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The past few weeks I have spent time talking about how to save on laundry, cooking, and cleaning. I spend a good amount of time doing these things, so for me it is easy to bring them up first.
But what I want to talk about today is an overarching philosophy that we use in our home. If you use your time to do it yourself, then you don’t have to pay someone else to do it (or buy a product to do it for you). Nowhere is it easier to practice this philosophy than in the doings of your daily home routine.
So I thought I’d throw out some ways that you can avoid spending money by simply doing it yourself.
In the Kitchen
- Stop using paper towels and start using reusable rags.
- Stop using paper napkins and start using and washing cloth napkins.
- Cut down on your water usage by filling the rinse side of your sink half full with water. Then dip and rinse as needed.
- Make a larger quantity of food than you’ll need from time to time and freeze it for a night when you don’t have time to cook. Then you’ll save money on eating out.
- Start a compost pile and cut down on the amount of trash you have to have hauled away.
- Use loose-leaf teas instead of bags.
- Don’t buy all of those fancy plastic or glass food storage containers. Reuse glass jars from other food products or your canning collection and buy a $2 food funnel from the hardware store instead.
In the Laundry Room
- Don’t wash your clothing too frequently. Get as many wears out of them as you are comfortable with before throwing them into the hamper. Most articles of clothing can be set aside as “nice” or “work” and can be worn several times for these tasks.
- Don’t bother with hot water. Even when I had a washing machine I almost never used the hot water setting for our clothing. Cold water can actually do a better job of getting out stains, whereas hot water can set them.
- Be Mindful of how much cleaning agent you use. Much of the time you could probably cut your laundry soap usage in half. Lots of soap, especially if you have hard water, will just leave your clothing with a film.
Around the Yard
- Don’t bother with fertilizers of any kind. Use that compost pile you started in the kitchen or make a one-time investment in a vegetable garden and buy a big load of compost or composted manure.
- Mow your grass without gas or electricity. These little mowers will do the job as long as you help them.
- Save garden seeds. If you like to grow a big vegetable garden then spending money on seeds every year can get pricey. Instead, try harvesting, drying, and storing some for next year.
These are just a few more examples of how to save by simply not needing additional income for simple jobs. I also find the process of doing rather than consuming to be much more fulfilling.
What do you do in order to save?
Thank you for sharing your ideas! I am experimenting with making as many foods from scratch as possible, such as apple sauce, bread, yogurt, pizza crust, etc. I find many of these types of food are cheaper and healthier when made from scratch. I also make my own laundry detergent, which can be done for less than six cents a load!
Have you experimented with freezing the pizza crusts (homemaking in batches and then freezing)? I’d love to know how it works!
Yes, I certainly have frozen the crusts! I have a Foodsaver, but I’ve also put them in regular freezer bags. Yu can check out my recipe at: http://thefrugallery.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-make-your-own-pizza-crust.html Let me know if you try it!
Just a thought–although it might save a little water by filling the rinse side of the sink with water and dipping each dish in it, it will soon have a lot of soap in the water and your dishes are not getting rinsed well enough to eat from them. It will affect the taste of your food and could cause diarrhea or other unpleasant digestive problems. Not worth the small amount of water you save.
Don’t forget you can use less detergent.
Around here, it’s hunting season. The day after Thanksgiving, my husband got his first buck, which also happened to be the largest thing in the woods, I think. So, for the next four days (off and on, of course, around our other duties) we processed meat, sliced, cubed, ground, made sausage, and packaged probably 40 lbs. of meat. It was a lot of work. We were a bit tired. BUT–we are so grateful to God for this provision of antibiotic/hormone free meat. Somewhere in there we had this very conversation, that you either pay for things with money or time. But honestly, we didn’t mind the time, because we were working together, where as typically we’re on different tasks.
Jessica,
Do you know where the deer had been eating before your husband got him?
Unfortunately most venison is not pesticide free. They may not be getting growth hormone shots
through a vet or a farmer, but are usually grazing on roundup ready genetically modified corn and soybeans. My children can’t eat venison because of chemical aversions. Once we started thinking about where the deer fed, we realized why.
Just something to think about.