UGH! It has been one of those and looks like a few more to go. So while crunching numbers and thinking of ways to save on the budget we found a few ways we could save a penny here and a penny there.
My soldier boy usually makes the 16mile one way commute home during his 90min break in the morning between PT and when he has to report for work. A tank of gas doesn't go far when you have to go into town twice a day. So he is now going to shower and eat breakfast at the office.
We lucked into another garbage bag of apples this week! A blessing! My kids love apples, apple sauce, apple butter and I am thinking of apple pie! I can't say how we get them ;-) but every so often the soldier boy is handed a garbage bag of beautiful apples that have to be chucked! There is nothing wrong with them they just can't be used again by the distributors of the fruit. So we have a large tub of apple sauce for after noon snacks, apples for lunches, and maybe an apple pie for Sunday dinner!
Reusing! Going green to go cheap.
I read a few articles on recession-proofing, penny pinching and "old school" cleaning I came up with a few ways to reduce the stress on the budget. We go thru $10 of paper towels every two weeks! This pay period I spent $10 on kitchen towels, wash rags and these reusable scrubbers.
When explaining to our children the "trial" my almost 9yr old pipes in, "It still costs money! Time is money AND it costs money to wash them." I laughed. Yes time is money, but that is one thing I can sacrifice if it means saving $20/month on paper towels. I think she is on board, this afternoon I caught her grabbing a kitchen towel instead of the last roll of paper towel.
Being resourceful is very much like crafting to me! I love challenges I can over come and see the results of! LOL
It's so funny that I found your post! We are working on doing the same exact thing at our house...I's nice to do something like this that will save money and be green(er).
ReplyDeleteGreat post - we totally need to use more dishrags. We buy paper towels in bulk, and we go through *so* many of them.
ReplyDeleteIf you're feeling adventurous, I've seen posts on using cloth toilet paper. ;)
nicegirlnotes.com
I just happened across this post and we are working on the same thing!!! We too switched to re-usables and gave up paper towels about 6 months ago. I have recipes for all the household cleaning stuff. thanks for posting this. I will be coming back often to see what else your up to.
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thanks for your ideas on stretching a budget. I love the ideas with the towels and also thanks for the post with the 2 meals for food storage- I am going to do this right now!
ReplyDeleteI hated spending all of that money on paper towels too. I put my paper towels under the sink and only use them for super messy messes. I also use a lot of dish towels and I bought SKOY reuseable dish cloths at www.reuseit.com. They are $1.65 each but one will last 6 weeks. I still use some paper towels but love the SKOY and saving money! Good post.
ReplyDeleteWhen we went on a budget I stopped by all paper products. I haven't looked back. The only time I need paper towels is when we deep fry something. I now use coffee filters to do that or keep a supply of paper napkins that we get when we grab fast food. They always throw more inthe bag then we use. We also use cloth napkins. Keep up the good work.
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