I once knew an elderly woman who would gather up left over bread crumbs from the fish she baked and save them "just in case".

She was a small round woman whose salt and pepper hair was always pulled back into a tight bun.  Her flowery house dresses fell in voluminous folds, almost reaching the tops of her sensible black shoes.

Once I looked out my window and saw her clothes line strung with tea bags.  One clothespin per bag. She would dry them in the sun for a couple of hours because "A teabag is good for three dunkings".

I am going back thirty years in time.  I was in my early thirties and she was pushing ninety.

Her husband was a slight man with a roguish white mustache.  He always wore "summer white" and a panama hat.

With their frugal ways one would think they were on a shoe string budget but they were as wealthy as Scrooge McDuck.

Their summer home in the Berkshires was nestled in rolling fields and bordered with untouched, pristine woods.  Fifteen rooms had been lovingly restored with meticulous care.  Mr. Santos' library was all burnished wood, oriental carpets, leather chairs and large windows that framed the sweeping hills.  It was my favorite room in their house.

I lived in their "servant's quarters" across the street with my husband and two children.  Our quarters had four bedrooms, two baths, a field stone fireplace and beautiful views that were available in each room through wide windows.  A pond dotted the back field with silver in the winter and blue every other season.

In exchange for a ridiculously low rent (100.00 per month) my husband at the time and I would tend to the lawns and open the house in the spring.

Why am I thinking of them today?

Aluminum foil.

I am out.  I have a casserole to cover and I am out.  Aluminum foil is one of those things I hate to buy; absolutely hate to buy.

I'll bet Mrs. Santos never ran out of aluminum foil.  I bet she had only one box her entire life.

I am incorporating a more frugal life style and I am now, before any purchase, I going to ask myself "wwmsd?" (What would Mrs. Santos do?)