Cheap! Who, Me?

Frugal?
Practical?

I have always been from the "use it up, wear it out" persuasion.

The new car that I earlier blogged about purchasing now has 200,569 miles on it. It still looks good, runs good, burns no oil, and gets 27 m.p.g. on the highway.

Sara Jean loves to talk about how "cheap" I am.
Listening to her talk, and watching some of my actions, neighbors must think we are in really dire straits economically.

A male acquaintance of ours has a toenail/sock problem. For some reason, his toenails cut through the perfectly good brand new socks he wears to run in.
He cannot stand to run in socks with holes in them, so he throws them out.
In wonderful "George Costanza" form, Sara Jean saw these socks in his trash can and inquired about them. Knowing that I would be perfectly happy to wear them, she started bringing them home. I now have 20 or so pairs of athletic socks in my drawer with one hole in them.......I simply put the hole over my small toe! If by chance the pair has two socks with the hole on the same side so that one hole will line up over my large toe no matter what, I simply turn one sock inside-out......problem resolved.

But there's another story that Sara Jean loves to tell about me:

I've worn a pair of Wellington boots since I was in High School. Once on, at first glance they look like an oxford shoe, yet they provide good protection for my ankles and lower calf.

A couple years ago I bought a new pair and after breaking them in, found the right one fit my foot tighter than the left one. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't wear the boots, but there was a noticeable difference in the tightness of the right boot. Because it was tighter, when the right boot was worn out, the left boot was still perfectly serviceable. I pitched the right boot and saved the left one.

Sara Jean had a fit!
"ARE YOU CRAZY?
When are you ever gonna use that one boot?"

The next pair I bought were virtually identical to the preceeding pair. After wearing them for a little over a year, the "pulls" that you use to pull on the boots failed on the left one...... came out by the roots.
But I had a spare!

Imagine my grin.......
Of course I immediately showed Sara Jean what had happened, and wore the "ALMOST" identical pair of boots for over a year until I wore them out.
As Sara Jean would say, "You couldn't tell the difference in the boots from a galloping horse."

She just thinks I'm cheap.
I'd define myself with a different word!