There is an extremely high cost of living here - with what my husband makes here, we could have bought a nice little house in Texas. But we can only afford an apartment (our rent is as much as our mortgage in Tx) and have to scrape for groceries and anything else.
So it's made me super resourceful! Here's a list of some of the more unusual things I do to save money (besides what is normally on the internet)... Hope a few of them might help you.
1. I reuse my loose leaf tea and tea bags.
Most tea leaves are meant to be steeped more than once. If you are storing your first-brewed leaves, be sure to store them in the fridge so bacteria can't grow. I bought this AWESOME little Teavana perfect tea maker gizmo from Amazon. It literally will brew your tea, and
you can put the whole thing in the fridge (it has a little tray to catch
the drips!) I love it, and I've only had it two days so far:
I know it's not "in" to eat bread. But when you're poor, it's life giving. Flour is cheap. For breakfast, I make English muffins, pancakes, or cinnamon rolls (I really HATE sugar though. I'm convinced it's Satan). For lunch, I make my own tortillas or flatbread or sandwich bread. For dinner, I make a fresh loaf of yeast bread. Bread fills the corners of your tummy when you only have 5oz of chicken with your dinner. I dip my bread in hot chicken gravy, slather it with some butter, dip in in pan juices, anything.
My favorite recipe is Peasant Bread - 4 ingredients and no-knead!
3. Make and recycle your own things.
- For $11, I bought all the supplies needed to make 20 pounds of homemade mozzarella cheese with store bought milk.
- I make my own wine and beer.
- A bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar is my shampoo (I've been three years without shampoo - and love it).
- I cut up some really old T-shirts for reusable paper towels.
- I literally use a spray bottle of vinegar for all cleaning and disinfecting (except in the toilet bowl - I use straight up bleach).
- I made my own washable feminine hygiene products (pads and pantiliners).
- As we are trying to get pregnant, I am making my own washable nursing pads.
- I've made my own compost bucket for fertilizing my plants.
4. I sold my big washer and dryer and bought a portable washing machine.
I know you are probably thinking "WHAAAT?" But let me explain...
I wouldn't recommend this approach if you have a large family - this solution is really only for two or three people....
Yes, you will have to run more loads to wash as much as you used to, but even with those extra loads, you will still save electricity (my old washer's regular cycle was about an hour. The portable one's is about 12 minutes).
But that's not even my biggest selling point. I can catch all of the graywater that leaves my machine and use it to water my plants. It uses less water to begin with (it's energy star rated).
It makes us more judicious about WHAT we wash too. If my shirt is visibly clean, and only smells a little bit like my body, I hang it on the clothesline to air out. A day of airing and it has no smell at all. Did you know jeans are technically not supposed to be washed at all?
Now, this little add on is not that weird or unusual, cause it's on every blog ever: but needless to say, we sold our dryer.
5. Turn off electricity to rooms with the main circuit panel.
As we all know already, items that are plugged in, even if they are fully charged, use "ghost loads". Meaning they still are using electricity by the virtue of being plugged in at all. Some sites recommend using a power strip and clicking it on and off when you want to use that outlet, but I don't want to have to walk around, turning off every outlet every time I leave a room. I just use the circuit panel switch and switch off the power for the whole room. So much easier.
6. I buy clothes and other items at Ross and Goodwill (and other thrift stores).
Whenever I need a clothing item, I go to the Goodwill in the nicer neighborhoods for my shopping. If an article of clothing for $4 has a pull, or a loose hem, I ask for a further discount.
I look at shoes - if you look at the sole, you can tell how used the shoe is.
Coats, scarves, gloves - all from Goodwill. Dish sets, coffee mugs...
There is also a cool section at my local place that has scraps of fabric. Since I sew, I like to check out the fabric aisle every time I go. I've gotten 4 yards of fabric for $3 to make things like curtains, clothing, dish towels, etc.
Ross is my second stop for things that you really don't want to buy used - things like underwear, bras, lingerie (sometimes shoes).
7. Buy meat around 10 am or 7pm on a weekday.
This little trick works at my local grocery store (in Canada, called Loblaws). Their meat department marks off all the meat to 50% that is to expire that day around 10am and at 7pm.
I make it a rule to only buy meat at half off. Whatever they have for sale is what's for dinner.
I once bought 8 packages of fresh salmon that was half off, and we had salmon for the next week. Lots of different ways to cook it too.
I know Wal Mart does this, but since they're so popular, you'd have to get in quick.
Also, I usually take home the meat and immediately freeze it. Even if I refrigerated it for a few days, it still lasts past it's expiry date, no problem.
Also, I usually take home the meat and immediately freeze it. Even if I refrigerated it for a few days, it still lasts past it's expiry date, no problem.
8. Repair everything myself.
If a shirt gets a hole in a seam, I loop-stitch it closed. If a shoe sole comes unglued, I glue it back together. If my teapot chips, I glue it back together. A towel's hem falling out - stitch it back up. A fake jewel falls out of its setting, out comes the superglue!
9. Put foil on your south facing windows.
Foil acts as a heat reflector (shiny side out). It is also SUPER at blocking out light! Our bedroom faces south, so I have all the windows covered, with only about 2 feet x 1 foot left uncovered. If I need light in the bedroom, I open the blinds and the light from the little open section is enough. I really recommend this for bedrooms because we spend so little waking time in them.
10. Join a Bountiful Baskets program.
This is a food co-op. I pay $15 a month, and every other week I get a huge basket of fruits and vegetables (whatever's in season). I never know quite what I'll get, so it's really great for getting out of a rut with the same old fruits and veg every time. I have to get creative now and then in my cooking too.
And last but not least:
11. I ask for refunds or discounts on anything that even SLIGHTLY displeases me.
If I'm paying money for it, I'd better be happy!!
For example:
We saved a bunch of money (took a year of saving) for an anniversary trip that involved a day of skiing, two nights in a hotel, and a visit to The Nordik spa. (the spa was totally awesome and I would do it again any day).
We went skiing on the last day of the season, while lift tickets were only $2 for the whole day! (had to rent snowboards at the regular price. If there was anything unsatisfactory about our boards, I would have asked for a refund, you can be sure!)
The hotel bed was SO hard that neither of us slept well. I went down to the reception in the morning and asked sweetly for a refund for that one night (which they gave), and for the second night they offered an upgraded room and 30% off of what I originally paid for the second night in the cheaper room. It would have been $325 for those two nights. Ended up being less than $120.
Then the spa - I clarified the type of massage that I was to receive three times - and they still somehow gave me the wrong one (I paid for a deep tissue massage and they gave me something called a tonic massage...which was unlike any massage I'd ever had). I was pretty ticked (tonic massages are invigorating, not relaxing!) so I talked to the manager, insisted on a massage refund ($120), and got two free day passes to their fancy salt water pool (Kalla - each pass worth $40) - which looks like this:
We ended up budgeting about $800 for this trip, and saved (or received equivalent for free) $405!!
In everyday life, I ask for discounts at Wal Mart - I purposely find something that has a boo boo (like a bathroom rug that is fraying on the corner - an easy fix for me), and get it even cheaper.
If I go see a movie and I didn't like it - I ask for a refund or vouchers.
If something about my fast food (or even fancy restaurant) meal bothers me, I ask for a discount on the meal.
I try really hard not to be cranky and mean when asking for these discounts - people are much more likely to help you if they like you. I only pull out the "big guns" attitude when someone won't right a gross injustice (like that massage thing - I confirmed THREE times that I was scheduled for deep tissue!)
There are some (hopefully) NEW ideas to save more money!
Do you have any good ideas to add? Tell me about them!
