Frugal Friday--Use less

As we were driving home this evening J saw this great sunset and because of traffic and the roof of the car was in my way I couldn't see it.  But his description was priceless, which is what caused me to hand him the camera so he could take this picture.

"It's the glory of the Holy Spirit shining forth (yes, he said forth) from behind the clouds."

With that intro, I'll just jump right in to our new themed day; Frugal Friday.  If you have a third word to describe the series feel free to let me know.  I couldn't think of another 'f' word that stood for tip or idea.

Frugal means to be economical in the use of resources.

Frugal does not mean to deprive yourself of something you really desire, highly esteem, or absolutely love.  So if you really love good chocolate (yes, I have some in my desk drawer why do you ask???) then you should eat and savor every last piece of the kind of chocolate you love.  No need to skimp.  If you do that's deprivation and not frugality.

If you use laundry soap (and I hope you, or someone you love does use it on your behalf) is that something that you truly esteem?  But do you love your laundry soap?  Does using more of it make your life better?  Up to a point yes, because your clothes get clean, but beyond that you aren't getting extra clean-ness out of using more of it per load.

There is a good chance that you might already be using more of things that you really need to.  Perhaps, the laundry soap people 'recommend' a measure of soap that is beyond that basic level of clean.  What if you used just a little bit less of it the next time you do a load of laundry?  You'd be being frugal.

I'm not at all suggesting that you have to switch brands to a less expensive soap (though you could), but just what if you used a little less next time?

The soap dispensers in your dishwasher (for those of you who have a dishwasher, sorry J&C) actually are larger than they need to be.  I've been experimenting with the amount of dishwasher soap since Thanksgiving when one of our guests suggested that with really hard water you should use less soap, not more.  Counter-intuitive as it was I had been trying desperately for the past 11 months to get my dishes clean as they came out of the new dishwasher.  It worked!!!!

Then we turned our water softener back on and dishes were REALLY coming out clean, without all the pre-washing I had been doing; but that's another story.

In this picture I added green colored water so you could see how little soap I used in the two sections of the soap dispensers.

Instead of putting a toothbrush sized swipe of toothpaste on next time, try two-thirds or a half.  Whatever amount lets you get the job done.

Shampoo, conditioner, dish soap all work the same way.  See how little you can get away with using and still get the job done.  I'm sure there are plenty of other things you could use less of, but those are the things that came to my mind right away.

For dish soap, I stopped buying the super concentrated stuff because I was the only one who was purposefully using less knowing it was concentrated.  The price is diluted so I can still use less overall, but everyone else in the house is using the same amount of a less expensive soap (per ounce).

Anyway, if you use less, the bottle/tube/can of whatever will last longer and overall you'll spend less.

That is the first Friday Frugal.