This Old Dog Learns a New Trick

For years and years, whenever I scrubbed out my kitchen sink, showers, bathtubs etc.  I would always do exactly the same thing.  I would take my container of Ajax cleanser, sprinkle liberally all over the offending surface, than scrub away. That’s how my mom did it, so I did it this way too.

When I went to dog grooming school, it was part of the end-of-day routine for a student to scrub out the dog tub.  When it was my turn, I did it just like I describe above.

However, it seems that because of this method I was the unwitting perpetrator of a brewing grooming school scandal.  The owner was being driven mad over the fact that cleanser purchases were the highest they’d ever been in the history of the school.  There were even dark mutterings of an inside job - maybe the janitors were nefariously making off with the stuff for their own twisted purposes.

I would listen politely to the outcries, shrug, and go on with my business.  As a conspiracy theory it left a lot to be desired.  Plus, since it really had nothing to do with me I wasn’t all that interested.

But one day when I was putting away towels in the bathing room, I had a real A-HA moment.  I was the guilty party! I was observing one of the instructors scrubbing out the tub - instead of sprinkling the tub all over with cleanser, she just sprinkled a bit on the scrubby sponge! That much lesser amount got plenty frothy and did a great job cleaning the tub. Doh!

Poor janitors, they always get blamed for everything! But when I saw this, I started laughing.  I told her that I knew what was happening to all that cleanser.  She didn’t think it was too funny, but considering all the tuition I paid, she really couldn’t be too mad at me.

But I learned a great Frugal lesson here, too. I would go through at least six cans of the stuff every month.  Now, with this new method, six cans lasts me a good year or more.  Oh, to think of all the money I could have saved over the years!  But it’s never too late to learn some money-saving tricks, and believe me, I am now a convert.