thought you would have been around longer! When I’m doing those part time side hustles in my friend’s office I’m constantly taking the leftovers home. It helped me with my grocery budget last month. I’ve gotten creative as to how to parlay the leftovers into something unique as well. I don’t have any grumbles because my dad and stepmom bitch about nothing from morning till night-oops OK I guess that WAS my grumble. Seriously though, they take #firstworldproblems to all new heights! 🙂

    1. Thank you! I’m blushing! Free leftovers = amazing. We stretch them into so many meals it’s borderline ridiculous (and awesome). That’s a good grumble–I try to check myself with my #firstworldproblems, but I know I’m a whiner sometimes

  15. My key to free work leftovers is keeping in touch with the mailroom guys and gals – they always know whether there’s free food, and when you have to get there to snag some. Congrats on 6 months! I hope the work starts pouring in for you!

  16. Happy blogiversary, favorite blogger! I’d love to hear more about your frugal travels and your future homesteading plans. You guys have big plans and I can’t wait to see how everything turns out. And most importantly – cheers to a healthy Frugal Hound! I think at this point the internet would crash without her.

  17. Congrats on getting to the six month mark! From my understanding this is kind of a “make it or break it” time where most people quite before 6 months and those who get past it typically stick to it.

    Nice job on the hire me page. I’m also pursuing more freelance opportunities, but still being prety selective about it.

  18. Happy anniversary! Wishing you all the best as you look forward to being financially independent in a few years. My dream is to have a big yard so that I can grow/raise some of my of food. Since I have read comments before mine about homesteading, I too would like to hear about your plans.

    1. Many thanks! Growing our own food is a big goal of ours as well. Thanks for letting me know about your interest in the homesteading plans 🙂

  19. Congratulations on a very successful 6 months my friend. Every time someone tells me they don’t want to start a blog because it’s oversaturated and they’ll never be successful etc. I shall point them to your example!

  20. Time flies when you are having fun : ) Congrats on the anniversary. I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog and I LOVE the pics of frugal hound. She looks so sweet. I don’t think Ruby would tolerate the costumes so much.. then again she would probably do anything for a treat so who knows : )

    1. It really does! Thank you so much! I appreciate it! Frugal Hound has just accepted the costumes as a part of life, I think 🙂

  21. Happy 6-month Blogiversary!! That’s an exciting milestone! I have to say – I’m a new PF blogger (about 2 weeks in) and seeing how awesome your blog is and how many readers you’ve gotten in such a short amount of time is SUPER inspiring!!! Keep up the great work!! At this rate I have a feeling you will be writing for Frugalwoods full-time before the three years is up 🙂

  22. Happy blogging anniversary and congrats to all of your success! I’m glad Frugal Hound is healthy. Our dogs are seniors so they never have a completely clean bill of health, even if it’s just for cysts or what have you, but we think preventative dog maintenance is really important, too 🙂

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