Miserly Things I Do

Photo credit.

Last week I had a big job to do: peel, core and slice 125 apples.  So naturally I called in the reinforcements and two of my mommy friends came over to to help.  As my friend J went to wash her hands at the kitchen sink, said something along the lines of "What's wrong with your hand soap?"  (Okay, she didn't say it like that at all, but that was sort of my interpretation. ;-)  I think it was more like, "Is this really your hand soap?" unsure if she was using the right thing.)

"I'm cheap, so I water down my hand soap."  I said, "about 1/4 hand soap and 3/4 water."  I especially like to do this in our bathroom where a certain 3-year-old soap waster often goes for independent hand (doll, dish, etc.) washing exercises.  (I used to do this with the foaming soap dispensers, but those break after awhile and don't like to buy them over and over.)

Okay.  I admit that was a little bit embarrassed.

This is not the first moment that I realized that I do a lot of miserly things that make most people scratch their heads, especially considering that I'm a mom of two children (not six) with a husband who has a well-paying job.  Let's blame it on the way I was raised, shall we?  I am the second of twelve children (yes, 12 - 6 girls, 6 boys - since you were going to ask ;-)), the daughter of a stay-at-home mom who was a stay-at-home mom when that meant we lived in a trailer.  Yes, it was that important to her.  And, yes, your children pick up on things like that and it shapes their own choices later in life.  As a mother of many, and a wife of one of the hardest working men I know to this day, my mom made it her personal mantra to stretch every dollar as far as possible.  She is still doing it to this day.  (My youngest sister is 7.)

I would say that I learned to water down my soap from my mom; however, I seem to recall that we always used bar soap in our house, so who knows.  I'm sure she must have done it at least once, because it just seems familiar.

At any rate, I have learned a bunch of "miserly" tricks from my mother and others over the years, and the soap thing has inspired me to compile a list of some of the money-saving things I do.  People who come into our house will note that we use a lot of natural/organic/etc products in our home, and one of the ways we have been able to pull this off through the years is that I employ these "stretch the dollar" tricks.  That is also how we paid for our trip to Disneyland last September.  (Just kidding.)  Okay, so the savings for each of these items will be very small, but when you add them up, it does make a significant difference over the course of a year.  Some of these items may be familiar to you if you have read my previous post that mentions some of the ways that you can cut the costs to make staying home to raise the kids work. 

And just for the record, you should know that while I am cunning at saving money in some areas, I know that I'm wasteful in other areas where others save (new gas guzzler vehicle, to be obvious).  I think it's safe to say we can all learn from each other and pick and choose what works for each of us. 

With no further ado, here are some miserly things I do around our house:

1.  Water down hand soap, especially if the kids have access to it. 

2.  Use as little shampoo as possible, and do not let small children pour their own.  For the record, I am still using the same little bottle of baby shampoo for our girls that we got back in December of 2009!  I bet I get a few more months out of it too - and, no, I did not water it down. ;-)

3.  Go grocery shopping once a week. When you run out of bread, cereal, milk, etc. earlier than planned, don't buy any more until next weeks' grocery trip.  If I ran to the store every time we ran out of something, I would nickel and dime our grocery budget to devastation.  Yes, at the end of your grocery shopping week, it is okay to run out of things and thus have to eat something else.  Limiting grocery shopping trips to once a week, also saves on gas.

4. If running low on gas and gas money, don't go anywhere unnecessary for a couple days.  In fact, if money is truly tight, you might consider cutting down on your daytime out-of-the-house activities as a general rule.  Many stay-at-home-moms get involved in so many play dates, church and social activities during the day, that they end up spending a good deal of money, unplanned, not to mention they are too tired to throw together a decent dinner at the end of such a day and thus are more likely to eat out regularly.  I'm not saying that in order to save money, stay-at-home moms should all be hermits.  But I am saying that they should act as smart, savvy, and resourceful as I know all moms are.  If you really want to meet up with a friend for lunch, consider taking turns having each other over for lunch instead. 

5. Learn to make things that your family loves to eat a lot of from scratch. Bread is one that I have been working on. Yogurt is next on my list of homemade ventures. (I'm scared but excited!)

6.  Consider cloth diapering your baby or toddler.  This is one in particular that quite honestly intimidates people.  Our story is that when our oldest child was about 6 months old, I got really sick and tired of trying to figure out how we were going to cough up diaper money time after time.  So I researched and learned everything I could about different cloth diapering systems (pros and cons of each), laundering considerations, the gross-ness factor, and cost.  Needless to say I was sold, and since then we have lined our pockets with $2100 (conservatively) that we would have otherwise, in a very literal sense, thrown away.  That's about $14 per week or about $60 per month.  Yikes.  I do respect that some people just aren't willing to deal with cloth diapers, and that is completely fine, but I sure don't want to hear those people complain to me about the cost as if there isn't anything that can be done about it.  So if you have determined that cloth is not for you, no complaining. ;-)  I digress...

7.  Don't go the doctor for a head cold.  Just saying...

8.  Don't use disposable things such as paper towels. Use dish towels and wash cloths for all your cleaning needs in the kitchen.  Right now I happen to have a roll of paper towels in my pantry b/c it was given to me in a road trip care package (:-)), but paper towels are one of the things that I don't normally buy.  Again, to me it is throwing away money slowly but surely.

9.  If you only wear something for two hours, and you didn't get any food, baby messes, etc. on it, hang it back up in your closet to wear again later.   I do this a lot if I change clothes for an evening activity or something.  Fewer loads of laundry.

10.  Use less meat than the recipe calls for.  For casseroles and stews, sometimes I use as little as 1/2 of the meat, and it's just as tasty to us - my husband doesn't even comment on it. (Shhh.)

There are also many things that I'm aware of that I don't do.  For example, a friend growing up had a rule in their house that you could only use two toilet paper squares.  We don't do that, but I see the value in such a rule when you have kids using wads and wads of the stuff many times a day. 

At any rate, you can see how these things can slowly and surely add up to a trip to Disneyland bit more money in your pocket, making it well worth a little extra effort.

Do you have any silly or embarrassing miserly habits that help you tighten up the reins at your house?  I'd love to hear them.