Frugality: Accepting "Good Enough"

I consider myself a pretty frugal person. I eat PB&J sandwiches for lunch on weekdays, live without cable television, read the SmartSpending blog every morning, and despite my best efforts to shell out thousands for a car I still take the bus and walk to work every day. My expenses average around $600-700 a month total, or some $7.8k a year. Since the average income for a single 18-24 y.o. woman with a bachelors in the US is around $23.4k (U.S. Census Bureau, second table down) and households in my age group tend to be in debt, that $16k buffer makes me believe I'm in comparatively good shape.

But apparently, according to the aforementioned SmartSpending people, it's not good enough. "Sure, you save the big bucks," they say, "but it's the latte factor that will get you!" A lot of the advice in their posts focuses on cutting every last bit of waste by returning to ultimate simplified living--swapping goods/services a la country farm tradition, making your own laundry detergent, or hauling your own snacks and ham sandwiches around Disney World. While I'm a bargain shopper and a coupon clipper, quite honestly, some of their advice is inapplicable to the average person. Here are responses to a couple of their suggestions:

1) You don't need all those appliances
One of today's posts included an admonition from a "Ms. Don't Buy It" that breadmakers are superfluous. I'll admit that I don't technically need a crock pot or rice cooker when a dutch oven on the stove will perform the same function, and I am perfectly capable of kneading dough by hand. But these little electric wonders make my life a heck of a lot easier. The last thing I want to do when I come home after my second job of the day is to stand over a range or exert my arm muscles stretching the gluten in a loaf. The peace of mind and stomach that comes with being able to ask my cooking-wary sweetie to throw some ingredients into a pan for pizza dough before I get home is well worth the extra one-time cost.

2) Make your own everything
I don't care how easy the bloggers think it is, chasing down natural unscented soaps to make detergent and dredging shredded newspapers in baking soda for cat litter is just adding more work to an already time-consuming chore. Plus, I get my kitty litter from a local shop that donates part of their earnings to the county animal shelter.

3) Don't buy books; go to the public library
Well, that's just silly :p Obviously, this is an example of a good tip.

I'm all for frugality. My loathing of debt is unparalleled. But going overboard can detract from quality of life. I can gaurantee you if I ever go to Disney World, I'm spurning granola bars for the Rainforest Cafe.