Frugal Househould Tips

Repost from Amanda's Money Saving Tips For The Home

Frugal Househould Tips: "

There are so many frugal tips out there – it would take forever to compile all the ideas and suggestions into one place. I’ve tried many, but there are only a few that have stuck. A few that I thought was worth the extra time involved. Because time is money.

So I will share with you those frugal tips that we have been doing for quite awhile and works for me and the ones that we will likely continue.

Of course some of these tips could be completely eradicated by going “paperless.” But truth be told, I just like paper towels and swiffer cloths. I like paper plates and napkins. So for now, we’ll try to save money in other ways.

Swiffer Cloths

• Re-use your Swiffer cloth – We use one cloth to dust and to sweep the floors. After we dust, the cloth goes back under the kitchen sink until I need to swiffer the floor. We rarely use a new cloth to do the floors.
• Wait to clean up the “pile” – When you are done swiffering, rather than clean up your pile right away, store your swiffer and it’s pile in a little used, little seen corner. Then when there is a quick mess to swiffer up or you need to clean up after a meal, it will be ready to go and you’ll get more from the cloth. Some people can’t do this for various reasons, such as a pet or baby who wants to eat the “pile” or people who don’t have a secret place to store your swiffer pile. I suppose you could clean your pile and still save your cloth, but I found it to be a messy process.
• Make your own – We have homemade swiffer cloths to resort to when I am out of paper or when I want to shave some money off the grocery budget.
  
  You can make your own by using a swiffer cloth as a guide and cutting receiving blankets to the exact size. These make great back-ups. The only problem is they snag terribly when you hit an unknown wet spot in the floor. So be sure the floor is dry!

Swiffer Wet Jet

• Homemade cleaning fluid – Did you know you could re-use the bottle your Wet Jet uses!? You would have thought I had won the lottery when I discovered this.
  
  To refill the bottle: First, soak the Wet Jet bottle in boiling water for a few minutes. Then you’ll want to use a dish cloth to twist the cap off. Voila! Fill with the cleaning solution of your choice and reattach the lid!
  
  We use a cleaning solution of 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water with 20 or so drops of GSE.

Laundry Detergent

• Buy off-brand – I know many people that make their own. And if it works for you, that’s great! It will save you some money for sure. But for me it was quite a hassle and I didn’t like the way it cleaned our clothes.
  
  I buy off brand detergent from our Dollar General store. Simple enough, huh? Then I spend a little extra money on stain treatments and only spend the extra money on treating clothes that have hard to get out stains. A bottle of stain remover lasts almost forever for us.

Dryer Sheets

• Cut your dryer sheets in 1/2 – I do this as soon as I open the box. I take a pair of heavy duty scissors and divide the sheets into 3 piles or so and cut, then I place them back in the box. Gets the job done and you get double your money back!

Dishwasher Detgergent

• Use less – According to the experts we have a tendency to use too much dishwasher detergent. Correct this little habit and I am certain you will notice a bottle can go a looooong way.

Hand Soap

• Use foaming soap dispensers – I have foaming hand dispensers in each bathroom and one in the kitchen. I have noticed that we use far less hand soap than we used to. Not aware that you’re going through the hand soap quickly? Then I suggest you follow your children and just watch them wash their hands. I was shocked to see how much hand soap our children pumped out!
• Make your own foaming soap – Fill each foam soap dispenser with 1 inch of regular hand soap and fill the rest with water.

Cleaning Solutions / Windex

• Make your own – We use a cleaning solution of 1/ 2 vinegar and 1/2 water sometimes with 20 or so drops of GSE. We use this to clean our floors, the bathrooms and kitchen, windows and mirrors.

Paper Towels

• Buy select a size – That’s pretty self explanatory! I personally like Sparkle paper towels. They are cheaper than Bounty and they hold up well and leave almost no lint behind.
• Store them elsewhere – Especially if you have children, you may want to make the paper towels less accessible than right beside the kitchen sink. I have often stopped my children and counted how many paper towels they pulled off just to dry their hands…let’s not go there ok? By making them less available hopefully you’ll use less!