If you haven’t heard of American Girl dolls, then you probably don’t know a female who is 25 years or younger.

These 18-inch dolls, introduced in 1986, are based on fictional young girls who lived during important eras in American history. They are quite popular among the 8 to 12 age group – and often the girls’ mothers and grandmothers as well!

In frugal living circles, there’s the occasional A.G. bashing in terms of “those dolls are too expensive!” Well, frugality doesn’t mean you give up all hopes of having nice or expensive things. Frugality means if you really want something, you figure out the best way to acquire it.

My daughter was given her first A.G. doll (Samantha) as a Christmas gift when we were convinced she was mature enough to take good care of an heirloom doll, but young enough to still enjoy dolls. She then saved up her money for a second A.G. doll (Josefina).

Then for a couple of years at Christmas and birthday time, I bought my daughter some really great one-of-a kind doll outfits at the Monroe-area craft shows. While the local crafter outfits cost about the same as fashions that we could buy from the catalog, they were well made, original and beautiful.

Kit Kittredge is another of the characters in the series. Her story is set in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the Great Depression. The Kit doll and story books have been on the market since 2000, and her feature film will be released this summer. (National release scheduled for July 2.)

While the timing has to be a coincidence (the movie was in production last summer), Kit is the A.G. character whose story is most likely to resonate with what American families are dealing with right now: job loss, figuring out cheaper ways to get groceries in the house, living off your savings, and the threat of foreclosure.

For those of you who want a frugal introduction to Kit’s story series, you can find the books at Monroe County Library System (Meet Kit, an American Girl and the American Girls collection.)

If you’d like to make doll clothes, you might already have enough fabric in a scrap collection to make a dress or outfit. Watch the Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store fliers for announcements of pattern sales or use the coupons that are mailed to customers. For example, here are some of the doll outfit designs from the Simplicity collection.

And if you think you’d like a doll for yourself or a little girl in the family but want a frugal way to get one, consider looking it up on eBay and other second-hand markets before the movie is released and Kit gets a lot of new fans.