These ideas are things that work for me, and they bounce around in my head and I mean to write them down here from time to time. Sorry, there is no overriding theme to this post, I just wanted to write these ideas up while I thought about them.
I have seen on some newsgroups where people ask how to save on water. If you want to be really frugal with water, take a shower with a bucket in the tub. It can catch a fair amount of the water being used during a shower. You can use that to flush the toilet. Depending on what your water rates are, that can make a minor or major savings. Also, where I live the sewage is based on your water reading, so less water in is less dollars out for sewage as well.
Look into doing mystery shopping work. It is a little hard to get started, but once you do, it is nice extra money. I do it for one restaurant, but not too often, and only when I want to. Ignoring the free meal (which is the best part of doing this), I get $25 for doing one, but the amount of work it takes to type everything they want (usually 3 hours) means I am making barely above minimum wage. I guess the point is do it if you like to do it, not to make a living, because you can't.
Go to yard sales. Of course if you live out away from lots of people this may not be practical. But if you're like me, and there are dozens of sales within 10 miles every saturday, go to them if you have nothing special to do! Or if all you would do is go to the mall, go yard saling instead. This past month I have bought clothes for a tiny fraction of their cost (a few were even new with tags still on them!), toys for kids (including a few still unopened at about a 75% discount), a couple tools (including a bench grinder for $5), and of course other things. I have a co-worker that says he just can't use clothes someone else wore. Of course the guy (while nice) is worse off financially than me, and he won't ever be able to catch up with me with that attitude. Oh well, to each their own.
Don't feel bad about going super frugal for a time, if the time is right. I mean, I *know* I am doing some things to save money that I know others wouldn't do, and thats ok. And I won't do them forever. But I'm living alone for the moment, so I can do it now, but I understand things will change sometime in the future. Thats ok, because I will have saved money now, and invested it, and will be doing great later.
OK, another frugal idea. Do you work someplace where you have a ton of paper towels available to just dry your hands and throw away? Well, you can just take what you use to dry your hands back to your desk and put them in your work bag to take home(assuming you have one), and then use them at home for things like cleaning windows. I was doing that today, and I used up the stockpile I built up the past few weeks. Its better than paying for paper towels, and better for the envirnment too (less waste).
Hopefully some of these thoughts / ideas can help someone out there.
Random Frugal Ideas
May 29th, 2006 at 04:09 am
May 29th, 2006 at 02:26 pm 1148912779
May 29th, 2006 at 07:57 pm 1148932660
Also, set a kitchen timer where you can see it in the shower. It can help you take less time under the tap.
Also, turn on the water to rinse, but not to lather. My dad does this.
May 30th, 2006 at 01:08 am 1148951312
Oh, and the idea to use something to displace water in the toilet is something I have heard of for some time. I don't know why I haven't tried it, I suppose I need to add it to my list of things to do.
July 12th, 2006 at 08:57 pm 1152737825
July 13th, 2006 at 03:10 pm 1152803419