Can We Be Too Frugal?

I’m a frugal grandmother and I’m proud of it! But we can become too frugal, in which case we need a wake-up call. Or in my case, maybe a sleeping pill! Because you see, I had these sheets. They were flannel, perfect for our cold and drafty Italian houses that never seem to heat up in the winter! One night in these cement buildings without them is enough to make anyone run out to buy flannel sheets. Trust me!

New sheets?

But that was the problem. I didn’t need new sheets because I already had them. In fact, I had two sets, and they were quite new.

However, the top sheet must have been designed for a tall but skinny giant, because it didn’t fit the bed. It was so long that I had to tuck half of it under at the foot of the bed. But the sheet barely covered the sides of the mattress.

If only they had taken that extra length and put it on the sides, maybe Hubby and I wouldn’t have had so many bedding wars!

And don’t even get me started on what it was like under the covers. Even when we slept right in the middle of the bed, that sheet barely covered us!

“Wow!” you might think, “Sheets must be very expensive in Italy!”

Otherwise, wouldn’t any sane person go out and buy properly fitting sheets? I don’t know if sheets are more expensive here because it’s been decades since I bought them elsewhere. It’s not that we couldn’t afford them. But I was bothered by the idea of buying new sheets when the ones I had should have been perfectly good.

You can perhaps learn a lesson from the defective sheets. When buying new sheets, make sure they fit the bed before washing them. If they don’t, return them! Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with those awful sheets for years!

I kept those sheets for 5 years

We slept badly for five long years just because I insisted on keeping those stupid sheets!

• Because they should have been perfectly good sheets.
• And why buy new ones when those were still pretty new?
• But mostly, I didn’t want them to end up in a landfill.

Sending those sheets to the landfill was something I didn’t want to do. So I made them work. No, actually, I take that back. Nothing could make those sheets work! We just put up with them.

That is, until Hubby started complaining about not sleeping well. “I don’t understand,” he said. “New mattress. Good pillows. Lots of blankets. But I still don’t sleep well.” And neither did I.

Then I began to wonder, “Could it be the sheets?”

So on Wednesday, the day of our open-air market, I bought new sheets. We started sleeping better right away! That made me angry at whoever designed those defective sheets. But mostly, I was upset at myself for having kept them for so long!

A call to stewardship

And that’s when I got it! Frugality can be taken too far. Too bad I didn’t realize that five years earlier!

God calls us to be good stewards, and frugality is an important part of that. It means spending wisely and getting your money’s worth.

However, frugality doesn’t mean being cheap or stingy. God also wants us to be generous. He wants us to share with and care for others. He wants us to provide for our family and loved ones to the best of our ability.

This can even mean ensuring that they don’t have to sleep with defective sheets.

P.S. The sheets didn’t end up in a landfill. My daughter took them. I think she used them on the kids’ beds. Just call us the thrifty landfill-hating family! And wonder if there is any hope for us!

📷 Image credits: Bedding | Pig.