If your New Year’s Resolution was to be more frugal in 2010, like many of us, you may be getting sick of it by now. There are good reasons for this. Being frugal is an exercise in discipline–telling yourself no over and over again for the benefit of a larger goal. This routine can become oppressive over time and lead to a sense of malaise, listlessness, and mild depression. There is a name for this phenomenon. It’s called frugal fatigue.

Frugal fatigue just means you’re tired of being thrifty. You want to have some fun and spend some money instead of always saying no to yourself. But experiencing this temporary emotional state doesn’t mean you have to fall off the frugal wagon completely. It just means that you have to acknowledge and deal with the feelings so that you can get on with being thrifty. Here are five ways I have found to battle frugal fatigue:

1. Remember Your Goals. It helps to reassess why you are doing this in the first place. Look at the positives, not what you can’t do–go out to dinner, go shopping, buy a new car, etc.–but what you will be able to do because of this lifestyle–save for retirement, go on a trip, pay off your debt (which, while unglamorous, means more freedom in your life). Look at what you have achieved so far and what you will achieve if you keep on with this.

2. Try Something New. Frugal fatigue comes from routine. You end up feeling trapped in your house and like you aren’t allowed to do anything. So, try something new. Cook a new recipe, try a new sport, go thrift store shopping with a tight budget, or have friends over for board game night. Make some fun for yourself that doesn’t focus on spending a lot of money, and you will feel better.

3. Get Some Frugal Inspiration. I just read the book Possum Living by Dolly Freed–who I recently posted a short documentary on–and it got me all gung-ho about self-sufficiency again. It’s important to have things like that. Read some frugal forums or The Tightwad Gazette or stare at growing your savings account or talk to your favorite frugal friend. Do something to get excited about frugality and it will feel more fun.

4. Count Your Blessings. You could just think about all the things you have in life, or you could literally count your blessings–for example, open your refrigerator and look at all the food you have, and then make a plan on how you’re going to use it up. Or look at all the paint cans in the garage and make a new project around them. The idea is to focus on what you have, the blessings, and then use them. Why? Using your resources makes you feel richer.

5. Buy Something. If frugal fatigue is really bad, go out and do something that costs money. That’s right. Treat yourself. Unless you are desperately poor, you can probably afford to go out to one dinner or buy yourself one item at the store. This could backfire and reignite your love of spending, but I’m guessing that if you have been wanting to do something for awhile and you’ve been telling yourself no, doing it will be enough to keep frugal fatigue at bay. Any discipline system needs small rewards as much as the big ones to keep you motivated. If you have been doing well, maybe it’s time for one of those small rewards.

Besides, it is cheaper in the long run to do something you really want and then go back to frugality than it is to fall off the wagon altogether because you feel discouraged. So, unless your goals are unbending, I say it’s time to bend a little.

And then, onward, frugal bunnies! You thrifty bees, you.

We are having fabulous weather here right now. It is very hard not to start gardening, even though I know we will get more frost before April and it is too early. (Okay, I already put in some potatoes and a fig tree. But that is all I am planting, I swear. Because it is too early.)

Anyway, at least I can plan the garden right now. I make a list every year–here is 2009’s list–and go from there. This is what I am going to plant in my vegetable garden 2010:

Plants Already In The Yard:

* Two artichoke plants –They have never done well. I am going to transplant them and see if they do better in another spot.
* Cherry tree
* Nectarine tree
* Apricot tree—This has yet to produce fruit. I am starting get concerned.
* Fig tree


(Courtesy About Garden)

* Orange bush
* Two lemon bushes
* Kumquat
* Strawberries
* Various herbs

Plants I Will Be Planting:

* Tomatoes—Three plants: a brandywine, a beef steak, and some other kind of tomato.
* Bell Peppers—You can’t have enough bell peppers. I am going to put in at least 6 plants, maybe 8.
* Jalapeño
* Some Other Pepper—Last year it was Italian sweet peppers, the year before, cayenne peppers. It depends on what the nursery has.
* Zucchini
* Winter Squash—Butternut or acorn.
* Peas—My husband wants English peas this year.
* Green beans—This year I am going to put in French green beans as well as Kentucky green beans.
* Beets
* Fingerling Potatoes—As mentioned, I cut up a potato and put it in the ground last weekend.
* Watermelon Radishes—I had some from Whole Foods and they are sooo cool.


(Courtesy McKenzie Seeds)

* Crane Melons—They are juicy cantaloupes and grow great here.
* Giant Sunflowers—These are so much fun and pretty in the garden.
* Leeks—Every year I plant these and love them. They grow so easily and are so versatile.
* Hops—My husband wants them for beer.


(Courtesy The Beer Life)

* Chard
* Garlic
* Marjoram
* Basil
* Parsley
* Stevia

(And since I have the room,) Plants I Am Still Considering:

* Corn—You get so little for so many plants, and fresh corn is cheap in the store. On the other hand, they are fun and easy to grow.
* Cucumber—I love them, but I am also tired of them. We haven’t eaten last year’s pickles yet.
* Carrots—I eat them all the time, but they are so cheap and they attract gophers.
* Fennel bulbs—I have one plant that I use for the leaves, but I want to grow it for the bulbs.
* Spinach—Every year I plant these and every year I have trouble getting them to full size. But darn it, spinach should be able to grow here!
* Arugula
* Radicchio
* Pearl Onions
* Shallots
* Celery

Others?

What are you thinking of planting?

Turns out a Erlenmeyer flask makes a great vase.

I always like the old suitcases I see in thrift stores, but they aren’t practical for today’s traveling needs. Well, here’s a great way to re-use them–turn them into a pet bed.

The idea comes from this Etsy site, Vintage Renaissance, where you can buy a pet bed just like the above for $70. It looks like they split the suitcase in half, glued stool legs to them (you can buy the legs in a hardware/craft store or take apart an old stool), and put a nice fluffy pillow inside for your cat or dog. What a great way to recycle.

I am a huge fan of Lagunitas Beer, including their Brown Shugga special ale, which they release in October. My husband recently made a recipe of Brown Shugga mentioned on this “Can You Brew It?” podcast, and I gotta tell you, it’s the best beer he’s made yet.

We knew we were on to something when, before even carbonating or dry hopping the beer, the wort tasted good. After only a week and a half of letting the beer carbonate in the bottle, it was good enough to drink and continues to mellow and get better as time goes on.

This is an expensive and somewhat challenging beer to make, but worth it. Brown Shugga is sort of like a smaller, heavier-hopped version of a barleywine. It has a full mouth feel, a sweet undertone, and a hoppy bite. But be careful, it’s not for lightweights. Our beer came in at around 10% alcohol.

Here is the recipe. The “I” talking is my husband:

Lagunitas Brown Shugga Ale Clone

Makes a 6 Gal. batch for 5 gallons of beer after fermentation.

Ingredients:

Malt:

16 lbs. American Two Row
3.8 lbs. Wheat Malt (used White Winter Wheat)
1.05 lbs. Crystal 60L
1lbs. Munich 10L
.25 lbs. Caramel 80L
.25 lbs. Belgian Special B 150L

Hops:

75 grams Willamette 4.1% Alpha Acid
13.5 grams Nuggets 12.7% Alpha Acid
32 grams Liberty 4.5% Alpha Acid
43.5 grams Centennial 8% Alpha Acid
21 grams Cascade 6.5% Alpha Acid

Other Ingredients:

0.61 lbs. of Dark Brown Sugar
~10 gallons of water (7 for the mash, ~3 more for sparging)
1 vial White Labs WLP002 English Ale Yeast

Directions:

Mash the grain at 155F for 60 minutes.

I used a 7 gallon single infusion mash with a 2-2.5 gallon batch sparge. I collected 6.5 gallons of wort (I recommend trying to collect closer to 7 gallons if you can).

Boil the wort for 90 minutes and make the following hop and brown sugar additions at the appropriate times. I recommend putting your hops in a hop sack so you can pull them out after the boil (optional):

44g Willamette 4.1% @ 90 minutes

10 grams Nuggets 12.7% @ 45 minutes
31grams Willamette 4.1% @ 45 minutes

.61lbs. Dark Brown Sugar @ 30 minutes

3.5 grams Nuggets 12.7% @ 1 minutes
11 grams Liberty 4.5% @ 1 minutes
22.5 grams Centennial 8% @ 1 minutes

After the boil, cool the wort to at least 70F and then transfer it to a sanitized fermentation vessel. Add White Labs WLP002 English Ale Yeast. I noticed because of all of the hops added in the boil I had a LOT of trub–the dregs at the bottom of the kettle when you are done boiling–and only collected about 4 gallons of wort.

Ferment the wort for 5 days at 64F and raise the temp to 68-70F for the last 2 days. Transfer it to a sanitized secondary fermenter and add the following dry hops to the ~5 gallons of wort:

21 grams Cascade 6.5%
21 grams Centennial 8%
21 grams Liberty 4.5%

I had ~4 gallons of wort so I adjusted my hops proportionally. Let the beer dry hop for 5-7 days back at around 65F then bottle or keg. The beer should finish at around 1.022 final gravity.

Beer statistics:

OG: 1.099
FG: 1.023
SRM: 17.5
IBU: ~55
ABV 10.1%

Cheers!

Here’s a way to cut back on using plastic: make some reusable bowl covers.

Re-Nest has a how-to on creating your own bowl covers with cotton laminate/oilcloth and elastic. The resulting covers can be washed and re-used as much as you want, thus reducing the amount of saran wrap you use in the kitchen. Along with being environmentally friendly, that will save you money in the long run.

Of course, I’m not convinced these covers can completely eliminate saran wrap–they aren’t going to keep air out of your food as well as plastic can, and so may not be ideal for all situations. However, for general food saving, reusable bowl covers are a great idea.

I love these sofas from Doshi Levien. Great colors and details. Here’s the back of the sofa:

They come in three sizes. Here is the smallest:

Here’s the back:

According to the Italian company Moroso, which manufactures the divans: “The cushions are covered with Indian textiles and decorated with very large, extremely beautiful buttons. Fabrics include silk and cotton and a Kvadrat wool cloth designed by Giulio Ridolfo which is woven like an Indian silk, the warp and weft are of two different colours.” They were inspired by this painting:

(Via SwissMiss.)

I like vintage phones. We bought a phone from 1960-something for my husband’s office–it works great–and ever since, I have been looking for a red wall phone for the kitchen. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find one that would work, so at last I turned, as I always do, to the Internet. I was pleased to find that there are plenty of retro red wall phones available. For example, check out this phone from Red Candy:

This one is my favorite. Unfortunately, it seems to only be available in the UK and it is out of stock until April. Then there is this one:

I originally found this phone on Smith Gear for $50, which is too much for a phone. But it is so cool–there is even a volume control on the handle. With a little poking around, I found what looks like the same phone on eBay for $32. Much better.

This Crosley phone is also nice. It is a little fancier than the others, more like something you would find in an office. You can get it at Amazon for $47.

And finally there is your basic red Golden Eagle Electronics phone. They may not be as cute as the others, but they are the cheapest for $9 from Phone Merchants. These phones are reliable and have been around forever.

The advantage of buying a new phone that looks old is that it works with our modern phone lines. But still, they don’t quite have the charm of the originals…

The above clip is from The Daily Show. First it very effectively–and hilariously–demonstrates the problem with the credit crisis and then it has a devastating segment about how ruthless Bank of America is at charging fees on credit cards. Basically, Bank of America comes out looking less reasonable than a loan shark. (Skip ahead to 4:56 if you just want to watch the Bank of America segment).

The Daily Show is talking about Bank of America’s credit card, but I want to talk about my experience with it as a bank. Bank of America is one of several big banks I used when I was younger. At the end of my time with them, I was constantly being charged fees. I was charged to talk to a teller in person, if I called the banking line more than a six times in a month, and one time for exchanging some rolled coins for cash.

The last straw happened like this: We deposited a paycheck on a Friday. On a Saturday, we bought something–I don’t remember what, but it was covered by the paycheck. Bank of America held the paycheck until Monday but pushed the purchase through first so that we were technically overdrawn on our account. Then they charged us a $50 fee for being overdrawn.

Of course, we should never have been overdrawn. We put the money in the account and THEN we purchased something. But Bank of America would not refund the fee, so I marched down and took every penny of my money out of that bank. I haven’t been back since.

That was 7 years ago. These days, I use a local bank. Since switching over, I have never once been charged a fee that I felt was unfair. I can talk to as many tellers as I like. I can call the company whenever I need to. And my checking is free–really.

Not every small bank is as good as mine. You have to look into how convenient they are–do they have enough ATMs? Can they accommodate online banking?–and how stable they are–how long have they been in business? Are they FDIC insured? But assuming that we are talking about a normal, small-to-medium-sized bank, I think they are a better choice than a big corporate bank like Bank of America or Chase. Here’s why:

1. The Money Stays in the Community. People who live around you are more likely to be dealing with your money. That means that by putting your bank into your community, you are enriching where you live. Local jobs, local money. Personally, I would rather my money stay in the place I live than have it go to Wall Street where some banker will put it in commodity trading where it can help perpetuate a system I find unstable and immoral.

2. Fewer fees. Of course it depends on the bank, but you are not as likely to be nickled-and-dimed by a local bank as by a big one. Why? In order to compete, small banks often focus on customer service, which means fewer fees.

3. Conservative Practices. You really have to prove your income to get a loan at my bank. But on the flip side, during the banking fiasco last year, there wasn’t even a hint of my bank struggling. No layoffs, no branch shut downs, nothing. A well-run small bank tends to take fewer financial risks because they can’t afford them. So when times are rough, they keep going. This is good for peace of mind.

4. Friendlier. The girl who opened our account still works at my branch, which means she has been there for at least 7 years. I see her sometime when I go in. And if I wanted to say hello to her, I would not be charged for the privilege. You will not find this kind of thing at your Bank of America mall kiosk. Not that there aren’t nice people working at those banks, but the bank doesn’t care about them sticking around and they don’t care if the customer likes them.

Banking is complicated and obviously, I am not a financial expert. However, it angers me to see big banks mistreat people. If that’s how they are going to be, let’s all take our business elsewhere.

Like me, David van Alphen liked prefab modern sheds like these for his backyard, but couldn’t stomach the $11,000 price tag. So, as he explains on Design Milk, he decided to make one himself by converting this old barn in his backyard:

To this modern studio:

He even drywalled the inside and added windows, air conditioner, and other touches. The end result looks great! And all for $3,000–much cheaper than the $11,000 prefab version.