"Watch the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves!" - Ben Franklin

I find it to be absolutely true that if i watch my pennies, the dollars all seem to step right in line.

So here are a few things I did this weekend to watch my pennies.

1) Recycled old things: I saw an ad for a camera "show" at Hunt Photo and Video and remembered that I had an old medium format Mamiya RB67 camera in my closet that I had not taken out of the case for about 4 years. I decided to take it to Hunt since I knew they took trades, and since it was doing me no good in the closet. I traded it in for a 7.1MPixel digital camera, (check out more detail on this trade in my Journal)

2) End of selling season discounts: I went to the farm stands and took advantage of some great 50% off prices on produce! Yummy...lots of squash, pumpkin, beets, leeks, peppers, carots, cabbage....and even cheese. I started by making some Saurkraut, and going to town "pickling" the pumpkin and Kohlrabi. I also made Pumpkin Jam and a Kohlrabi and Cabbage Cole Slaw. The entire pile of food cost me about $28.00, and we will eat it all winter long. (the squash will stay fine in the cooll basement)
Check out My Journal Entry in the Farm stand Sale and my activities cooking up a storm and check out some of my photos too)

3) Did an inventory of weatherstripping: I found some worn sections that were letting daylight (and plenty of air) in. I replaced those, and put plastic weather sealing up on our windows. (I started this, and still have a few to do) I also found a few feet of hot water pipe in the basement that I insulated with foam tubing made for the job. (quick, simple and inexpensive)

4) Wrapped the water heater, and turned its temperature down a notch: I was actually burning myself many mornings in the shower...so I knew we had some headroom in the temperatures, so turning the temperature down was not such a bad thing. (and even Cheryl was fine with it) Wrapping the water heater will help in the long run I am sure.

5) Travel to work on slightly off-peak hours: This not only makes the commute smoother, it saves gas and wear and tear on my patience.

6) Buy "Just Before" or "Right After" an Event: Tonight my wife picked up the Halloween Candy, and being the night before Halloween, the store apparently had a sale going on. Yea, they normally have sales after the holiday, but I guess if they have a ton of it the night before, they might as well move it out!

Ok...so those were not deal makers or breakers...but they are all part of living a life always with an eye toward saving. It isn't all that hard and the more you do it, the more second nature.