“Keep company with the rich and you’ll end up picking up the tab every time.” — Anonymous

Since I’ve been publishing Queercents, I’m amused when friends make assumptions about me: but perception is not always reality. Example: last night, we were chatting with our housing partners (the guys) about their stay at the house in Palm Springs this weekend and one of them thought I would appreciate a frugal quirk about our real estate agent.

He’s noticed that at every open house, our agent shows up with a book checked out from the library. I’ve always admired people who are thrifty and frugal. Dawn at Frugal for Life is one of the best.

I’ve tried to improve in this area and have written about cutting expenses on a few occasions. My cleaning service was one failure. This experiment lasted about two minutes. But the good thing is that Queeercents has made me more aware about how I spend my money. I’ve learned that my saving grace is that I’m not a consumer at my core. I hate to shop… so that eliminates half the temptation. Even at Starbucks, I opt for the Grande drip instead of the $3 latte.

But I’m a sucker for convenience and The Good Life. Convenience and comfort: I’m always a willing participant. My Open Wallet had a good post yesterday about paying for laundry service. That’s important to her. For me personally, I work from home and it’s easy to toss a load in between conference calls. Deep cleaning every other Friday is a different story.

In theory, checking out books from the library is smart and I wish that I had the wherewithal to haul myself down the street and sort through the library stacks. I probably would be surprised with how well things are merchandized these days. After all, libraries are competing with Barnes & Noble and the ultimate in online convenience: Amazon.

Frugality is the foundation of wealth. We can even check out a book at the library about this topic. Perhaps I’ll try to do that.