Although I'm sure 0% of you are losing sleep over this, so moving on.
I'm going to share just a few things I do to save us money that are a little unconventional. Hopefully they can inspire some of you!
1. I stopped using my clothes dryer.
A couple months ago I realized I had a ton of liquid fabric softener that I had moved from our old house, to our apartment, then finally to our new house. It wasn't getting used, but I had to pack that heavy bottle up and keep moving it. In case you know nothing about me, I HATE wasting things. It pains me to throw things away (unless of course it's covered in mold). So I finally decided to use this stuff up! We have a big unfinished basement with a built-in clothes line and a folding clothes hanger to boot so there was absolutely no reason to at least give it a shot.
The result? After a month of doing it, our energy bill came. Just by hanging our laundry up our bill went from $80 to $30! That is a $600 per year savings! I'd say that's a huge win! Now I only use my dryer when I have a lot of extra laundry that can't wait an extra day to dry, which ends up being once or twice a month.
2. I posted on Facebook yesterday that I started using white vinegar as fabric softener.
It has been amazing! I finally used up all that liquid fabric softener after about two months of hang drying the laundry. I saw online that vinegar is a great fabric softener, and since I always have a ton of it for a little of everything (really, vinegar is amazing...) I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. I just put 1/4 cup in the rinse cycle and WOWZA it works great! The clothes don't smell like vinegar and they are way softer. It's kind of weird how much better it works than the stuff I was using since, you know, that stuff is "formulated" to soften your clothes...
I buy my vinegar at Sam's Club at $3.88 for 2 gallons. So if I just use 1/4 cup each load, my vinegar will last 128 loads. The cost of the vinegar per load is 3 cents per load! I do about one load per day, so these two gallons should last me a good 4 months. Yes please!
3. I made watercolor paint from scratch
My 4-year-old absolutely loves to paint and she goes through paint like crazy. You wouldn't really think paint would be a budget buster, but it did get a little crazy so I needed to find alternatives.
I found this recipe from Jenae at I Can Teach My Child. It's so great! Easy to make, each ingredient is dirt cheap, and it lasts at least twice as long as store bought paint! My daughter loves it when we make homemade paint so a happy kiddo is a great added bonus!
I didn't have the baby food containers like Jenae used, but ice cube trays worked just as well!
4. I make my own chicken broth
I never buy canned/boxed chicken broth. Last I checked it was $1 per can or more. We almost always buy bone-in chicken due to flavor and price (almost always it's half price of boneless) so we save the bones and make broth!
Every time we chop an onion, cut celery, peel a carrot, and mince garlic we save all that stuff you normally throw away. The peels, the somewhat yucky ends- all that stuff goes into a bag in the freezer with the chicken bones. When the bag is full we put it in a huge pot on the stove, fill with water, add a bay leaf and cook it for a few hours. Voila! Homemade chicken broth! We make at least 4 cans worth of it at a time, sometimes even more. It just depends on how long we cook it for since water does have a tendency to evaporate...
It's essentially free because otherwise all that stuff would just be thrown away. Plus I'm in control of how much salt to add, unlike the store bought stuff that is close to 99% sodium. :)
I actually do a lot more things and will keep adding to this list. However, just with these four measly things I've estimated I save our family a minimum of $800 per year. They don't take much effort, are actually fun, and work amazingly well!
Share any weird ideas you have for saving money!
No comments:
Post a Comment