New York readers, please call your state reps: https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1517626626506465280
California readers, please call your state reps: https://twitter.com/Scott_Wiener/status/1516475367845892099
Here’s a donors choose for a district in Texas that is trying to help its LGBTQ+ students.
Doot doot doot do do do doo
Random gossipy question: I noticed from a blogroll that The Frugal Girl has signed a housing lease. I haven’t read her blog much since 2019 when she decided that giving Chick Fil A free advertising was more important than respecting LGBTQ+ people, and it wasn’t clear from the post– what happened? Are they downsizing? Is she divorced? Widowed (if it’s widowed I’m going to feel guilty because that’s really sad no matter what your politics)? I know it’s none of my business, but also… curious. Whatever it is, unless it’s just downsizing/traveling because the kids are grown, it’s a good reminder that having a career of your own can be important even if your spouse makes enough to support the family.
Activisms:
- Wrote 10 postcards to voters for Columbia County, FL
- Donated $25 to We Need Diverse Books
- Donated $25 to Brooklyn Public Library to help teens across the country get ebooks and audiobooks
- Donated $25 to Donors Choose to support diverse books in a state where diversity is under attack.
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
April 30, 2022 at 4:24 am
The Frugal Girl: “with the support of a counselor and pastor, I left my house in mid-January, and the girls and I moved in with my parents”
April 30, 2022 at 7:08 am
FG is getting divorced. Just another example of perfect being fake.
April 30, 2022 at 7:17 am
I don’t think that’s the lesson I would take from it. I don’t think divorce is necessarily a bad thing… people do grow apart. And divorce can help people become more what they want to be.
And, to be honest, the ultra-religious homeschooling thing has never ever been anything I remotely desired. I like control of my own destiny far too much. There’s no perfection in that, at least in my mind.
For example, needing a pastor’s permission to leave a relationship that isn’t working is a little terrifying to me. There are pastors who would say no so long as the beatings aren’t life threatening! Or even if they are!! The patriarchy is a terrifying structure.
April 30, 2022 at 7:20 am
(Also, perfect people support LGBTQ+ people!)
May 1, 2022 at 5:46 pm
You make excellent point. :-)
April 30, 2022 at 7:49 am
Follow up question: didn’t she have a son too in addition to the daughters? What happened to him?
May 2, 2022 at 1:45 pm
I don’t know FG’s blog, but did go look at it. Her FAQs make her sound seriously born-again, so the pastor thing isn’t that much of a surprise.
As for the son– maybe he’s out of the house? I found the separation/divorce post, and she talks about it being a near-25-year marriage. It’s within the realm of possibility that her son is an adult and on his own. What I’m assuming is a photo of her with her daughters in that same post looks a lot like the 3 kids in the photo are all teenagers or close to it.
One of the great drawbacks of being a curious person reading blogs is that so many people are decently and properly reticent. I mean, yes, you shouldn’t dis your soon-to-be-ex and the other parent of your children and reveal all the family stuff and whatnot. But if I followed her and had been reading her for years, I would So Very want to know all of the details from her point of view. Guess it’s good that she’s not one I’ll start looking at with any frequency….
May 2, 2022 at 1:50 pm
I had initially thought he was just in college but then that didn’t seem to quite fit.
April 30, 2022 at 11:01 am
I haven’t read her in a long while but I remember he had some type of disagreement with his parents and they seemed to not be on apeaking terms a year or two ago.
April 30, 2022 at 2:48 pm
Huh.
April 30, 2022 at 12:45 pm
I’m totally unfamiliar with The Frugal Girl beyond what you’ve written here, but the fact that you would feel bad if she had been widowed but not if she had been divorced jumped out at me. Divorce, and the preceding bad marriage, is a horrifically painful experience for many people. I’m going through a divorce now and wouldn’t wish it on anybody (except maybe my soon-to-be ex?). Not the least of the problems with it is that there’s not enough societal recognition of how awful it is. The poster and one of the commenters seem gratified that this person’s divorce proves some kind of a point. Chances are, it took a lot of courage for her to leave. I also don’t see, from the quote that a commenter provided, where it says that she needed permission from her pastor to leave. Maybe she got support that she needed from the pastor? Maybe she’s human and needed to lean on someone? Anyway, I agree that divorce can be the best thing, and I’m guessing it was in this case. Like I said, I’m not familiar with this person; perhaps she is truly so odious that nobody can spare her any sympathy in what is probably the worst time in her life. Also, divorce can make you re-evaluate everything, and you never know what kind of person she might become or what direction she might end up going in.
April 30, 2022 at 12:57 pm
I would be devastated if my husband died. If we divorced we would both still be alive. Divorce can lead to growth. It is not a death sentence. Change is not always bad.
I am sorry that your divorce is painful to go through, but if the frugal girl is getting a divorce it is because the marriage was the problem and divorce is the solution. It is instead something to be cheered. The marriage can be mourned, but not the divorce.
In middle age as Gen X we have known so many divorcées. The divorce itself is hard, especially when there’s economic inequality, but the aftermath has always been better.
She’s a seemingly nice white lady except she’s also a homophobe (though the kind who says “both sides have merit”) who didn’t know that posting blackface photos of her daughter was unacceptable. Whether or not she’s a good person I can be sad about widowing and optimistic about divorce.
April 30, 2022 at 1:30 pm
Obviously we don’t know what’s going an in her marriage, but she wrote about needing to outfit her new place with everything. Just be a touchy situation If you can’t even get a couple pots and plates from your e x. So that’s pretty sad.
April 30, 2022 at 1:36 pm
A good reminder not to be completely reliant on a man for economic security.
April 30, 2022 at 2:12 pm
Again, it would be unseemly to make these smug and judgmental comments about someone who had been widowed (since we’re making comparisons). How do we even know that she doesn’t just want to get new stuff to start fresh and get away from things that remind her of her husband? We get it, everybody on THIS website has lived life the right way from the beginning.
April 30, 2022 at 2:20 pm
Yes, I see you are upset with us and maybe should take a break from the blog. Nobody here (but maybe omdg) is saying you or the frugal girl should be ashamed of a divorce. Divorces happen and that is a good, not a bad thing!
Unless you are willfully hurting other people, you are living your life the right way. There is no wrong way to live (except, you know, being homophobic, racist, a TERF, and other things that deny people their humanity— divorce/marriage/etc isn’t even on the list). (Addendum: Torturing animals and stuff like strip-mining, also bad ways to live.)
May 1, 2022 at 5:51 pm
Oh goodness, I don’t think she should be ashamed of her divorce. I am so sorry I said anything. I never got the impression there were issues with her marriage, that’s all I meant. And Amy, I am so sorry you are getting divorced and feel sad. Truly. I hope things are better when you reach the other side of this difficult patch in life.
May 1, 2022 at 7:28 am
She’s Frugal Girl. I don’t think she would get new stuff unless she had absolutely had to.
May 1, 2022 at 8:28 pm
I thought that I used to read Frugal Girl’s blog, but I don’t remember it being so religious.
May 2, 2022 at 4:29 pm
There’s a blog with a similar name that I can’t remember that I would still read if it were on a blogroll, but it’s run by a woman who is a nurse and her kids are grown. And there’s another blog run by a 20-something with a similar but also different name who often leaves interesting comments places (One Frugal Girl?).
May 2, 2022 at 10:18 am
I hurrah for divorce because people who are *forced* (for any reason, religious, economic, whatever) to stay in marriages that don’t work for them isn’t a win for any party (except maybe the abuser when it’s that bad). It can absolutely be painful and feel horrific but I absolutely support divorce over the other options when a marriage is not healthy or not working for both parties.
Ditto N&M’s point about needing a pastor’s permission to leave a bad marriage. My friend trying to leave abusive marriages did NOT have the pastor’s approval and that crusted swamp mold actively advocated for the abusive husband throughout the entire painful ordeal. It made the divorce so much worse. The kids were even more traumatized by this but that didn’t matter to the pastor or the church.
Glad to hear about SB107, I’ll read more about it and contact the relevant people!
May 5, 2022 at 6:47 pm
Your link on plastic recycling inspired a new blog post from me: https://livingdeb.dreamwidth.org/519047.html Thanks!
May 5, 2022 at 7:13 pm
Nice! Very interesting—we are not as good as you are. Though I will say if you get gallon milk containers they’ve been doing a good job recycling those for 30 or 40 years now. I find it hard to believe, but they’re still being made into plastic boards just like when I was a kid.
Also proud to be one of your favorite blogs!
May 5, 2022 at 7:17 pm
You’d probably sound better than me if you listed all the things you do that I don’t!
Yep, milk and soda bottles can be recycled. Yay, plastic boards! But plenty of other people are providing those, so I’m good.
And thank you for writing so many thoughtful, interesting posts!
May 18, 2022 at 8:31 pm
[…] don’t understand why people act like divorce is a failure or bad. For example: a commenter or two here but they are just an example of what I see/hear a lot. Sure it doesn’t feel great if a […]
January 2, 2023 at 1:37 am
[…] This link love that asks why The Frugal Girl was signing a lease from April 2022 (This was not […]