Welcome Frugal Girl readers

I know a lot of you are new readers who were referred to me by The Frugal Girl and I just want to welcome you here. I am always happy to have new readers, because it means more ideas and interaction. The more the merrier!

Every day I'm learning so much about simple living, frugal living, and green living from people all over the Internet. And I'm so thrilled about how democratic the blogosphere is. If you like someone's blog, if there's something there that you can learn from or that you find useful or entertaining, you can go back. If you get annoyed or offended, you don't return.

And it's only in this incredibly open, democratic environment that I could have made these new friends. I would never have met The Frugal Girl in my regular life. She's a Christian, homeschooling mom and I'm an agnostic with no kids. Of course, those are only a few of the things that define who we are. But they're the kinds of things that demographers and marketers use to make us feel separate from each other in all those surveys and polls you're constantly reading about and hearing about on TV.

But through our blogs, we can meet through our shared interests. So it becomes about what we have in COMMON rather than what's DIFFERENT about us. I've had my blog less than four months and been reading hers for maybe two, and I've already learned so many new things from her. And she was part of the reason I've been so inspired to cut back on our food waste and cut our grocery bill at the same time.

So lately I feel like I've been living in a different reality than what the brief glimpses of TV news would have me believe the rest of the world is living. I know this recession is really hard on a lot of people, but I can't help but believe there's a silver lining in putting the brakes on the mass consumerism we've been witnessing for the past several decades. And for me this experiment of Buying Nothing New (The Compact) is turning out to be not about deprivation at all, but about abundance. I feel richer than ever - in friendships, and ideas, and experiences, and even in things. I've really come to believe that there will always be plenty of whatever I need. Because we are all so much more resourceful and creative than the people who want us to be consumers would have us believe.

So thanks for reading my blog, whether you're an old reader from way back in January, or whether you've just come by in the past few weeks. I'm happy you're here on this journey with me. Please leave your thoughts, questions, and ideas in the Comments section.