Frugality vs Simplicity

Today's article on frugal living in the Oregonian got me thinking about what this blog is NOT.

Frugality is about saving money. Scrimping, even. Being cheap.

I am not interested in being cheap. I am not particularly interested in blogging about the joys of saving a few cents, or even a few dollars, here and there.

I say this, but last week you might have seen me and the baby going through our building's recycling looking for redeemable cans and bottles. The baby would be riding on my back to avoid the ickiness of the recycling bins. And then we take our sticky and slightly smelly loot to our local Fred Meyer. Where we generally gross under a dollar.

Last time we took recyclables in, we made 90 cents, which we gave, to a woman begging outside the store. She had a sign that said she was pregnant. I am given to skepticism--a sign of a closed heart, perhaps. But I chatted with her, and eventually gave her the 90 cents. She was embroidering Disney characters onto little scraps of cloth. She said she was worried about the epidural, but determined to give her baby a home and a good life. As we talked, I saw that all her front teeth were rotten. Twenty-seven years old, three and half months pregnant, embroidering Ariel and Sleeping Beauty, but clear-eyed, well-guarded and somehow sure of herself. I showed her my baby, what she had to look forward to.

The point to this adventure was never the money from my neighbors' discarded beer bottles. It had to do with not wasting what was right there, out of principle rather than need. The recyclables spawned an adventure. You could say that we gave money to someone in need. Or that I was forced to confront my ideas about homelessness; perhaps I was made to notice the vulnerability of mothers and babies. Perhaps I imparted some sort of values to my infant son. Perhaps it was all nothing but a diverting way to spend an hour.

I'm not sure what taking the cans and bottles to recycle was all about, but it is relevant to this blog because the story of our trip to Fred Meyer is a story about having more of a Life. And less Stuff.