Frugal Green Living: Am I a Failure As a Frugalista?

We don't use our freezer very much; my wife shops at the local stores daily and cooks fresh. Usually all that is in there are our martini glasses, but right now they are squeezed to the side by a box of Stouffers' Baja Grilled Chicken Bistro Melts. The checkout lady threw it in the cart and said "it's free, take it." My wife said no, I don't want it, but the checkout lady looked at her like she was nuts, like how do you say no to free, so she took it, and there it sits to this day.

Most of the frugal living sites I have been looking at would have considered my wife nuts as well; free is as frugal as it gets. Some would have broken up their shopping and gone back for seconds. But sometimes even free is too expensive if it is crap.

Most frugal websites recommend making a careful list of what you need, buying in bulk and using your freezer; We shop daily, locally, find what is fresh and you already know how we use our freezer.

Most of the frugal websites talk about coupons and strategic shopping and searching out bargains; we pay a lot more for local food. For meat, which we eat a lot less of than we used to, but pay probably double the conventional supermarket price to get local happy meat.

I pay more for my light bulbs than I would at Home Depot, because I know and like my main street hardware store and want him to stay in business.

I won't shop at Amazon or the big book chains, but if I need to buy a book (rarely, because we have great libraries) I bike down to the locally owned and operated Book City. I support my local Small-Marts.

I can buy a keyboard for 10 bucks at the discount electronic stores, but got tired of wearing them out and not having a solid working tool, so I paid $ 125 for a real working tool of a Das Keyboard that I can hit the keys hard, as I do, for years.

I could go on, but you get the message. Oscar Wilde complained about people who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing; I think that could be applied to many of the frugalism sites that I have seen.

I am trying to live on a budget, but I believe in buying healthy food, quality, well designed stuff that will last a long time, made by people who were not exploited out of sustainably produced materials, keeping out of the car and supporting local busineses that keep my money in town. If that makes me a failure as a frugalista, so be it.