Am I really this cheap??? LOL

[apnep]

Happy Birthday!! Good for you choosing where you want to go! MY family would be laughing at me but I wouldn't care I would be saving more $$$ for Disney

Thanks, Disneydreamersx4!

 

[TxRabbit]

Okay, some things are smart, some things are too time consuming for me, and some things are over the top, but this is just gross!

Perhaps. I guess it depends on your viewpoint.

My Great Grandma lived her younger years in a house without indoor plumbing. When she did get indoor plumbing, she lived with a septic tank, which requires pumping when it gets full. Pumping a septic tank isn't cheap. She also had a septic tank later in life in rural southern CA.

With the serious drought in CA is the 60s and 70s, my Grandma just went with the flow (or without, you could say) and just dealt with life as it needed to be dealt with. Remember, toilets used to require a lot more water than they do nowadays. I grew up with her perspective. I can still hear her saying "Save the flush" when I was a child, and she and I would use the same flush for number 1. Everything that had to do with toilets and water was just very matter of fact. It's just the way it was. And as a child, I didn't take issue. So as an adult, I still don't.

I'm not suggesting that guests join in the fun, but when you are talking about child sized and immediate family, well, with my own perspective, it doesn't gross me out at all. I still save the flush in my family.

Grandma did many other major water conservation things. She had tubs that she would use for washing dishes. One was filled with soapy water. One was filled with rinse water. The final rinse would occur in the sink after all the dishes were there. They would get "sanitized" with the boiling water from the tea kettle poured all over them.

I remember that I could have a bath with a few inches depth amount of water in it. She would use that bath water after me. She washed her hair in the sink. And she would set her own hair in rolls for her "perm." She had typical shorter gray hair. And she didn't need to wash it everyday. There was a cup at the tub for me to use to rinse my hair in the tub.

Forget compost. My grandma would just bury fruit peelings and other similar things all over her garden. She'd just dig a hole and put the stuff in it. And she ate a lot from her garden. Her neighborhood would swap food. She had a necterine tree. Someone else had peaches, plums. She grew tomatoes, someone else grew zuchinni. And so on and so forth. She also had a pecan tree but I never visited during the right season to get any.

I can remember that there was a friend of hers that we would meet at a mall about 40 minutes away. Only once in a while. We ate a Luby's (a very special treat) and would window shop. I can remember her fingering all the clothes on the manikins and saying, "You could just whip this up in no time." She sewed most of her own clothing.

You never knew if there was butter or cool whip in that tub because she saved them all to use for leftovers or other things (i.e. buttons). It was like playing memory to look through the fridge.

She was born in 1914. Was a child of the depression. Grew up in rural Oklahoma. Married and moved to Southern California, in the more desert like areas in San Bernadino county. She had 3 children. She worked when it was necessary for money. Otherwise, she was a housewife. She lived to be 93 years old. She died in her own bed. Went to sleep and never woke up again. She was frugal. I'm not advocating it as a way of life. But considering how much I visited her every summer growing up, I am not so far removed from it.

Modern conveniences are very nice, but it's always good to remember the alternative. There are shades of "gross" between an outhouse and a toilet that flushes into a sewer system that some find more or less tolerable. I shared the truth of my own history with a PP because there is no "shame" in these things in my eyes. Could be gross, I admit. It just all depends on your perspective.

 

[StephMK]

"Original quote from Princess - also agree that there is a fine line between being frugal and being ridiculous.

Ripping paper out of a spiral notebook to save a measly DOLLAR crosses that line. "

Depends on how much you need or want to save that dollar. I bought at package of printer paper for $5.29 at Walgreens last week. This week they had it on sale for $1.99 a package. I returned the paper from last week, to save $3.29.

I love the Budget board, but sometimes we get a little judgemental here. I don't have any problem with saving a dollar, and I don't find it ridiculous at all.

I'm not sure why a few need to be insulting. I agree w/it depends on your view. I don't think it crossed the line, no matter if OP was actually laughing about it or not. She already stated she was watching TV anyway so that time was not wasted. Those $1 add up over the course of a month. If you are not in a position to need to watch them closely, great, but I personally wouldn't put others down for it.

Virgderon - I have done similar, money saved is money saved! I have a $1.50 roaster pan & $3 box of leis to return that were not used for a picnic & I don't want to store them.

I reuse bags for pretzels or PBJ and have 2 in my fridge labeled tortillas or block cheese for the open packages we always have on hand in there. My kids don't get juice either & DD prefers water in school lunches. I bought sandwich boxes & containers to cut way back on our plastic bag use. They are great!

We are financially crunched for the past year & one more. As stressful as it has been, it's been my thought that this has been good for us in the sense we have come a long way in our views about spending money. Then when times are better, I know we can stretch our dollars much farther than we used to. Some habits I look forward to dropping but plan to keep expenses low for the most part.

We would not have known that DH is a far better breakfast cook than any of the places we used to go to when we thought we had no time to stay home & cook. New stores, coupons, lots of tricks that I never tried.

 

[badblackpug]

Perhaps. I guess it depends on your viewpoint.

My Great Grandma lived her younger years in a house without indoor plumbing. When she did get indoor plumbing, she lived with a septic tank, which requires pumping when it gets full. Pumping a septic tank isn't cheap. She also had a septic tank later in life in rural southern CA.

With the serious drought in CA is the 60s and 70s, my Grandma just went with the flow (or without, you could say) and just dealt with life as it needed to be dealt with. Remember, toilets used to require a lot more water than they do nowadays. I grew up with her perspective. I can still hear her saying "Save the flush" when I was a child, and she and I would use the same flush for number 1. Everything that had to do with toilets and water was just very matter of fact. It's just the way it was. And as a child, I didn't take issue. So as an adult, I still don't.

I'm not suggesting that guests join in the fun, but when you are talking about child sized and immediate family, well, with my own perspective, it doesn't gross me out at all. I still save the flush in my family.

Grandma did many other major water conservation things. She had tubs that she would use for washing dishes. One was filled with soapy water. One was filled with rinse water. The final rinse would occur in the sink after all the dishes were there. They would get "sanitized" with the boiling water from the tea kettle poured all over them.

I remember that I could have a bath with a few inches depth amount of water in it. She would use that bath water after me. She washed her hair in the sink. And she would set her own hair in rolls for her "perm." She had typical shorter gray hair. And she didn't need to wash it everyday. There was a cup at the tub for me to use to rinse my hair in the tub.

Forget compost. My grandma would just bury fruit peelings and other similar things all over her garden. She'd just dig a hole and put the stuff in it. And she ate a lot from her garden. Her neighborhood would swap food. She had a necterine tree. Someone else had peaches, plums. She grew tomatoes, someone else grew zuchinni. And so on and so forth. She also had a pecan tree but I never visited during the right season to get any.

I can remember that there was a friend of hers that we would meet at a mall about 40 minutes away. Only once in a while. We ate a Luby's (a very special treat) and would window shop. I can remember her fingering all the clothes on the manikins and saying, "You could just whip this up in no time." She sewed most of her own clothing.

You never knew if there was butter or cool whip in that tub because she saved them all to use for leftovers or other things (i.e. buttons). It was like playing memory to look through the fridge.

She was born in 1914. Was a child of the depression. Grew up in rural Oklahoma. Married and moved to Southern California, in the more desert like areas in San Bernadino county. She had 3 children. She worked when it was necessary for money. Otherwise, she was a housewife. She lived to be 93 years old. She died in her own bed. Went to sleep and never woke up again. She was frugal. I'm not advocating it as a way of life. But considering how much I visited her every summer growing up, I am not so far removed from it.

Modern conveniences are very nice, but it's always good to remember the alternative. There are shades of "gross" between an outhouse and a toilet that flushes into a sewer system that some find more or less tolerable. I shared the truth of my own history with a PP because there is no "shame" in these things in my eyes. Could be gross, I admit. It just all depends on your perspective.

The difference is if I have an outhouse human waste is not sitting inside my house. I'm sorry, but it grosses me out when people don't flush. If it works for you, great. I couldn't do it.

 

[CajunDixie]

I almost hate to post this but our WalMart last year had the packs of filler paper for 10 cents. Each week they rotated an item to be 10 cents and something else to be 25 cents. I know crayons, erasers, yellow wood pencils, glue sticks all made it in the 10 cent bins.

But Kudos to the poster that pulled all the paper out of the notebooks. My question is: Did you save that spiral? Seems like occasionally a nice small bendable wire would be great to wire something shut.

I try to do all the CVS & Walgreen deals so I now have enough shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, toothepaste, toothe brushes, razors, bodywash, deo..... to last until at the least the end of the year.

I did all the school deals last year and still have unopened paper, pens, pencils, folders, paper, and glue for this year....DS last year of HS.

I have a worm bin for compost for the garden. And no it doesn't make a mess nor does it smell.

Around here the lake people that live in the flood zone almost have to do the family flush on the toilets as their septic tanks would fill in the spring with flood waters. Someday they'll have a sewer system in that area but for now letting the yellow mellow is the way to go.

 

[disneydreamersx4]

Perhaps. I guess it depends on your viewpoint.

My Great Grandma lived her younger years in a house without indoor plumbing. When she did get indoor plumbing, she lived with a septic tank, which requires pumping when it gets full. Pumping a septic tank isn't cheap. She also had a septic tank later in life in rural southern CA.

With the serious drought in CA is the 60s and 70s, my Grandma just went with the flow (or without, you could say) and just dealt with life as it needed to be dealt with. Remember, toilets used to require a lot more water than they do nowadays. I grew up with her perspective. I can still hear her saying "Save the flush" when I was a child, and she and I would use the same flush for number 1. Everything that had to do with toilets and water was just very matter of fact. It's just the way it was. And as a child, I didn't take issue. So as an adult, I still don't.

I'm not suggesting that guests join in the fun, but when you are talking about child sized and immediate family, well, with my own perspective, it doesn't gross me out at all. I still save the flush in my family.

Grandma did many other major water conservation things. She had tubs that she would use for washing dishes. One was filled with soapy water. One was filled with rinse water. The final rinse would occur in the sink after all the dishes were there. They would get "sanitized" with the boiling water from the tea kettle poured all over them.

I remember that I could have a bath with a few inches depth amount of water in it. She would use that bath water after me. She washed her hair in the sink. And she would set her own hair in rolls for her "perm." She had typical shorter gray hair. And she didn't need to wash it everyday. There was a cup at the tub for me to use to rinse my hair in the tub.

Forget compost. My grandma would just bury fruit peelings and other similar things all over her garden. She'd just dig a hole and put the stuff in it. And she ate a lot from her garden. Her neighborhood would swap food. She had a necterine tree. Someone else had peaches, plums. She grew tomatoes, someone else grew zuchinni. And so on and so forth. She also had a pecan tree but I never visited during the right season to get any.

I can remember that there was a friend of hers that we would meet at a mall about 40 minutes away. Only once in a while. We ate a Luby's (a very special treat) and would window shop. I can remember her fingering all the clothes on the manikins and saying, "You could just whip this up in no time." She sewed most of her own clothing.

You never knew if there was butter or cool whip in that tub because she saved them all to use for leftovers or other things (i.e. buttons). It was like playing memory to look through the fridge.

She was born in 1914. Was a child of the depression. Grew up in rural Oklahoma. Married and moved to Southern California, in the more desert like areas in San Bernadino county. She had 3 children. She worked when it was necessary for money. Otherwise, she was a housewife. She lived to be 93 years old. She died in her own bed. Went to sleep and never woke up again. She was frugal. I'm not advocating it as a way of life. But considering how much I visited her every summer growing up, I am not so far removed from it.

Modern conveniences are very nice, but it's always good to remember the alternative. There are shades of "gross" between an outhouse and a toilet that flushes into a sewer system that some find more or less tolerable. I shared the truth of my own history with a PP because there is no "shame" in these things in my eyes. Could be gross, I admit. It just all depends on your perspective.

Thank you for posting your memories, I think it's great how the old folks did things and we could learn a lesson.

 

[Serling126]

Love all the tips! We are frugal here, no juice boxes unless we are going on a day trip.. buy in bulk.. minimize "processed" foods, use coupons and check the ads for sales, shop at thrift stores, etc... But I don't beat myself up if I cannot be frugal on every single thing, I could drive myself nuts trying to be super thrifty, it could turn into a full time job!!

ps. I have no problem letting the yellow mellow, lol... sometimes the kids forget to flush and it's just kinda there, no big deal!

 

[phamy76]

The difference is if I have an outhouse human waste is not sitting inside my house. I'm sorry, but it grosses me out when people don't flush. If it works for you, great. I couldn't do it.

If it's yellow, let it mellow.
If it's brown, flush it down.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Hmmm...I always want to be more frugal. Then I can do/have things that are more important. We have had separate households for 6 months and that ends in 2.5 weeks. Yay!

Getting the max awesome couponing deals didn't work to well
where I live now. But I did take advantage of Publix B1G1 free sales quite a bit. At our new location we have Wegman's, Giant, Harris Teeter; and some other store that dh found to be the least expensive. I get to relearn the deals up there.

For frugality--we will have a larger home up there. Hubby got a flat screen tv---a free cast off from someone who got a new one. He has been tolerating the humming that it does.

While it doesn't save us money--I have most ofnour home for the move. It does save his company money while it allows me to sort an organize everything. One thing I did--all decor has been grouped
together and when we get up there, I will go "shopping" through it to decorate our home.

Hubby has been frequenting the area thrift stores to locate furniture pieces that we "want/need" like a kitchen table.

Our tenants wanted the carpet changed out. We needed area rugs for our new home. So instead of wasting perfectly fine carpet. We are taking it with us. (they have severe allergies and prefer to have it removed.)

for my newborn--i bought most of her clothes at a resale shop.

Her crib is recalled. We had planned on using it in our new home. She has
been and still uses the pack n play/bassinet. We will just use that (removing the bassinet part when she gets bigger) and not replace the crib at all.

Other than that, I am not as frugal as I could be. It is very hard when I am
pregnant and now with the stress of moving. 2.5 more weeks....

 

[mhsjax]

If it's yellow, let it mellow.
If it's brown, flush it down.

Sorry but yellow and mellow turn yellow and nasty smelling. Urine smells to high heaven, and that is one thing that I refuse to do. IT SMELLS. I know, I have kids that forget to flush and then I go in and lift the lid, and I want to trow up.

 

[badblackpug]

Sorry but yellow and mellow turn yellow and nasty smelling. Urine smells to high heaven, and that is one thing that I refuse to do. IT SMELLS. I know, I have kids that forget to flush and then I go in and lift the lid, and I want to trow up.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

[Mono~rail]

Just want to offer a caution on this one. Plastic water bottles are intended for one time use. The plastic used is an inexpensive grade that begins to degrade quickly. The reason bottled water has an expiration date is because the water inside will get contaminated by the degrading plastic. If you reuse water bottles, then you are likely drinking water that is being contaminated by the plastic bottle. Especially if the plastic EVER gets heated by either cleaning or sitting out in the sun, being in a hot car, etc.

I checked into this. It is an urban legend.


http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/plasticbottles.asp

http://www.plasticsinfo.org/s_plasticsinfo/sec_level2_faq.asp?cid=705&did=2839

Will a plastic bottle leach harmful substances into water if I reuse it?
Most convenience-size beverage bottles sold in the U.S. are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The FDA has determined that PET meets standards for food-contact materials established by federal regulations and therefore permits the use of PET in food and beverage packaging for both single use and repeated use. FDA has evaluated test data that simulate long-term storage and that support repeated use.

The toxicological properties of PET and any compounds that might migrate under test conditions have also been well studied. The results of these tests demonstrate that PET is safe for its intended uses. (For details, see The Safety of Polyethylene Terephthalate.)

 

[DawnM]

We save where we can. We do envelopes with a Dave Ramsey type approach, so we try to stretch our money as far as is humanly possible.

I yard sale shop at least a couple times per month. I thrift store shop.

We refill water bottles for the car (we have plastic and metal), we take snacks with us for the day.....

We rarely buy juice. The kids go through it far too fast and they don't need the sugar. I prefer them to eat their fruit.

I coupon some (go through phases), make a lot of my own spice mixes and such, etc......

Dawn

 

[TxRabbit]

I checked into this. It is an urban legend.

The toxicological properties of PET and any compounds that might migrate under test conditions have also been well studied. The results of these tests demonstrate that PET is safe for its intended uses. (For details, see The Safety of Polyethylene Terephthalate.)

These studies that you site are from late 1990s and 2000. But regardless, read the words "intended uses". The intended us of PET is for one time use. You don't see refillable plastic water bottles made with PET for sale in any store. Instead, they use the #2 plastic, HDPE, an opaque plastic which is INTENDED for reuse.

More recent studies have shown that PET will leach antimony trioxide and DEHP. The levels depend on how long the bottle is stored, temperature of the plastic, the condition of the plastic (how dinged up and dented it is).

My husband was an environmental engineer with an MA in biochemical engineering. We have had numerous industry publications come through the house, and I admit I can't site the exact source from these for why I just know that what I read made me stop my own habit of reusing PET water bottles. It was within the past 4 years (I can tell from where I lived) that something came through that warned that PET was fine for one-time use, however, studies show that storage and time, and temperature will affect the structural integrity of PET. It will leach into the water.

Now my husband works with NASA. They often have health fairs and other environmental fairs. My husband worked on the booth that was showing the properties of the different types of plastics, how they are intended to be used, the dangers of using them if used as they aren't intended, and what the best alternatives are to different plastics. Again, I didn't keep any of that paper information because I have serious paper overload in the house but again, the information NASA was educating it's employees was saying don't reuse your PET water bottles. (And of course, you have to know that they were advocating purchasing a stainless steel water bottle and just refilling and using that.)

I went searching on the net to try to find a source for you. What I found were references to antimony trioxide and DEHP. A 2003 Italian study is often sited. And the generic "studies" show, but I can't get access to the studies. However, the general consensus in most answers regarding the reuse of PET water bottles is that it is best avoided because studies have shown that they leach antimony trioxide and DEHP. I'm sorry I can't find the source for you, because I can see that is important to you. If you google these chemicals and PET, you'll find what I found.

The most consise info on antimony trioxide and DEHP says: "Workers exposed to antimony trioxide for long periods of time have exhibited respiratory and skin irritation; among female workers, increased incidence of menstrual problems and miscarriage; their children exhibited slower development in the first twelve months of life. The longer a liquid is left in such a container the greater the concentration of antimony released into the liquid. DEHP is an endocrine disruptor that mimics the female hormone estrogen. It has been strongly linked to asthma and allergies in children. It may cause certain types of cancer, and it has been linked to negative effects on the liver, kidney, spleen, bone formation and body weight. In Europe, DEHP has been banned since 1999 from use in plastic toys for children under the age of three." from here.

I'm not a scare tactic person. I don't live in fear, but I do try to make wise decisions based on current information. I just passed along what I know. I'm a better safe than sorry kind of girl and when I know information that could be of use to affecting someone's health, I feel obligated to pass it along. Then it becomes their choice to make a new decision based on new information, not me making a decision for them.