For Frugal Fridays, Crystal shared her 5 ways they saved $100 dollars last year. Here is our list, posted a little while back (more specific one frugality and being good stewards). It is a good refresher to review this list, and add to it this year.
Here it is in simplified form:
1. We choose to cloth diaper and we love it too!
2. We switched to CFL bulbs.
3. I hang my laundry to dry (it is possible, even in the Pacific Northwest!).
4. Paid bills and charity gifts online.
5. Limit trips out. We limited our errands to 1-2 a week to save gas money. Having one vehicle also helps with this!
6. We eliminated paper napkins and towels (cloth napkins are so elegant!)
7. I am in process of gradually fading out all store bought cleaners and body products and making my own.
What sort of rack do you use to dry your clothes?? I debate air drying, but am not sure how to go about it.
I use this simple rack from Amazon. I would recommend having two, if possible, depending on the size of your family. We just have one and it doesn’t really cut it. I also hang a clothes line in our hallway and in one of our bathrooms that is rarely used. Although I have come to realize over this past year while comparing electric bills that hanging your clothing really does not save very much money. It is better for the environment but not a significant savings for the time involved. I hang about one load a week now.
For jeans, which our family has quite a bit of, I bought some clasp hangers. The one that you flip the hook over and it opens the clasp. I take the jeans directly out of the dryer and smooth them out and hang them directly in each person’s closet. They air dry in there just fine. Usually by the end of the day they are dry.
I noticed you wrote CFL’s as a money saving method. We too were using CFL’s throughout our entire house. My husband started researching them and got really freaked out over the danger they pose as they contain mercury vapors. It is thought that they actually release vapors while in use. If broken, they pose serious risk to those around. And you have to dispose of them as a hazardous material. I fear what will happen when we start dumping these in our landfills. You may want to research this on your own. We got rid of ours as soon as possible and have chosen to be extra extra careful about leaving lights on.
My parents use cloth napkins and cloth dish towels, but they do keep one roll of paper towels on hand for draining bacon. Obviously, one roll lasts them a looong time.
I’ve been trying to switch to cloth napkins. You are right–they’re so much nicer. Recently, I found a bundled pile of cotton (not terry) dishtowels on the clearance rack at Target. There were maybe 5, in different colors. They were ridiculously HUGE. So I cut them in fours, hemmed the raw edges, and got about 20 nice napkins for practically free!
Great list! We have begun to switch out our light bulbs to CFL’s too. I have noticed a huge difference in a few small things that have really added up to great savings.
Blessings,
Vickie@PursuingSimplicity
I’ve always wondered how to make homemade cleansers and body products? I’ve always imagined it as this long, intensive process and searching for hard to find ingredients. How do you do it?
Jessica,
Making your own cleaning supplies and body products is actually quite simple (it blew me away!). Follow the links in my post above and you will find all the recipes I have made and am continuing to experiment with. I haven’t done it all, but we are in process. You can also follow the category link natural living on a budget to find all my posts on the topic of making my own recipes.
Hope that helps!
Lindsay
Of course I meant a paper grocery bag.
You could also drain bacon onto a piece of a brown grocery bag. Many people did this before there were paper towels.
Question tho. I work both inside and outside the home, and so does my husband. If one of you is already out, what’s wrong w/doing errands? How is it really saving money, since you are out? I don’t understand. I mean, aren’t most people out everyday for work? Across from my job is a plaza w/CVS, Dollar Tree, Wine and Spirits and a grocery store.
I dunno, maybe not everyone has everything near them.
I should clarify. Aaron & I both work from home, although my teaching is only 6 hours a week. We were in the habit of just making frequent quick runs to the store for this or that. For me it has been saving more of my time than anything, by scheduling all my errands for one day each week. It helps me to limit driving, really plan out what I need (in order not to buy on random), and save time. If you were already out at work that would be somewhat different. Hope that clarifies.
Oh ok!! That would make sense Lindsay!!
Thanks for clarifying.
We do a lot of the same thigns here.
As for the bacon, you can also drain it on some flour sack type dishtowels that you reserve for that purpose. It works great.
I usually don’t have to drain mine if I make a whole batch because I cook it in the oven on cookie sheets which works great.
Great ideas for saving! We have a daughter named Caris, too! (Our last name begins with a C ~ but translating from the Greek it should be a K)
Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Hello.
I am also trying to become more frugal and I have a question for you. For the most part I can see elimniating paper towels and napkins, but….how do you drain your bacon?? I know it is silly to keep using paper towels for just that reason, but we are a big bacon family.
Sharon, that is a really good question. I honestly just lift the bacon out of the pan with a fork and leave the grease behind. I try to just shake off the excess grease into the pan before putting it on another plate. It may not be eliminating all the grease, but it is better. It works for me!
Another option is to fry your bacon in the oven or microwave. In the oven I use the roaster pan and then put a cookie cooling rack in that and lay the bacon on the cooling rack. Then your bacon grease drips down and doesn’t stay on the bacon. There are lots of covered cooking racks to microwave bacon too, that keep the bacon up out of the grease. I have heard that instead of using multiple layers of paper towels you can just lay down one paper towel on a stack of old newspapers to drain the grease too.
That’s a really good question, because I don’t fry my turkey bacon, I put it in teh microwave between 4 paper towels.
Not sure how I could do it any other way, unless I want to use the oven. Any suggestions Lindsay?