MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE CHEAP

I think I told you before that the St. Sebastian rectory is pretty nice.  It won't make it into any Home Decorating books but for a bachelor guy it is pretty sweet.  It was also done for next to nothing.  Flee markets, consignment shops, I'm not even below trash picking (some of the best stuff!) in order to make the rectory a home.  

Frugality does not happen in a vacuum.  It must be learned.  My mentor was Fr. Burch (for short.)  Thee are two sides to frugality.  It isn't always about paying the least amount of money possible.  That sometimes leads to problems and bigger costs down the road.  So he taught me one of my favorite pieces of administrative advice:

But other times it is just really great to pay the least amount possible and have exactly what you want.  There is a true sense of accomplishment; saving money, living better, saving the environment!

I remember one Christmas Fr. Burch made one of the finest post-Christmas finds of his bargain searching self:

If you've purchased Christmas cards near Christmas, you know that they can be VERY expensive.  And Fr. Burch sent out HUNDREDS of cards every year which hurts the frugal minded heart.  But man, did find a bargain!  Entire packages of beautiful, religiously themed Christmas cards for only 25 cents a box!  This was the ultimate in finds!  As long as you have storage space, there is no point in NOT buying as many as you can get your hands on!  So he bought THOUSANDS of cards!  He was set for years!  It was the perfect frugal find that could only be ruined if there was a flood in the basement, they cancelled Christmas, or, in a year when he finally got around to opening them he discovered that . . .