Why I Bother Sharing About My Frugal Shops

Sometimes I wonder if most people wonder why I write about my shopping here on my blog. I don't live in the US, while most of my readership does.

So why do I write about what I buy on sale locally, when most of the readers of this blog won't be able to benefit from those sales? I actually get this question on a somewhat regular basis, and I figured I'd address it here, once and for all.

Number one reason is because what I buy isn't important, but the reasoning behind what I buy is.


I nearly never write "I bought x y and z".

I usually explain that I bought x because I wanted to make something from scratch and I knew that if I bought x I'd be able to make that and have this great frugal recipe.

Or I might say that I was going to buy something but then I saw y and that is a great alternative, and much cheaper, so I bought that.

Or I talk about how z has been on my shopping list, and then I found it on sale and I bought ten packages of it to put in my stockpile.

Or sometimes I talk about how a certain item wasn't frugal, but I decided to get it anyhow, as a splurge, because self care.

By talking about what I buy, how I buy, and when I buy it, I hope to get readers to also think when they shop, about why they're buying what they're buying, what they're hoping to gain from buying it, and not to have shopping trips be mindless interactions where they're just sticking things in their carts without deciding if buying that fits their goals of where they want to be spending their money. I want people to just have more awareness, so that they're mindfully spending their money instead of letting it slip through their fingertips.

That's number one.

Number two is I've had people tell me that they read my posts about how I buy and what I buy, and while they don't actually end up using those specific ideas or go through that same thought process, they get inspired by the concept and end up making more frugal decisions while shopping than they would have otherwise.

I consider that a success.

And lastly?

While most of my readership does live in the US, I do have quite a large contingent of readers that do live locally to myself, and when I post about what I buy cheaply and where, they end up sending me messages and asking me where this shop was, and how they also can take advantage of sales. I think many people have started going to the local scratch and dent stores after reading about what I got there in my posts. And even if that is just a small percentage of readers, I still consider it a benefit to enlighten people where sales are, so they can buy these items at a discount as well.

Do you enjoy reading posts about where I shop and what I got and why? Why? How do you find you personally benefit from them?