Having lived in our house for 30+ years, it takes a minute to remember we have something. We have Christmas lights up (DH actually put them up on the first weekend in December), and yesterday afternoon DH found a timer thing and set up the lights on it. It worked! So they will come on at dusk automatically and turn off 6 hours later which will be approximately 5-11 pm each evening.

My Year of Ultimate Frugality was decided on suddenly so I didn't have time to make rules, just not to buy ANYTHING that we did not NEED! We have a tendency to overspend on food and for me, fabric. So I will be working on my rules and list them in the left hand margin.

My reason for this YOUF is we have to pay our house off before DH can retire. I have done really well this year paying extra on our mortgage and have paid over $20,000 extra on the principal this year.

DH started jerky this morning in our dehydrator. Jerky is incredibly expensive, but I hate the added costs when he has run out and needs to make more.