Five Easy Ways to Save Money

These little hints are things I do every day to pinch pennies. They won’t save you a gazillion dollars, but over time they will help add to your bottom line.

1. When your husband’s at work go through his old white T-Shirts and cut them up for rags. My husband is, for some reason, very attached to some very disreputable items of clothing. However, over the years he has accumulated so many of these mangy t-shirts that he never misses them when I, er, mine his drawers for cleaning rags. Actually, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be too hard to get his cooperation, but it’s more fun to do it this way. A housewife has to take her fun where she can find it sometimes.

This maneuver will realize an enormous savings on paper towels. On 7/28/07 I purchased a thirty-roll box of paper towels at Sam’s Club for $23.84 (the same price they are today, surprisingly). Here it is almost a year later and I still have 22 whole rolls and 3 used rolls (2 in the kitchen and one in the laundry room). I’ve really been able to stretch my paper towels thanks to my t-shirt rags.

Some people believe that it’s best to abandon paper towels entirely for environmental reasons. I don’t agree with that (at least not for me) because I have so many furry friends around here. Sometimes only a paper towel will do to clean up some of their more disgusting messes. You dog owners out there know what I mean.

T-shirt rags are very convenient, too. I have a big pile of them so I never really run out. I don’t bother trying to make them pretty, by the way. I just cut an old T-shirt into 1-4 vaguely square or rectangular shapes. The edges don’t fray (though they do tend to curl up), so no need to edge them on your sewing machine unless you want them to look nice. They are easy to keep clean and sanitary - any time you’re washing whites in hot water just throw them in with the rest (I always make sure to bleach them, too).

2. Switch to cloth napkins. Just about everyone I know has lots of cloth napkins lurking here and there in there homes. Hardly anyone I know actually uses them. I’ve been using them for quite a few years and haven’t bought the paper ones in a long time.

I got a lot when I got married. They sat in a drawer for many years before the light bulb went on - here was a way to save some money! They are very easy to care for. No matter how big your load of laundry is, it’s pretty easy to squeeze a week’s worth of cloth napkins on top of it.

Maybe you don’t have any cloth napkins. Looking at the one’s I own, I can see it would be pretty easy to make a bunch from stuff you have around the house. For example, I have a set of four that coordinate with a matching tablecloth. The napkins are the exact same material as the tablecloth. So if you have an old tablecloth sitting around (and who doesn’t?) you could make up a big batch out of that. Also, some of my napkins are made of a more smooth, almost shiny material. This is kind of like the stuff sheets and pillowcases are made of. Old clothes and dish towels (the tea-towel type) are also another possible source of ‘free’ napkins. Plus, lots of time people will just give them to you because they have no earthly use for them.

3. Make your own all-purpose cleaner. I mix mine up in an old Fantastik bottle (that I made sure to clean out very thoroughly before I used it for this purpose). I put about 1/4 cup of white vinegar and 1/2 cup of alcohol in the bottle (it might be the other way around, but I don’t think it really matters), then fill the rest of the bottle up with water. I used to use just white vinegar, but then I thought I’d like to add a little more disinfecting action to my cleaner.

I use this cleaner on everything and everywhere - kitchen, bathroom, I even use it on my carpet to clean up dog messes (not that I’m recommending that, but I’m a wild girl and I just go ahead and do it, plus my carpet is fairly old). It works great on mirrors and windows too. True, it does smell like vinegar, but to my mind that is a much more pleasant aroma than the various deadly chemicals that compose your average commercial bottle of all-purpose cleaner. And the vinegar odor does evaporate very quickly.

4. Wash your drinking straws in the dishwasher. I like to to use drinking straws because I worry a lot about my teeth. I actually don’t drink a lot of soda (I never have any in the house), but I figure it’s easier on your teeth the less stuff that flows around them. Straws are not really very expensive, but even so, why spend more money on them then you have to?

I have a bag of straws that I bought years ago at the grocery store. Also, I save the straws that come with my fast-food sodas. They are very easy to wash in the dishwasher. Everytime I’m ready to wash a load of dishes I’ve always accumulated about five straws. I bunch them securely together with a twisty tie and put them in the silver-ware basket. If you don’t do this, loose straws will end up being melted on the heating element (which smells terrible, and makes you think your dishwasher is on fire).

Sooner or later your straws will wear out, but they will last a surprisingly long time.

5. I dump my powdered dishwashing detergent in an old Folger’s coffee container. This container sits underneath my sink; whenever I need to wash a load of dishes I take it out and put two tablespoons of powder in my dishwasher’s dispenser. I’ve tried using one tablespoon, but two works better in my dishwasher. This really stretches out the detergent. I buy the Member’s Mark generic brand at Sam’s Club. I used to really like Cascade the best, but this seems to me to work just as well. This came packaged as 2 100-oz boxes. Each100 oz. box last me 6 months, at two tablespoons per load, so I only have to buy dishwashing detergent once a year.

I hope you find all, or some, of these tips useful. I like them. They aren’t earth-shattering, or necessarily super-original, but they have the virtue of being very useful. They are things that I do every single day to further my frugal goals. What are some of your favorite tightwad tips?