Dear Editor,

Brinner is breakfast foods for dinner. Have you ever had to save funds to buy a new house? Did you need to save money on groceries for a period of time and figured what the frugal meal of all time was? Answer is breakfast. By far is the most inexpensive meal to purchase and prepare.

My family members discovered that if we cheapen ourselves with a meal, make it breakfast foods. Make sure that you are full and enjoy company at your house or a restaurant — just not at the right time for breakfast classically. We eat this meal after 6 p.m. and prior to midnight.

My daughter Janelle, who is now in college at Carleton College majoring in English, coined the phrase at our dinner table laughingly calling her mother cheap. I told her that I am frugal not cheap. We need things; just readjust your life just when you think it cannot be done for a short period of time and squeeze more money out of your thin budget.

I was telling my children the story of how live better. My cousin Danny had a girlfriend he enjoyed cooking for daily. He always had money and good jobs. I give the girls money.  He was making a twist on getting to a man’s heart through his stomach. He did not always take them out on the town. He made food as a college man and that was one of his ways to his girlfriends’ stomach.

I think that we should coin a new phrase for frugality and not down the quality of life.  Let’s do brinner!

Ethel M. Washington
Sheila’s Consulting