The First Step in Recovery is Admitting You Have a Problem

I inventoried my closet a few days ago. Here are the results:
39 Dresses. This includes my wedding dress and a dress of my mother's from the 'seventies, but they still count.
19 Sweaters.(Keep in mind, I live in Alabama. We have one cold month out of the year.)
8 Little Sweaters (cardigans, shrugs, etc.)
23 Skirts.
9 pairs of pants.
18 Blouses.
12 Dressy t-shirts.
4 Jackets
23 Pairs of Shoes.

Holy crap. Looking over the tally, I thought about the clothes that I had recently cut up into squares for a quilt, about the others that went to the Jimmy Hale Mission, about the money I make in a month and the fact that I am an avid NPR listener and keep up with economic news and am terrified that I will soon be reduced to eating grass from the side of the road.

And yet, I own 39 dresses.

In President Obama's Inaugural Address, he spoke of our need, as a people, to return to a way of life in which we live within our means rather than on credit cards and a prayer. This is the kind of thinking that makes my grandmother a wealthy woman, though she was a schoolteacher for twenty-two years. She saved, and now she can afford to hide a twenty dollar bill in my purse every time I go for a visit.

So, this blog is a public declaration. That I will, in response to the tough times that we are all facing, live responsibly. That I will become a cheapskate.

To help me through all of this, I have a crafts table, a sewing machine I resurrected from my childhood home, and a flair for making things work. I also have a lovely husband who supports my cheapness and is much, much cheaper himself.