SIMPLICITY V FRUGALITY

Just to clarify what I see as being the difference here as the two go hand in hand in my opinion.
Simplicity to me is about having more free time to work towards my idea of a sustainable, simple life with less impact on the environment. Being frugal means spending very little and finding alternatives to the tempations of society to spend etc etc.
For me, to get to my goals of living a simpler life, I want to reduce some of the stresses and strains that past decisions have and are putting on me. A mobile phone monthly commitment and service contract for instance gives me little scope on how to control my spending on that, I pay and I use it, but changing it to a pay as you go contract, enables me still to use the mobile I have and make the call if I want to.
My goal is to reduce the expenses I am making as much as possible and to revert the trend of spending money needlessly and without thought to feering money towards attaining the goals that I have set.

The goals for 2006 are:

1. to get a grip on where the money is going and to chart what comes in and what goes out every month.
2. Setting a realistic budget.
3. becoming my own greengrocer and reducing super market shopping.
4. Eating slow food and more vegetarian meals.
   
5. Get my family involved in the running of our home and share out expertise.
6. Reduce the use of my car and evaluate our use of transport
7. Create a plan with costs for future plans and timescale.

A great blog to check out is seattle simplicity, it has some great links to information and some great posts to get your thinking into gear.