Thursday, February 20, 2014

Pinching pennies

I like to save my pennies.

I'll put extra work into it because working to earn money and working to save money are pretty equal to me.

I spent several nights reading through list of money saving tips and ideas while knitting.

Sadly, I discovered that everything on these lists short of living in an RV or my van, I've done or do.

I have no cable, no internet, no gym membership.

I don't eat out, buy $5 coffees, or use paper products.

I'm frugal. I put effort into it. But I still want (and at this point, need) to cut my budget lower.

So I began brainstorming once more for my own ideas.

I came up with a few ideas to implement over time and a few more ideas to cut my grocery budget (that $200 a month goal takes effort!)

The first idea I decided to run with was air drying the laundry.

Sure, I line dry during nice weather, but this Oregon. We're known for rain and rain and more rain. So I've still been using the dryer a lot.

Not using the dryer saves me about $30 a month, or $360 a year! And that's just on electricity, if we added in the savings because clothes last longer and require less mending we'd probably be closer to $500 a year!

I'm on day 2 of not using the dryer at all, and the day before those 2 days I only ran the diapers through the dryer because it was urgent.

I even unplugged the dryer.

I'm determined to make it to the end of the month without putting another load in the dryer.

What are some extreme ways to be frugal that you have tried?

3 comments:

  1. http://theprudenthomemakerblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/cutting-expenses-when-you-think-you.html

    I saw this on a blog and thought it might be of use to you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for thinking of us Heather!

    We already do most of those things or are working towards them, but some of those are great reminders of where i could put in a little more effort.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for thinking of us Heather!

    We already do most of those things or are working towards them, but some of those are great reminders of where i could put in a little more effort.

    ReplyDelete