Pillow-paloosa or cheap is a choice

Among our friends, my husband and I are known as "cheap". Not frugal, not smart shoppers, not any other ufamism that would save our feelings or make us feel better about our spending. No - I guess no other word truly describes our choice to owe less and to not participate in the credit card buy now pay later mentality that seems to be the norm. We are cheap. We have a vehicle that runs on waste vegtable oil, a woodstove to heat our home using the dead wood that our property so eagarly provides us. We are debt-free with the exception of our home that will be paid off in 7 years. We repair instead of re-purchase and make due instead of buy new. We are cheap.

The latest installment in the ongoing saga of our "if you don't need it don't buy it, and if you need it, think again" deals with pillows. Not sure if you have noticed or not, but pillow forms have become quite expensive. I'm not talking about the down-filled organic materials high-end stuff. I'm talking about the normal poly filled cheap-o variety. The type that become cushions that are just as likely to become non-bruising weapons in an all-out pillow fight as to a decorative object to be admired. I became very frustrated when even at 1/2 price the cheapest pillow forms I could find were nearing the $5 mark. Then, during a trip to Wal-Mart, the place of many miracles, I passed by a huge stack of sleeping pillows. $2.50 each! OK, so they were 20 in. by 26 in., but with a snip here and a de-stuff there (oh that lessening my girth was so easy) and a quick run through the sewing machine, I ended up with a pillow and a half for less than $3.

I admit it's a little messy and not as quickly satisfying as just inserting a form right out of the pkg, but as I said before, we are cheap. So let the pillow gift giving begin... it's a pillow-paloosa!