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People all over the globe are struggling right now to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. We’re losing jobs, paying higher expenses, dealing with governmental idiocy, and getting slapped with medical bills that we won’t make enough money to pay for in this lifetime.
For some folks, tips like the ones that follow would not be helpful because their situations have become so dire. (If you are in that situation, go here.) For the rest of us, though, there are many places that we can cut the budget in order to survive in the new economic paradigm. As the iconic Amy Dacyzyn of the Tightwad Gazette famously said, “Thrift is a viable alternative lifestyle.”
You may not want to make changes. You may not want to sacrifice your little luxuries. You may feel like you “deserve” them or that you have “earned” them.
First, please get out of your mind the phrase, “I work hard and deserve this chocolate thingamabob while someone paints my toenails for me” or any combination thereof.
You may work hard, but rationalizing poor spending habits is a surefire way to remain broke forever. Now, please don’t misunderstand – you don’t have to be miserably unhappy, grimly plodding through a life bereft of any pleasures. You just have to change your perspective, and that can take a little tough love.
Even small savings matter
Making some small changes in your day-to-day habits can actually add up to huge savings. And before you say, “Oh, that’s only $2, it doesn’t matter” think about this.
Two dollars, saved on a daily basis over the course of a year, is $730.
If you save $2 on 4 different things, that total is $2920.
Sure, if you’re a multimillionaire homeowner with a paid-off house, yacht, and car, those numbers are small potatoes. But for most of us, a savings of $2920 makes an awfully big difference.
Frugal living tips for any budget
So, look over these small savings and see which of these expenditures you can cut. You can often figure out a way to still have your small luxuries while saving money.
- Drink water. Even if you purchase it in 5-gallon jugs with the hot/cold dispenser, it’s still the best deal around, with the added bonus of being good for your health. Skip the soda pop, juices and sports drinks. Also, skip the individual bottles of water because those can be just as pricey as buying a soda. Coffee and tea that you make at home are also very inexpensive.
- Join a Farm Co-op. You can get baskets of produce for more than half the year at a fraction of the price. (Find some local farms here.)
- Stop buying coffee in the drive-thru on your way to work every day. You can save anywhere from $300-1300, depending on whether you are a Tim Hortons/Dunkin Donuts/Starbucks person. If you absolutely adore your coffee, make it at home and put it in a nice to-go mug for your commute. You can give yourself a Starbucks feeling with this. And these recipes for 25 different creamers will help you to get the fancy flavors without the fancy money.
- Brown bag it. Bring a healthy lunch from home instead of spending $5 or more each workday on your lunch. The peer pressure to go out with friends from the office can make this difficult, but stand firm. If there are 260 workdays in a year, and you save a minimum of $5 on each one of those workdays, at the end of the year, you’ve tallied up $1300!!! (and these days, a $5 lunch is tough to find – you’ll most likely be spending closer to $10, which means your savings is closer to $2600.)
- Skip the meat – consider 2 meatless meals per week, or at the very least make meat a condiment instead of a main dish.
- Cancel cable or satellite. Yes, the kids will complain. Yes, it will suck at first. Then you’ll learn to do other things and it won’t bother you at all. If you still want to watch television and movies, get an Amazon Prime or Netflix membership for viewing and pay less than $10 per month. (Prime also offers a music service, a photo service, and a Kindle Lending Library service, making it a better investment.)
- Lower your thermostat. The Consumer Energy Center says that for every degree you lower your heat under 70 degrees F, you can save up to 5% off your bill. Look into other ways to stay warm.
- Don’t use credit cards. If you must, because of an expense account, be sure to pay it off in full before the interest can kick in.
- Check your insurance rates. Shop around for car and home insurance to be sure you are getting the best price. This can be a recurrent savings of up to hundreds of dollars.
- Grow some of your own food. You don’t need a farm to grow some of your own veggies and herbs. You can also consider sprouting for fresh off-season greens at a fraction of the price of grocery store sprouts or produce. (I’ve had much better luck with the sprouting kits than with makeshift sprouters I’ve created – for me it was $20 well-spent)
- Find the best phone plan. For some it may be Skype, for others it may be a cell phone instead of a landline and for still others, especially those who make a lot of long-distance calls, it may be a VOIP service with unlimited national calling.
- Take shorter showers – this can save you up to $100 per year, depending on your water rates and your cost to heat the water.
- Make homemade pizza instead of ordering delivery. At the very least, go pick the pizza up to save yourself delivery charges and tip. In our house, Friday night pizza-making is a beloved family tradition.
- Set up a clothesline. Hanging your clothes to dry instead of using an electric dryer can save over $300 per year. You can set up a clothesline outside, or, if you live somewhere dusty like me, get a foldable drying rack, or devise something in your laundry room for drying clothing.
- Wash in cold water. Washing your clothes in cold water can save $50 per year – plus your clothes will last longer.
- Don’t throw away your leftovers. You can collect small amounts of left overs and combine them into something totally new. We often keep a container in the freezer for leftover veggies. Later we add them to soups or pot pies. Sometimes we have enough miscellaneous leftovers to create an entirely new meal, which is like free food! Another option is what my kids call “leftover buffet” – all the leftovers go out on the counter and the kids can pick and choose their items – the ovenproof dish gets heated up and voila – TV dinner is served! If you have a few servings of dinner left over, put them in single serving containers so that you can grab them for lunches throughout the week.
- Eat at home. If you cut meals out to one a month, you can save up to $3000 per year for a family of four. As well, when it is a rare occurrence, it’s much more of a treat.
- Shop secondhand. Hit up thrift stores, Craigslist, Ebay, and yard sales before purchasing items new. Seek and ye shall very often find what you need for a fraction of the price. Also check out “Freecycle” – a website dedicated to unloading unwanted things at no charge.
- Stay healthy. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but by taking precautions like washing your hands and avoiding sick people you can reduce your risk of becoming ill. Also, good nutrition, vitamins, exercise and sunshine all help to boost your immune system. Being sick results in lost wages, money spent on trips to the doctor, and expensive medications.
- Prep your food ahead of time. Nothing says “drive thru” like a gnawing hunger pain in your stomach on your way home from work. Spend time on the weekend prepping your food for the week ahead so that you are able to have dinner on the table in less time than it takes to wait in line at a fast food restaurant.
- Skip the gym and take your workout outside. Walk, run, bike, or hike and save those monthly fees.
- Quit smoking. Need I say more?
- DIY your hair color. At the very least, touch up your roots at home.
- Speaking of hair – consider simplifying. Try to stretch the time between haircuts, learn to trim your hair yourself, forgo the fancy highlights and procedures, and cut back on the products. I realize not everyone is as enthusiastic about the ponytail as I am but see where you can simplify.
- Ditch the fake nails. I used to have a friend that insisted it was necessary for her job to have perfectly manicured fingers. No. If you are not a professional hand model, it’s not. Either learn to do it yourself or simplify to short neat fingernails buffed to a shine. I sincerely doubt any person ever lost a job for not having artificial nails.
- Clip coupons. Coupons can often net you big savings, but not always. Be sure to compare with the price of the less expensive store brands – sometimes coupons aren’t that great of a deal. As well, another risk with coupons is that you’ll buy something you wouldn’t normally purchase. Make sure the item is something that would be on your list anyway.
- DIY cleaning products. Skip the fancy cleaning supplies and use household items like white vinegar and baking soda to keep your house spotless.
- Repair instead of replace. In our disposable society, most people say “Oh, it’s only $3 – I’ll get a new one.” Repairing items isn’t just a way to save money – it’s a great way to improve your skills. Learn skills like mending, darning, welding, simple electrical and mechanical repairs and minor carpentry and keep these items on hand for simple repairs.
- Skip the doggie beauty salon. Learn to groom your dog at home. For the price of one trip to the groomer, you can purchase quality nail clippers and a good brush. Use human shampoo and brush your pet frequently to reduce matting. If your dog requires trimming on a regular basis, consider getting professional quality clippers and learning to give her a cut, or at the very least, stretching out the visits with a bit more time in between.
- Stay home. When you stay home, you aren’t spending money on gas, drinks, food and shopping. If you are the type of person that needs the social aspect of going out, take your own water bottle and picnic lunch, and focus on free activities like going to the dog park, the museum on free-admission days, and the splash pad with the kids.
If you used every one of these tips, you would save, literally, thousands of dollars per year. And they’re all small things, a dollar here, a quarter there. But I’m sure you can see how they add up.
You can use one of these suggestions or all of them. Be creative and come up with your own ways to save that work well with your life.
Do you have any easy frugal living tips?
For you hardcore frugalites, what are some cuts that you have made in order to meet your goals? Please share your ideas in the comments below, and remember to be encouraging to people who are just starting out on their journey to a thriftier lifestyle.
Recommended Reading
Here are some books to help you with your frugal journey.
- The Ultimate Guide to Frugal Living – by moi 🙂
- The Complete Tightwad Gazette
– This book is my all-time favorite. I can’t recommend it enough! - Prepper’s Pantry: Build a Nutritious Stockpile to Survive Disasters – also me
– This book is my all-time favorite. I can’t recommend it enough!
31 thoughts on “30 Frugal Living Tips: Tiny Changes That’ll Get You BIG Savings”
One of the things I do is save spare change. Nickels, dimes, and quarters are all saved and rolled. Since we don’t shop often, it adds up slowly, but it does add up, and it’s painless – I have yet to raid my rolled change. At some point I hope to have enough to make a significant purchase (I’ll exchange the coin for paper cash at the bank to spend it) or make a deposit.
Depending on where one lives, there are also “No buy” groups one can join. One posts anything they no longer want, and if someone wants it they arrange to pick it up. This is also a good way to remove things cluttering up one’s home, in addition to acquiring something needed.
I would second the “No Buy” groups. Our family has been using one for a year now and we have been able to gift a lot of items as well as get a few we needed.
The only thing I would add for credit cards (if you are able) is to use one that collects points and then pay it off at the end of each month. We have done this with an airline credit card and it has enabled us to travel more frequently for effectively no additional cost.
Great list! I switched to family cloths for liquids, which has significantly cut down on my toilet paper use; not only does this save me a lot of money, but these days sometimes toilet paper is hard to find. I use e-cloth microfibre cloths for cleaning, so now the only cleaners I buy are toilet bowl cleaner, dishwashing liquid, bleach, and laundry detergent. Instead of using shampoo, I have switched to washing my hair with baking soda, followed by an apple cider vinegar rinse. Instead of shaving your legs, etc., use an epilator (and for those who shave with razors, there are ways to make the razors last a very long time). I also have a heated mattress pad, which means I don’t need to turn on the baseboard heaters unless it’s significantly below freezing outside (for those living in poorly-insulated homes, I’d also suggest getting a heated throw or blanket for daytime hours when you’re sitting on the sofa or at your desk).
Best wishes to you and yours in 2021! Thanks again for all your valuable help, it’s much appreciated!
I do most here, on my to do list is to get cheaper car insurance this year. One thing I’ve done is Ive gone from $170 per month on electricity to $77 just by turning everything off at the wall and pulling out the plugs. (Except the ones behind furniture) I did it as an experiment to see how much power drain the standby power was. I was so shocked. It’s also made me more aware of the power we use.
The extra money helped pay off the credit card and now goes into savings one month and pantry the next month.
I have also discovered savings from stopping phantom power drain! We have a surge protector strip that turns off all accessory items when the main item is turned off – so, when the TV goes off, everything else in the same strip does too. I also stopped letting my computer ‘sleep’ – I power it down. Unplug microwave and other things with constant digital displays.
PS One last tip: Skip breakfast and snacks, and just eat lunch and dinner. Not only will you save money, but you’ll lose weight. (In fact, I also fast one or two days a week. Dr Jason Fung’s videos and books are a great source of information. I have type 2 diabetes, and Intermittent fasting and keto have helped me keep my blood sugar levels in normal range without having to take medication.)
PPS Switch to LED bulbs! That will save you hundreds of dollars every year in electricity bills. Costco and Ikea are good sources for inexpensive bulbs, so this a quick, cheap, and easy way to save money.
Thanks Claudia, hope you see this. We started doing this just as bulbs needed replacing and a surprising side benefit is that there is much less fire danger with LEDs than standard lightbulbs.
In addition to using less electricity they last longer. The average LED bulb lasts 15,000 hours, as opposed to an incandescent bulb that lasts 750 to 1000 hours and uses six times as much electricity for the same luminal output.
The bulb costs less than two dollars, uses less than $9 worth of electricity in its lifetime, and lasts for two years if left on. An incandescent bulb costs about a dollar now, lasts a month and a half if left on and uses $4 worth of electricity. You replace the equivalent of fifteen bulbs and burn $51 MORE electricity.
So you either have an eleven dollar investment that lasts 15,000 hours, or you have a seventy-five dollar investment with incandescents.
Trimming my own hair isn’t that difficult and it saves me $25 plus the time to go over there. And yes, little things add up to serious savings. With the cost of everything going up and some things a bit harder to find, I’m happily in Waste Nothing mode. My grandparents made it through the Depression by being adaptable and frugal. I think I’ll try their method.
Some grocery stores mark down their meat as the packet gets closer to the expiration date of sale. These mark down are usually found at the end cap of the freshmeat section. If i want a treat to some decent cuts of meat, i hit the grocery store between 7am -8am.
I have 2 small dogs and they consume what we produce. Meals for the dogs consist of bake potatoes, eggs and chicken meat. This is a big help on the budget.
Don’t forget to cancel those ‘free’ trials before you get charged! Also, don’t forget about ‘auto renewals’ on products and subscriptions. Do you really need or use that product or service?
I shop at the Dollar Tree for trash bags, aluminum foil, drain cleaner, dish soap, washing powder,dry goods storage containers,pet bowls,etc
Sadly buying veggies locally cost much more. That said buying meats directly from the farmer by the side saves a ton of money. You get a variety of cuts for about he cost per pound of ground beef… as long as you can store it and are willing to eat what you get(might get small amounts of high end cuts or cuts you like less). Bonus you can reduce trips to the grocery store thus saving impulse buying(as I have a large family and we always need or could use something).
Shopping every other week for groceries and trying to stick to that saves a ton on money. I found monthly didn’t work for us as it was too hard to budget out the food with kids eating the good stuff right away, and fresh foods mostly we can only make due for about two weeks…
Great list. My one caution would be about using human shampoo on dogs – dog skin has a different pH than human skin and using shampoos not formulated for them can potentially cause skin dryness and irritation. This can lead to infections, especially since a dog’s less acidic skin makes it a more hospitable place for bacteria. A single visit to the vet and prescriptions for oral and topical antibiotics can more than wipe out any savings from not buying your dog his own shampoo bottle. I had to learn this the hard way.
i once read that washing your underwear in cold water leaves the e.coli, etc on them because it is heat/sunlight that kills the germs. adding bleach should do it, but some people can’t use bleach and so when you hang them to dry, it must be outside and in the full sun.
Sell stuff….. my husband sold the house we moved out of 5 years ago…. there was an attic, basement, and barns full of STUFF. We suddenly had to get rid of this STUFF that we had procastinated about. We began by making weekly trips to the recycle center with various collections of metal that had been stashed away. All toll we hauled 15,000 lbs to be recycled. $$$ in our pocket. Had a yard sale and then started selling stuff on line…. do you know what people will buy? Every time I told him nobody will buy that he would come in the house with cash in hand. In our state you pay a deposit on cans and bottles that contain beverages. Many people don’t bother to cash these in. On a short walk along our road we can pick up 8-10 cans that translates into 50 cents …. multiply that by 52 weeks a year …$26 of free money. When it comes to groceries we buy 80% of our food at Aldi. Being children of Depression era parents many of the things on your list we already do….. now we are trying to teach the next generation down these lessons.
Controlling your expenses as efficiently as possible is part of a much larger challenge. In an economy where government has long established a system where counterfeiting of the currency funds the forever warfare/welfare state (a crime that once called for the death penalty in the US 1794 Coinage Act), it is not taught in government’s “public” schools that such counterfeiting is purposely structured to steal purchasing power away from savers IN ADDITION to the purchasing power taken via published tax rates.
The significance of that means that as the value of the money that you save in a bank or at home in a piggy bank diminishes faster than any interest you might be receiving on it, part of your frugality challenge is to minimize (or even make up for) that loss of value by some combination of
1) investing available funds in places where the return is more than enough to cover your annual inflation (counterfeiting) loss of value and to more than cover any IRS taxation of that gain to fight inflation.
and
2) increasing your personal earning power in one or more ways whether as a self-employed entrepreneur or employee and/or an investor in other people’s earning projects.
Part of the challenge is to balance the time you put into such earnings efforts against the time it takes you to save on expenses by doing things like spending the time (for example) and possibly money for tools to learn to repair things personally. Everyone’s tradeoffs of where to spend personal time and effort versus hiring out such efforts, or replacing such items versus doing without will be unique and self-chosen.
The point is that being frugal is simply one aspect of your personal financial management (including your limited available time) that must be balanced against your present and future earnings capabilities as well as your investing skills in this era of government’s annual fractional stealing of the purchasing power of the money you can save — beyond the cash you have to spend for ongoing expenses, shelter, transportation and an emergency reserve.
That’s an easy lesson to teach in a homeschooling environment but one you’ll never find in a government-approved public school book.
–Lewis
I capture rainwater and shower water/washing water to flush the toilet. At 2 gallons a flush, it saves me money and the planet. I know It seems extreme but that is where my family is right now. We are at the extreme stage. We also don’t flush every time. If I shower or wash clothes, I plug the drain so I dont lose the grey water to the sewer before it can be used again. Our above ground swimming pool is our totally “grey man” and legal rain catchment system. 2 gallons a flush, over a long period, adds up.
I’ve quit buying new items unless absolutely necessary, and then usually store brands. I shop garage sales, thrift stores, and other “used” or “salvage” outlets; if I can’t get it used, then I go to outlets, dollar stores or big box discount stores and the most inexpensive grocery stores in town. I never pay for entertainment, other than to buy old DVDs or VHS tapes for 49 cents at Salvation Army. I kept the old VHS player, and am glad I did! A friend gave me big boxes of all her old VHS movies for free, most of which we hadn’t seen before or are old favorites. We use indoor antennas for over the air stations. The library will let you check out DVDs for free, just like books. Living in the country, we’re not required to pay for garbage pickup, so we compost and recycle everything we can, use a trash compactor for the rest, then take the compacted bags to a friend’s trashcan in the city. When we have to trim trees, we save the wood for the fire place next year. I brown bag not only lunches but coffee, snacks and soda (use the plastic individual bottles as a thermos, and fill it from 2L bottles.) The one “frugal” thing I usually don’t do is use coupons to buy groceries bc store brands are much cheaper and often produced and packaged by the same place as the name brand products. Generic Rx and OTC drugs unless my doctor specifies otherwise. Planned Parenthood for annual “female” exams is cheaper than the OB-GYN; my friend went there and they found her cancer in the very early stages, and probably saved her life!
I am trying to be more frugal at the moment, especially as we don’t know where money is going to come from at the moment so I am going to have to save this post for all the tips!
My parents to were adults during the depression. I learned canning and sun drying, sewing and pattern making, car mIntainance, and more from them. It was make do or do without much of the time. My social life is twice a week plus other church activities and a few pot luck dinners each year. I get food from a community food bank twice a month and buy what little more I may need. I can any excess. I don’t use a microwave or even a fridge. I heat with scrap wood or gravity fed pellets. I do have a well used pickup truck. I produce so little trash I haul it off an average of 4 times a year. I raise rabbits and chickens, have 2 dogs, 4 ferrel cats with 3 kittens right now. I hope to get 2 milk goats and a buck one day. I have a good antenna so I pick up tv from many miles away. I have two wells. One on commercial power and one set up with a hand powered winch. I forage on my property where I’ve been planting wild edibles along with annually adding more fruit sources. It’s a simple life. Which a mal. social security only income supports quite well. Ofcourse with growing inflation i’ll be looking for more ways to save. But I’m doing fine. And unlike many other widows I’m not back at work at 75 either.
I think you should strike $5 for lunch and make it $7.50-$10.00.
Coupons are a crap shoot and have been for a few years. Mostly on pre-packaged/processed foods, make-up, and/or items used sparingly. AND the expiration dates are short but I guess there are people who make a trip to the store to save less than the cost of gas.
While you’ll not hear me complaining the better half uses paper towels (better than doing all the cleaning by myself), paper goods are an area where money *could* be saved. Factor in the cost of water and utilities if you have washer at home OR cost of gas and time if you don’t. Frugal use of a roll of paper towels might be the better option.
True. The drive-through burger, fries, and tea is about $7.50. I remember when that same “extra value meal” was $3.25. I allow myself one visit to Whataburger a month.
Here are some alternate perspectives worth considering:
re: #1 — There are some juices that have major health benefits. While they cost a bit more than just water, the potential savings in medical bills can be impressive. It’s worth your effort to research the naturopathic / holistic literature about this.
About 20 years ago when my local city water began to taste like lake water algae, I stumbled across a $15 deal on a thrift store water distiller with a broken fan blade — a cheap repair. That has saved me from having to buy store water ever since.
re: #6 — There is a free alternative to Amazon Prime’s Kindle lending service. You can always go to read.amazon.com and log in there for online access to any of your purchased Kindle ebooks.
re: #7 — Adjusting your indoor thermostat won’t cover any freezing risk to outside water faucets you might have. Look into a heating source (heating tape or a heating lamp inside some container you place over such faucets) to save you some ugly plumbing repair bills.
re: #8 — Credit cards have an unexpected advantage over debit cards. If your charge cards get hacked (such as by a skimmer some bad guy inserted into a gas pump), your changes of getting whatever money stolen via a debit card is about zilch. Not so with credit cards. The difference in savings (assuming you pay off your credit card(s) balance every month (to avoid the 15 to 20% or so interest) can be enormous.
In addition, I’m seeing more and more online sellers who accept credit cards only and simply refuse to accept debit cards. I’m seeing this especially for medical related products.
re: #11 — For some people, a much cheaper flip/feature/dumb phone and its service plan not only has cost benefits, but does not have the hacker security risks that smart phones often do. I’m sure the reason that Warren Buffett refuses to cary a smart phone is not because he can’t afford one.
re: #12 — An alternative to shorter showers is to learn how to take so-called sponge or bucket baths. Hospitals often use them for fall-risk patients but they are standard practice in many third world countries where clean water can be scarce. The method uses a lot less water and water conservation benefits for traveling, for camping, or for city water shortages from power outages, etc. In the 1930s Great Depression when time were really tough, it was very common to heat water on a kitchen stove for such purposes.
re: #15 — The “All” brand of clothes washing detergent that Walmart carries mentions in very tiny print that it also works with cold water. There are also DIY formulas for making your own. Recently I’ve bought some clothes that much to my surprise, I found inside the package a requirement that they be washed ONLY in cold water.
re: #21 — There is another way to build or maintain your physical strength without buying or renting expensive equipment. See the two different books on Amazon by Paul Wade with the phrase “convict conditioning” in their titles — in both paperback and Kindle versions. To look over those books for free, try the free inter-library loan process to see if a purchase makes sense for you.
re: #28 — While I firmly believe in “repair instead of replace” when that’s possible and practical, there are lots of products in recent years that have been made in China and have had the quality and repairability “Walmarted” out of them. Sometimes you may not be able to tell at time of purchase … but you find out the hard way when something breaks just a few weeks or months later. Then you get to find out if there are any higher quality products available instead.
re: A topic not yet mentioned. One of the leading causes of financial disaster (including bankruptcy) in the US are sky high medical bills. Hospitals are notorious for double billing, billing for services not rendered, etc, etc. The technical details are typically hidden in cryptic billing codes that are beyond most people’s ability to decipher. What people generally don’t know is that there are organizations that will either negotiate down such bills for you — or teach you how to do that yourself. It’s a wise idea to locate and research such organizations BEFORE you face such emergencies when you are in panic mode and pressed for a timely solution.
It’s also worth knowing what your state’s statute of limitations is for such bill collections. In cases where total payment is simply out of reach, bill collectors will often try to persuade you to make at least some partial payments — without disclosing to you that such payments completely restart the number of years on your state’s statute of limitations.
It’s also relevant that many other countries offer a “medical tourism” benefit of vastly lower medical costs from well trained medics, and often with proven remedies that have saved millions of lives but are heavily and politically suppressed in the US. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are such excellent examples. So keeping one’s passport current might save your life and your financials some day.
–Lewis
This tip won’t be applicable to everyone but I make my own fly spray for horses. The store made spray I used to buy is now more than $20 for a 32 ounce bottle. My recipes costs pennies and it is much safer for my horses.
1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
2 cups Water
1/2 cup Avon Skin so Soft
25 drops Lemongrass essential oil
25 drops Peppermint essential oil
20 drops Lavender essential oil
2 Tbsp Dr. Bonner’s Liquid Soap (optional)
Mix in a 32 ounce bottle.
Ok, so this may not be huge savings, but its something. For the 3M scotch-brite type kitchen pads, I purchase the large, 6 x 9 sheets in bulk and cut them to size. The green colored ones I found in a roll. That comes in handy as you can cut the length and use with a mop head that has a velcro type attachment.
Thanks for the tips..I make my own laundry soap, five gallons at less than three dollars, I wash my ziploc freezer bags, I reuse my heavy duty tinfoil, I’ve cut my car insurance down to 700 a year. My phone to less than 20 dollars a month, grind my own coffee. Air dry my clothes. Keep my hair cut short, spend less time in the shower with that alone, less shampoo. Less hot water. Never go out to eat, buy only what’s necessary. Watch my power consumption. I always fill my gas tank at 3/4s, make me think I’m saving money at least when I only put in 25$. Which might be once a week, drive less. Take public transport when I can. A few other things. But it’s working.
Get a library card – besides books, CDs, Movies most libraries offer on-line magazines and Hoopla, Kanopy which offer books, music, movies. Also check free movies/TV sites like Crackle. One of our sons has Netflix and put us on his, another son has Amazon and we’re on his.
We have a Roku box and an antenna – cost for both $125 and that was about 5 years ago. Another site for books, magazines, movies, etc is Internet Archives – the items are older but I’ve read many books that the library doesn’t carry because of age. Hours of free entertainment!
Some miscellaneous thoughts:
Yes, LED lights work a long time and use less power. The gotcha is that the internal semiconductors inside are vulnerable to an EMP event. So unless you keep some in a Faraday cage or bag as “insurance,” it’s still worthwhile to keep some incandescent lights handy even if their short term economics aren’t as good.
Yes, fixing things instead of junk-and-replace is a economical strategy proven during the 1930s Depression where the expression “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” fairly headlined those desperate times. Back then before Rural Electrification was introduced, lots of people had muscle powered tools to make or repair many things. Today with the trend towards battery and 120VAC-powered tools, there are fewer people with hand tools. In the event of a long term power outage the need for hand powered tools and other devices and the practice gained from using them will be apparent. We have a little experience with a long term power caused by nature in Puerto Rico. What we haven’t encountered yet is any mainland actual follow-up to the globalist simulation (called Cyber Polygon) of a major power outage such as they simulated in July of 2021.
There is a trend of selling products with built-in rechargeable batteries that are claimed to have a long lifetime but have a suspiciously short warranty period. I’ve recently had to junk three different such products that came with rechargeable but UNREPLACEABLE batteries that have died in only about a couple of years. No retailer wants to advertise that such products need to be junked when the battery dies instead of merely swapping out or merely having a fully charged battery(s) ready to go. All my flashlights do well via rechargeable and replaceable Nimh batteries (via wall power, USB power, or solar power).
I’m also on my 3rd flash drive based pocket audio recorder that was defective when first received. I learned the hard way to save the purchase paperwork with the invoice/order number in order to insist on either a working replacement product or a full refund.
Finally the globalist push to replace all existing money around the globe with central bank-controlled digital money will make near instant counterfeiting (to steal purchasing power beyond what published tax rates demand) possible. You can learn much about the privacy and wealth destroying implications by running searches on “cashless economy” topics. There are also the beginnings of some possible defenses against it showing up on YouTube. Those discussions are way too extensive to cover here — but there is a multiple millennia long history of governments debasing their money whenever physically possible. The ancient Romans simply debased their coins by using cheaper metals. If they had had the digital technology we have created in our generation they would have collapsed their empire a lot faster. The art of preserving one’s wealth during such government-sponsored thievery is well worth your time and effort to learn.
–Lewis
I work as a cook in a school. We have a weekly budget to spend on food and pantry staples so we have to be creative!
1- have a variety of spices and make up your own taco seasoning, Greek seasoning,etc.
2- use less expensive meats and cuts of meat to stretch for food budget.
3- Marinate your meats and bake in the oven.
4- change your menu/recipes around to eliminate food boredom.
5- Internet has a lot of videos of frugal food shopping and cooking to give you ideas.
6- limit sweets and sodas
7- shop the weekly grocery ads and build your menu from that. And look for BOGOF to help stretch your money.
8- portion control by using smaller dinner plates