TIP February Frugal Tips

To start off this month's thread, something I learned from Amy Dacyzyn (The Tightwad Gazette) many years ago. She pointed out that we should learn how little of whatever it takes to do the job. For example, we tend to squirt a line of toothpaste all the way down the bristles of the toothbrush. Then it all gets washed down the drain almost immediately. It actually only takes a small dot of the toothpaste to do a good job.

Another example, when our water came from our well and the electricity would go out, I learned that I can take a glass of water (from storage water) and not only brush my teeth satisfactorily, but also use the rest to put in my contacts and wash my face. I always thought it took a lot more water than that.

Hope y'all will chime in again with your great ideas!

For some reason, search isn't pulling up January's thread, so here is the link: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=352802

There are tons of wonderful, money-saving ideas there. Thank you, everyone, for sharing!

I started making the duggar laundry soap, and really love it.

I did spend an extra $2 and bought some lemon verbena essential oil.

This really saves some money. Went to the store last weekend, and one container of my Tide was $18!!!

Bought the ingredients for this and spent less than $5. (with leftovers to make MANY more batches!!!)

Duggars’ Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine- best value

4 Cups – hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup – Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

Also, someone on this forum suggested using a pinch of laundry detergent (dry, not wet) in the dishwasher.

WOW! It works great! I was spending $$$ on the little dishwasher capsules, because that was the only thing I had found that would work with my city's wierd water. Well-- the PINCH of laundry detergent workds just as well, and is a HUGE moneysaver!

Joyfulheart, thanks for posting the recipe for laundry soap. I'm going to try this.

I make that version of laundry soap and I love it as well.

I've still got my bubble wrap up on my windows. I'm glad someone mentioned that last month. lol

Benefits of used coffee grounds:

Sprinkle fireplace ashes with wet coffee grounds before you sweep them up. They'll be easier to remove, and will keep the dust down.

Used coffee grounds will keep bait worms alive all day long. Mix 1 cup of grounds with your soil before you add your worms. The nutrients will keep them alive longer.

Deodorize spoiled food from a freezer failure. Place a bowl of grounds in the freezer overnight, and the smell should be gone.

Thanks for the tips. I'll have to try the laundry soap in the dishwasher one. THe price of Cascade has soared. I switched to Electrasol which is much cheaper and does just as good of a job cleaning the dishes. To use laundry soap would even be cheaper though I think. Can you use the super cheap brands like Arm & Hammer laundry soap? We're talking powdered soap right?

Toothpaste has sure soared in price as well. I have to use a brand for sensitive teeth and it's over $5 a tube!

My tip is to learn how to make your own pet food. I cook up a huge batch for my two dogs and freeze it. I make enough to last two dogs two meals a day for two months and the cost is half as much as the premium kibble I had them on before plus what I make is healthier and human grade ingredients.

Deena in GA said:

For some reason, search isn't pulling up January's thread, so here is the link: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=352802

There are tons of wonderful, money-saving ideas there. Thank you, everyone, for sharing!

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Loon said:

Thanks for the tips. I'll have to try the laundry soap in the dishwasher one. THe price of Cascade has soared. I switched to Electrasol which is much cheaper and does just as good of a job cleaning the dishes. To use laundry soap would even be cheaper though I think. Can you use the super cheap brands like Arm & Hammer laundry soap? We're talking powdered soap right?

Toothpaste has sure soared in price as well. I have to use a brand for sensitive teeth and it's over $5 a tube!

My tip is to learn how to make your own pet food. I cook up a huge batch for my two dogs and freeze it. I make enough to last two dogs two meals a day for two months and the cost is half as much as the premium kibble I had them on before plus what I make is healthier and human grade ingredients.

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Yes, I've been using the cheap Arm and Hammer laundry detergent! It's what I'm using now, and so far, so good! I add vinegar once in a while, but we have wierd water.

Can you please share the petfood recipe? Id love to learn!

I need at least a quart of water, preferably warm, for my contacts.

I'm spoiled, I suppose!

I have two small dogs under 20 pounds each. This is what I make up for them.

5 pounds of ground venison OR beef (we hunt and get the venison off our property)

10 pounds ground turkey (I get the tubes for $1.79 a 16 ounce tube...sometimes less)

10 cooked eggs ( ususally beat them up and dump them into the rice water when it's almost done)

10 cups of cooked barley (to make ten cups use two and a half cups of raw barley and eight cups of water and cook for 45 minutes)

20 cups of cooked white rice (to make twenty cups of rice use five cups of raw rice and sixteen cups of water and cook for twenty minutes)

20 cups of cooked split peas (to make twenty cups of cooked peas use six and two thirds of raw split peas in sixteen cups of water and cook for 30 minutes)

8.8 Tablespoons of eggshell powder (I have hens so save my shells, wash and sterilize in the micrwave for 30 seconds then crush to a powder in a grinder) This is for calcium in the formula. Cost is nothing since I'm recycling my eggs we eat.

26.6 Tablespoons of cooked carrots OR one can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie....plain pumpkin)

2 tablespoons of iodized salt

2 teaspoons of olive oil

Add a tablespoon of salmon for omegas "or" a fish oil tablet once a week. You can add small amount of green beans, cabbage or squash to diet. All vegetables must be overcooked.

Add 200 MG choline per day to food

Add 16 MG selenium per day

B-12 once or twice a week


I use four very large soup pots to cook all this in..........one for meat, one for rice, one for barley and one for split peas. This makes a ton of food so when done I dump all into a very large plastic tub to mix. I use a huge steel spoon to stir and stir and stir. I also don't drain the water out of the meat since the fat from the meat is an important part of the diet. I also don't drain the water out of anything else. The rice absorbs it all. Overcook the rice and everything to mush.

After it has sat a while and cooled a bit pack it all up into freezer plastic containers and pop into the freezer. I feed my little dogs 1/3 cup each twice a day. They have lost weight on it. Joey went from 22 to 20 and Juliet went from 18 to 16. They each need to lose a bit more weight and when they are at the right weight I will increase their food to 1/2 cupe twice a day each. Be sure to transfer your dog over slowly by mixing in with old food. Be sure to weigh your dog and keep record of weight and adjust amount fed accordingly.

This is a very easy to digest food. I add extra water to the food and warm it in the micrwave before serving. This gets my dogs to drink more water which they are not good about doing and why Juliet got bladder stones.

Their poops are very tiny now since their body seems to be utilitizing all the food. I feel better because I know what's going into it. Their bad breath is gone. Their teeth look better. Their eyes are bright and their coat is thick. Juliet's urine has no more crystals in it and her urine PH is perfect at 6.5

It takes me 2 hours to make this up and it's a pain but because my dogs are small and small eaters I only have to do this once every 8 weeks or so.

Nice to know that the laundry detergent works well in the dishwasher! When I run out of my supply of the tabs (bought for a little bit of nothing when they were on sale bogo and we had coupons), I'm going to try the dry laundry detergent that I make.

Loon, thanks for sharing the dog food recipe!

Hubby has started cooking up a large package of bacon on Saturday morning. We eat part of it then and refrigerate the rest. Each morning I take out a portion and heat it up using the same piece of aluminum foil and putting it on the wood heater. It doesn't take long to heat and we don't dirty a pan that will need washed or use the electricity for the microwave. Because I use the same piece over and over (wrap a napkin around the bacon to absorb any grease), that doesn't really cost much of anything either. Btw, the microwave is one of the many things we keep unplugged until needed. And since I can't stand microwaves, it doesn't get plugged in much at all, lol.

Deena, does your hubby fry the bacon? I have an internet friend who does very large amounts of bacon in the oven. I forget now how she does it but it sounds interesting to be able to do a big batch at once like that. I buy the precooked bacon. I know that sounds wasteful but my husband makes breakfast every morning for me and mom and it just makes things easier for him to have the bacon already done. All he has to do is nuke it for 30 seconds or so. I buy the "Great Value" generic bacon at Walmart and it's pretty cheap and tastes fine.

When my maters come in this summer I might give the oven baking bacon a try. I love the thick kind of bacon.

Loon, I fix bacon in the oven. I use a pampered chef baking sheet.
I preheat the oven to 425 degrees for 20 mins sometimes it requires
a little longer depending upon the thickness of the bacon
and how much have on the pan. If I cook the whole sheet
full it usually takes 5 to 10 mins longer. I really prefer the thick bacon.

This is the only way I will fix bacon any more as long as I have a oven.
It keeps it straight and doesn't curl up, the grease doesn't pop all over
the place and I don't have to worry about getting burned.

What does everyone do with there extra bacon grease?
I don't fry that much foods so I am getting way more than
I need and I only fix bacon about 1 or 2 times on the weekend.


by the way I'm enjoying all these frugal tips....thanks

JoyfulHeart, thanks for posting that soap receipe, and the essencial oil tip.
I used to make it years ago. I think it gets the clothes cleaner, and it was fun to make. I lost the receipe, but still have two bars of Fels Naptha soap.
I used a clean plastic kitty litter container to make it in.
This brings me to my question... Recycling won't take the plastic scoop litter containers, so I have several. They're heavy duty plastic and have handles.
What can I use them for? Any creative ideas?

In the oven sounds like a great way to make nice flat bacon, but we don't do that. Propane has jumped $1 a gallon here and is $2.69 a gallon, so I don't want to have the oven on that long if there's a faster way to do it. We buy the thick kind sliced by our local grocery store. It's about the only thing we buy from them, but they have great meat and every so often they'll put this bacon on sale at a great price. When they do, we buy enough for a couple of months or so. I'm really not sure how much (weight-wise) he cooks at a time because they package it in large packages, but he cuts in in half and cooks half one week and half the next.

Our bacon grease goes on top of the dog food, so it doesn't go to waste. He loves it!

Since the propane guy came last week and I saw the jump in prices, I'm trying to think of more ways to use our wood heater to heat things. I've been keeping my tea warm on top of it for years now (as long as the weather's cool, that is) and have used it to reheat leftovers and such. A couple of weeks ago, hubby took several packs of hot dogs and a huge package of hamburger and grilled them all outside. We ate off them for a couple of days and then froze the rest. When we want them, I take them out of the freezer, wrap them in tin foil (again using the same piece over and over) and put them on the wood heater to warm up.

Back to the propane...fortunately we had prepaid some for the propane. Unfortunately, at the time we had to prepay, we didn't have enough to cover quite as much as we needed for a year, so we will owe some at this new price. I'm just trying to make sure that what we have now lasts as long as possible. We only use it for cooking and the water heater.

Still have the thermostat set at 60, and use the wood stove to keep the temp at anything warmer than that in the house.

I've gotten the kids semi-trained to not use the lights if the sun is shining. Open the curtains!! That has always driven me crazy, especially when they leave the lights on when they leave the room too.

We buy the bags of irregular socks. Not like anyone is going to notice down inside mine or the boys boots.

Mrs Simple got this mesh bag thingy, and she sticks the bar soap in it, and now instead of losing those last bits and pieces of bar soap down the drain when we drop 'em, the kids tossing them, etc., we get to use the full bar! It really cut down on our bar soap usage!

We collect old books, then go to a used book store and trade them in for store credit, and then divide the credit up and everyone gets something new to read.

If you take prescription drugs do a search on the drug name and look at the manufacturer's website for coupons. Also, if you use a product and don't have a coupon for it, do a search and you'll often find a coupon for it.

Like the pet food idea. I'm jealous that you guys have a source of venison!!

Deena, your wood heater is outside? Is it flat?

We used a woodstove to heat when we lived in New Mexico. I cooked on it all the time, although it was meant to heat the house. (Why waste the heat?) Beans were easy--I just set a timer to check them every 15 minutes or so to make sure they had enough water. (Beans at that altitude have to boil for hours.) And then I would take a clean and dry plastic freezer container, spoon half of the beans into it, then cover with the boiled bean juice. I could freeze it and thaw it May through September when we didn't have to heat.

Potatoes (as in, boiling to mash) were very easy to cook that way, too.

Our wood heater is inside and flat. It's the old box style made with cast iron inside then a metal "box" built around around the heater with an air space between the two. We've had it over 25 years now. Occasionally I get get something to actually boil on it, but usually not. It takes really dry pine to get that hot.

The beans are a good idea. Think I did that last winter, but need to put some on now, especially black eyed peas.

Mostly this can only be used for warming things up or simmering things.

Deena,

How about wraping potatoes in foill and "baking" them that way. You'd have to leave them in there a while, but if you're going to heat anyway...?

(I had originally thought about that when you mentioned not wanting to have the oven on long enough to cook bacon. If you have a couple of layers in the oven, you could bake potatoes or something else along with the bacon.)

I once left a pot of potatoes on the wood stove as we went to bed and woke up to find them ready to mash. That might be pushing it--you don't want them to burn and waste--but if you're awake, you might try it. You never know.

When we lived in the desert, I baked in my BBQ. Cookies, casseroles...it was a matter of learning the timing: watching carefully and keeping good notes.

Unfotunately, we live in an all-electric house. I hate it! It wasn't made for energy efficiency at all, and makes me itch. My kids are older and pretty good about turning lights off, and we've replaced them all with efficient bulbs. It's the air conditioner and heater that make the bills high.

Many years ago I had a friend who we camped with. She would dredge her bacon strips in flour before frying them. She swore it made them crispier and they stayed nice and flat that way. I've never tried it.

I used to save bacon grease to make cornbread with. I don't do that any more. You can make a great suet cake with bacon grease if you're into feeding the birds.

I bake bacon too. I bake a lb at a time or sometimes 2 lbs, then keep it in a zip lock baggie in the frig. I don't like it fried now that I've discovered it tastes so much better when it baked. I bake it on a roaster pan. The grease falls thru the slots away from the strips. It works real well, and I have all the clean grease in the bottom of the pan so I can pour it into the grease pail to save.

One of my favorite frugal things is to save leftover veggies from meals. If there's just a little left (not enough to serve again for another meal), I add the small amount to a jar I keep in the freezer. When the jar is full, I use those veggies to make a huge pan of "free" vegetable soup. Then I can the soup and put it on the shelf. I have lots of home made ready to eat meals that were made that way. You can save leftover pieces of meat to add to the soup.

We have cooked potatoes and sweet potatoes on top of the wood heater before, just have to remember to turn them a few times so they won't burn on any one side.

Has anyone tried dehydrating on top of a wood stove or heater? It just occurred to me that that might be possible.

On January's thread I mentioned we were going to start burning paper products instead of throwing them away. I'm happy to say that we are now only using one trash bag every three days instead of one a day.

Isn't it interesting all the little ways you can save?! They can add up to quite a bit over time.

Michigan Majik asked about uses for the plastic pails (with lids) that scoopable kitty litter comes in. Some ways I use or have used them:

Collect small pieces of kindling from downed branches, etc. and store them until needed - bring in a bucket at a time for the woodstove.

The town where I lived provided a free sand/salt mix for town residents to use in winter. The covered pails kept the mix dry until needed.

Pour dry dog kibble into the (cleaned) pails and stack them rather than scooping the food out of big bags.

Line one with a plastic grocery bag and put scooped dog poop from the yard into it - easy to take the bag to the trash can for pickup.

They are good for storing a variety of smaller items.

Store cold wood ashes in them until needed for icy walkways.

Yes, it's easy to dehydrate foods over and around wood stoves on drying racks. You need to cover the food with cloths to keep the dust off, and have your racks raised above the stove surface. The wooden folding accordian laundry racks work well for holding trays and I think you can find dehydators made for stovetops, too.

Thanks, Camajune! That was a DUH! moment for me since I have one of those wooden racks sitting in front of my wood heater now, drying clothes.

Simple Man, where do you find bags of irregular socks? I've never seen that.

SM also gave the idea about using a mesh bag for the pieces of soap. For those of you who crochet, you can crochet one very easily using just a bit of cotton yarn or crochet thread.

Deena in GA said:

Simple Man, where do you find bags of irregular socks? I've never seen that.

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Usually at the flea market, and every once in a while at the "junky" dollar store - it's sort of a cross bewteen "Dollar Store" and "Big Lots" and you never know what you'll find.

If you have a swiffer wet (not the wet jet, but it may work for that, I don't have one) cut nice pieces of cloth to fit the bottom and go into those holes at the top that you tuck the cleaner pads into. I made myself a lot of pieces of flannel, then when I scrub, I put the home made cloths into a bucket of vinegar water. Scrub your floor and change them as needed. I have a pergo floor so I squeeze as much water as possible out and change often. When I'm finished, I just throw them in the washer.

The water stays clean since you aren't putting the dirty cloths back in the bucket so you save water and have the convenience of the swiffer doing all the scrubbing and aren't paying that big price for the replacement pads.

Gunnersmom, I can go you one better: worn-out washcloths are often the right size to use on the swiffer-type mops, and you don't have to make anything. One of my kids taught me this one.

Everyone enjoys receiving plants for gifts, so I am always propogating herbs and plants like ' elephant ears' - they are simple to place in water until you
see roots and then just place in dirt and a nice container.

Start now and use these thru out the year = Mother's Day; birthdays and
the Christmas holidays. It's a thoughtful and very inexpensive gift.

I've been known to simply use the worn out washclothes under my feet to mop with.

Ncsteelmagnolia, that's a wonderful idea for gifts! I have elephant ears growing like crazy here.

Another idea I got from "The Tightwad Gazette" many years ago and have been using ever since is to keep my wornout tennis shoes to use as garden shoes. I always have three "levels" of tennis shoes - the best are to wear when I'm leaving the house to go somewhere that people will see me, lol. The second best are for taking walks or if I'm going somewhere that the best ones might get messed up at, and the third level is the gardening shoes.

I do that with my tennis shoes and clothes too.

/rant on
Recent sticker shock from my electric bill drove me to research. As many areas of the country have recently had significant increases in their electric bills, my area has raised rates anywhere from 25 to 45% total in different tiers over the past year or two, rates depending on total KW hours usage. Now they are billing us at a prorated amount pending an SCC approval for another increase. Yes, they are charging us BEFORE it's approved! I guess Obama meant it when he made his threat "your electric rates will skyrocket." /rant off.

So, in regards to saving on electricity I'm having to get creative. In my research I found heat pumps save electricity but only when temps are above 40 degrees, below 40 they're energy hogs. We're using the backup kerosene heater when posssible on days when temps drop below 40, late at night and early morning. We don't leave it on while sleeping. Whether this will be cheaper and efficient enough to save us money, time will only tell.

Also, I'm thinking about turning the hot water heater off at the breaker box and only turning it on for a few hours a day. Does anyone know if this will save electricity or will it use more to heat it up every day?

I plan to heat water on the kerosene heater to wash dishes with when it's on as well. Any more energy saving tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Mrs. Chair Warmer

When we first bought the farm here we only came up here on weekends. We were both still working. We would turn off the hot water heater and just turn it on when we came up. It really made a huge difference in our fuel useage.

Ideally, I'd love to invest in a tankless water heater. They are pricey but I figure in a while the price will drop. I'd also like to get a LED television since they use much less electricity but again they are expensive. They'll come down in price and when they do we'll invest in them.

We saw about a 15% drop in our electric bill when we switched all the lightbulbs in the house over to the corkscrew style fluresecent bulbs.

The biggest way to save on heat bills is to dial back. If it's too uncomfortable to do so during the day at least run it back at night when you're sleeping. We keep our thermostat set to 66 or 67 during the daytime and run it back to 65 at night.

I hit upon a 50% off sale for seniors at a thrift store yesterday. I'm looking for good deals on denim for a quilt. I also found a blanket for 1.50 to use for the filling in the quilt instead of the usual filling that bunches up.

Judy

On electricity, you're probably already doing these things, but we, too, saw a noticeable decrease in our electric bill when we switched to the corkscrew flourescent bulbs. We also leave everything electrical unplugged that we possibly can. The tv, dvd, converter box and vcr are all plugged into a strip and we leave the whole strip off. Even the microwave is unplugged until we need it.

On a different topic...having a barter fair is a way to save money. Talk to your friends, church, extended family, homeschool group, anyone you think may be interested and schedule a time when they all bring whatever they want to barter (items, skills, etc). We did this within our homeschool group once and it was a rousing success. We just held ours at the state park during one of our park days. Or just put out the word to anyone you think might be interested in bartering that you're open to that.

Deena-- Girl, I WISH you were my neighbor! I live in a small, simple house in a poorer neighborhood (by comparison) inside a very rich town. I suggested the barter thing once to my homeschool group meeting, you coulda heard crickets. They looked at me like I had boogers coming out of my nose. Then they quickly changed the subject like I didn't even exist.

I would love a barter system here. So far, havent found anyone willing. Other than a neighbor who has volunteered to trade off on free babysitting.

Thank you, joyfulheart, for the laugh! What an image I had...boogers coming out of your nose..., lol! I wish we were neighbors, too! I would encourage you to keep your eyes and ears open for like-minded people. It might take some looking and listening, but there are more of them than you think - just kinda quiet about it.

Just saw on another forum that someone with a Swiffer wetjet is cutting a small hole in the top (actually bottom) of the bottle of cleaner and refilling it with water and some of their cheap cleaner. Thought it was a good idea.

We don't usually buy muffin mixes and such, but a year or two ago one of the grocery stores had a great buy on them at the same time we had good coupons. We ended up with quite a few cases of them before the sale was over because we were getting them for $.25 apiece. In order to stretch and make them healthier, I add 2-3 heaping tablespoons of home ground whole wheat flour and just a bit more water to them, sometimes some real blueberries. I think they taste better.

Hope others will chime in with more ideas, but in the meantime, here's something else I thought of regarding electrical usage. We don't keep any kitchen appliance plugged in, and I actually use very, very few. Honestly, how much time does an electric can opener save - a second? It's no trouble to just use a manual can opener, I've been doing it for many years. I also rarely, like less than once a year, use my mixer. I just whip things by hand. The good part of doing it all by hand is that it burns a few calories too, lol.