Thirfty Thursday: Frugal Reads with Reducing and Green Living Books

I was asked a question of my favorite books that were frugal and money saving books.  When I started to dig into the books that I read, I realized that I had so many different categories of books that I have checked out.  Some of them about money, cooking or green lifestyle.  I also checked out a bunch about kids and raising them with money values while not spending your whole life savings.  Last week, I posted about cooking and recipe books that had good recipes and had lots of interesting tips.

This week, I decided to pull out those books which were more about going back to nature and living a more green lifestyle.  Although I am by no means a green person by nature, my frugality often puts me in the same boat because I am trying to save money (and saving the planet in the process is a big plus).  I use rags instead of paper towels to do all my cleaning and we are down to using only one roll of paper towels a month.  We use cloth napkins and not paper.  I don't have a garden because I have lost more money then I have gained the few times I have tried.  I don't raise chickens or goats in my suburban backyard or live on a farm.  I don't have only one jar of trash for the whole year but I try to cut back to one bag a week.  We do not eat out that often and get take out about once a month so we are home making meals from scratch every night.  In order to mix it up and make it a little more interesting, I try out new recipes and some become favorites while others go back in the pile.  I do lots of baking with all of our breads, rolls, and homemade goodies.  All of these things are great starts and some of the tips I learned from these books.  Check them out and see if they have any helpful hints for your family and inspire you to do better.

The Zero-Waste Lifestyle is a great book about cutting back and living a more green life.  The great thing about a green lifestyle is that is often goes hand and hand with money saving so there are tons of tips.  There are some that might be a little over the top but I loved the book and the suggestions.

The Dirty Life was a book about a couple that decided to leave the city and move to a farm.  They work long days and live very simply to make ends meet.  They live off the food that they get from their vegetables and animals.  It is super motivational and a great story on how you can live on less (even if you aren't going to give it up and move to a farm).

Made From Scratch was a great book about making more of your food from scratch but I didn't read the table of contents or any information about the book before getting it out the library because I probably wouldn't have gotten it.  They tell you all about raising yours own chickens, bees and more while living in a rented apartment.  Since this isn't in my list of to do or even ideas, you would think that it wasn't interesting but the book was fascinating about living a more independent lifestyle.

The New Good Life was a book about how a couple lived and raised their children with very few resources and how they went from rags to riches.  It gave information about budgeting and different money types to learn a little more about how you might see money differently then your spouse.  There were so many things that had me surprised and I learned a lot.