Ten Things I Am Doing Now To Save Money

With gas being $4.00 a gallon (or pretty close to it), here are some things that you can do around your house right now to save money.

Make Your Own Laundry Soap and Household Cleaners. You can Google all kinds of recipes for homemade cleaners and laundry soap. Not only does making this yourself save you a ton of money, they work as well, if not better, than store bought. You are also being environmentally conscious by making your own cleaners in two ways. One, most of these home recipes call for natural ingredients, such as vinegar, water, baking soda, etc. Two, you can use old milk jugs or repurpose another container to store them, instead of throwing it out, so you’re creating less garbage.

I followed a recipe featured at The Simple Dollar for making my laundry soap. I used Fels Naptha soap, which you can get at Woodman’s for 99¢ a bar. I also bought the washing soda and the borax at Woodman’s as well. You can either buy a 5 gallon bucket at the hardware store, or if you have access, you can get buckets free from restaurants. Just make sure you wash the pickle smell out. It took me a half an hour on a Saturday to cook up my bucket of slime. One batch will do 48 loads of laundry. After I did the math, it costs 3¢ per load to use the homebrew as opposed to 27¢ per load to use Tide (based up on the price of the 48 load bottle at the Neenah Wal-Mart).

I have had favorable results using homemade cleaners, too. A majority of the recipes that I use and found success with I found at this site.

Planning meals, cooking from scratch, doing cooking prep on the weekends, making extra, and freezing the leftovers. Planning a menu around what you have on hand and doing the work ahead of time will save you money because you are not tempted to eat out or order out for pizza. You are also saving money because you are not making extra trips to the store to buy convenience food or extra trips for ingredients you didn’t buy when you went grocery shopping.

I do work full time, and I fully understand coming home from work after a stressful day and not wanting to cook. I solve this by planning ahead. When I plan meals, I have in my plan extra leftovers that I can heat up and things to go with it that require minimal preparation. On weekends, I tend to make meals that are a bit more labor and time intensive, and what I also do is cook a little extra and freeze the extra into meal size portions for during the week.

I also do some of the prep work on the weekends. People buy the precut bags of lettuce as a convenience. All they have to do is open the bag, wash it, and put it in a bowl. Precut bags cost more than a regular head of lettuce. What I do is I will make up my own bagged lettuce on the weekends or on a day when I’m cutting up lettuce for something else. I have a vacuum sealer, which I put to work for this purpose. I cut up the lettuce and add other things to it if I wish, and vacuum seal it. Then, on a busy night, all I have to do is open up the bag I made up ahead of time and I have precut lettuce I didn’t spend a lot of money on.

Cooking from scratch isn’t as time-consuming as people may believe. It largely depends on what it is you are cooking and how you are cooking it. You can live the busy life and cook from scratch, but it all comes down to proper planning. Some people may hate on Rachael Ray, but she does show you that you can cook a homemade meal in about a half an hour. You can search the Internet for all kinds of quick recipes, too.

Cooking from scratch is also healthier, as you control what you put into your food, as opposed to eating something that’s been processed 500,000 times and not made from nature.

Creating a Price Book to Keep Track of How Much Things Cost. I have had mine for six weeks now and I am already seeing a big difference in my grocery bill. A price book is a small binder that you create to keep track of the unit price of various items that you buy. You can use this to compare what something costs between two different stores. You can also use this to plan your shopping trips more efficiently and to see if that sale or that coupon is really a good deal. Over the past six weeks, I’ve come to discover that Woodman’s is cheaper on a lot more things that Wal-Mart is, and in some cases, the difference pays for the gas I use to drive up to Woodman’s to do my shopping . The difference in the price of coffee alone between the two more than pays for the gas I use to drive up to Appleton to get groceries. This, of course, is based upon the items that I buy on a regular basis. But my point is, when you start paying attention to unit prices and package sizes, you are in for an eye opener.

Making efficient use of your time and gas when shopping. Make as few trips as possible and bring a list with you. Plan where you are going to go ahead of time, so you’re not making unnecessary trips. Use the price book mentioned above to plan your trips so you use your time efficiently. Stick to your shopping list.

Shop for things at Goodwill, St. Vinnie’s, or other second hand stores. Thanks to America’s insatiable need for the newest, most expensive, and the best of everything, you can find some pretty decent clothes and other items in second hand stores these days. However, this tip requires that you get over the notion that second hand stores are for the poor and that such places are beneath you. I found a sweater set that I can wear to work at Goodwill for $4.00. The sweater set was silk and sold originally in a mail order catalog for over $50. When I wore it to work, I got compliments on it and nobody new the difference. Nobody will know that you bought an outfit second hand, unless you point that fact out to them. And if they have a problem with it, they’re the one with the problem. You’re the one who got a nice looking outfit at a steal. If paying through the nose department store prices somehow makes you better as a person, I’d rather be less of a person, but at least I still have money in my wallet.

One caveat with second hand stores is that you have to look over the item carefully for the condition. Some people have no qualms about donating items to Goodwill that are in horrible condition or have stains on them. As far as underwear goes, buy those new. I don’t care how often they washed it, used underwear is gross. If you’re buying non clothing items, make sure that what you are buying works before you walk out the door. Some places sell items “as is”. If you buy furniture at a second hand store, make sure you check the condition, and if it needs work make sure it’s something that you think you will do.

Pack Your Lunch, Bring Your Own Drinks, and Snacks to Work. This includes your morning coffee. I have nothing against buying a $4 cup of coffee from a coffee shop, as long as it’s a once in awhile indulgence and not a daily habit. If you buy the $4 cup of coffee every day, Monday through Friday, you’ve spent $20 on coffee for the week. It’s much cheaper to make it yourself. The same goes for vending machine food and sodas. I bring my own snacks to work, but once in awhile, I’ll get a candy bar from the vending machine. The point is, I don’t do this every day, just once in awhile.

Stop Buying Bottled Water. Unless you have some seriously funky tap water that makes the toughest of filters run away in fear, bottled water is kind of unnecessary. I used to buy bottled water until I found a faucet filter that got rid of the Lake Winnebago taste. Not being from the Valley originally, I had a very difficult time getting used to the Lake Winnebago bouquet that appeared in my tap water. The filter has already paid for itself since I quit buying the bottled stuff (and I bought the cheap stuff, too). The only reason to buy your water is if your tap water is borderline not fit for drinking.

Buy bar soap instead of body wash. Bar soap is cheaper and it lasts longer.

Dry your razor blades after you use them to make them last longer. Radio Personality and Consumer Advocate Clark Howard does this and he catches a lot of guff for it. But I can vouch from my own personal experience that this really works. Of course, some of the guff was that he caught was for drying off the 17¢ Bic disposable razors.

Razors are not cheap. And razor blades are where guys have it worse than the girls do.

You could just use the 17¢ disposable razors, but not everyone can do that. If these razors work for you, then by all means, use them. I tried using the cheap, disposable razors myself, but I found that I ended up with some pretty angry looking razor burn when I was done shaving, and to me the money I saved using them was not worth the angry red razor burn on my legs. So I went back to the more expensive ones.

If you can’t use the cheap razors due to skin sensitivity issues, or you won’t because you’re just too attached to the brand you have, dry your razors off after you use them and don’t store them in the shower. I currently have the newest of the Venus razors, (the Embrace), which are also the most expensive ones. A 4 pack refill is around $14 at Wal-Mart. *gulp* This works out to around $3.50 per blade. I went through about one a week before I started drying them off. The blade currently on my razor has been on there for a month. I will keep the blade on the razor for as long as it works and doesn’t get dull.

Now, if I bought 1 four pack per month at $14, that works out to $168 a year on razor blades. Yikes! For arguments sake (since I don’t know yet how long I can make one blade last), I dry my razors off after I use them and I make that 4 pack last for an entire year. This means I’ve spend $14 a year on razors or 8 percent of what I used to spend. This is a savings of $154 a year on razor blades!!!!

Holy Crap!

Walk, Ride Bike, or Take the Bus When It’s Feasible. If you live close enough to work or the stores where you do your errands, walk or ride bike, if it’s feasible for you. You waste more gas on the short little trips to the store than you do taking longer trips. I live a few blocks away from a high school. I know of someone in my apartment building that used to drive their teenager the three blocks to school. And then they would go back and pick the kid up at the end of the school day. What an unbelievable waste of gas! For three blocks!

If your route to work is too busy and you don’t feel safe walking or riding bike, or you’re going grocery shopping and have a lot to carry home, then it’s not feasible to do this.

Walking and riding bike not only saves you gas, but it’s good exercise, too.

Frugal Experiment #1-Update

Here’s an update on my experiment to see how long I can make my razor last. I put the new blade on my razor on April 21, 2008. Today is May 4. It’s been 13 days. I’ve managed to make it last twice as long as I normally would use it.

5 Ways You’re Wasting Money, Not Saving It-Commentary

I found this blog post that gives five ways you may think you’re saving money, but you’re really not. I agree with these five points, but I do have some comments of my own about them, that I think are better made here (as I tend to get quite wordy). I also have included a sixth bonus point of my own that did not appear in the original article.

Frugal Experiment #1-Razor Blades

Welcome to my first experiment in frugality. This is where I test out those frugal concepts and post the results of my efforts. Please keep in mind that the results I do post are completely unscientific and that if you try the same experiment at home, you may end up getting different results. I am posting these so people will have the benefit of someone else’s practical experience and perhaps use that in your decision to try something.

My first frugal experiment involves razor blades, or more precisely, how long can a person make one last.

All This Can Be Yours…If The Price (Book) Is Right!

I have started keeping a price book. What is this? Basically, it’s a small, three ring binder where you keep track of what certain things cost at which store. The best way to gauge the price of something is by unit cost instead of the price tag on the shelf. A price book is also a good way to see if that buy one get one sale is really a good deal vs. what it costs normally or what it costs down the street. It’s also very helpful in comparing the cost of making something from scratch vs. buying convenience food.

Adventures in Frugality

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, times are tight for a lot of people economically. The price of gas has gone up. The price of food has gone up. Other than our paychecks, one may be hard pressed to find something that hasn’t gone up.

A few years ago, in my household, times were very, very tight. My husband had lost his job and we were living on my wages and his unemployment while he went back to school. We could barely afford to live in the place we were living, and eventually we ended up moving into a small place in a not so great neighborhood with cheap rent which included heat and water. Eventually, the Hubby graduated from FVTC, found a job, and we were slowly but surely getting back on our feet. We still live in this cheap little apartment with most of the utilities included in the rent (but the neighborhood has gotten much better), and because we decided to stay put, we were able to start putting some money away into savings. But lately, I’ve noticed that the money we live on is getting tighter and tighter, and I fear that we won’t be able to put money away in a savings account in hopes that some day, it will be put as a down payment on a house. When I realized this, the stubborn part of me said that not having money to put in a savings account is just not an option. And there has to be a way to be able to save and live within our means when the cost of everything is going up and our paychecks are not.