Savings Fails - things you've tried or considered

[pearlieq]

Bulk buying is a bust for us. Not only is it such a pain to store that I sometimes forget I have things, but whatever I buy in bulk we seem to either immediately eat at 3x the normal rate or instantly decide we really don't like it that much. Now I'll just grab an extra or two of something we like when it's on sale and then just do without if we run out before the next sale.

Cheaping out travel also backfired big-time for us. I eventually learned I'd rather travel less often than stay at the off-brand HoJo and make sandwiches in my room.

 

[MrsPete]

One I tried was making my own laundry detergent. Our family is messy, so by the time you add in enough stain removers like Oxi clean, it really didn't save us any $. When Target runs their GC specials on Tide, homemade actually cost more.

I LOVE my homemade detergent; it takes about 20 minutes to mix up a year's worth, and it's better quality than Tide, while it only costs about as much as the cheapest of the cheap. You won't retire on the savings from homemade detergent, but with dozens of small savings, you see dollars pile up.

- brewing our own ciders/wine/beer instead of purchasing alcohol. Good plan in theory - in reality, it takes a LONG time to brew, plus then you have storage to consider and an inventory of equipment to buy first. After buying beer aplenty waiting for the cider to finish and having more than one cleanup when something collapsed or broke... yeah we now only make cider from our fruit trees if we WANT to. And not this year!

My husband is into home brew, but not in a big way. It does take a lot of time. I make homemade cheese, yogurt, and can vegetables, salsa, spaghetti sauce. They're better quality than store-bought stuff, and we know exactly what's in them.

of course... I am thinking of trying to keep to a very specific list of items IF we go bulk-shopping again but I fear what will happen when I walk in the store... will I walk out with $100 of candy corn? LOL

If you're going to stockpile, you have to have a system for use!

 

[Narnia_girl]

When my son was 4 years old he wanted to be a race car driver for Halloween. I went to the store to pick out a costume and it was $25. This was in 2001 and I thought that was too expensive. Since I had decent sewing skills I decided to make his costume instead. It turned out adorable, probably better quality than store bought, and we still have it. But it cost $28 to make it myself.

 

[QueenIsabella]

When my son was 4 years old he wanted to be a race car driver for Halloween. I went to the store to pick out a costume and it was $25. This was in 2001 and I thought that was too expensive. Since I had decent sewing skills I decided to make his costume instead. It turned out adorable, probably better quality than store bought, and we still have it. But it cost $28 to make it myself.

My youngest is now 11, so my Halloween costume-making days are over, but I was very guilty of this. My girls would always want to be princesses or some variation, but rarely Disney ones--they would typically pick their own fabrics and patterns, and I would shell out close to $100 apiece and make them. I have made Belle (all that ruching!), Aurora, Mulan, and a few others. Now, I just make costumes for the dance studio--less unique and exciting, but also much cheaper.

 

[AquaDame]

Coupons and buying meat in bulk - as in from a rancher - we don't want to just eat whatever is on special (a lot of it is highly processed food to boot which we don't normally eat) and I STILL have beef from over a year ago in the freezer.

 

[tzolkin]

I never understood all the savings people are seeing with homemade laundry detergent. How much detergent does the average family go through?

We go through less than one (small) bottle per year. I put it into a soap dispenser and just use a few pumps for each load. The clothes are always clean and even have the detergent scent, so I think it's plenty.

 

[runwad]

I'm another one that wasn't successful with gardening. Of course I just had tomatoes in a containers but I think I spent more on my water bill then just buying the dang things from produce stands. That's what i do now, less time and money on my part!

 

[Ava]

Add us to the list of people who tried and failed at the homemade laundry detergent. My DW made the dry kind a few times but she prefers liquid detergent, which is apparently harder to make than dry plus you need to be able to store a large quantity to really make it worth it. Our Stop & Shop often has the small bottles on sale for a couple dollars so we just stock up then.

We also used to belong to a CSA (farm share) where we got a selection of produce weekly from June-October. It was nice for the first couple years we did it, but then we had a couple disappointing years with it (not as much variety/less veggies we really liked) so we stopped. I'm not sure if we saved money by doing the CSA since we rarely ate everything we got on a weekly basis.

 

[Soulsearching]

Which savings tips have you tried or considered trying, but realized it wasn't a good fit for you?

One I tried was making my own laundry detergent. Our family is messy, so by the time you add in enough stain removers like Oxi clean, it really didn't save us any $. When Target runs their GC specials on Tide, homemade actually cost more.

One I was going to try, but didn't was using cloth diapers. We were fortunate to receive a lot of disposal diapers at our shower and when we started running low, the thought of having to clean dirty diapers made me sign up for an Amazon subscription of Pampers real quick. I'd much rather pay the 10 to 25 cents a diaper.

Tried bulk buying....saved more money not bulk buying and lost weight!!! I now buy only what is on sale at the grocer and only what is needed for the week. I hate seeing things go to waste, rot, and more than likely you eat more when there is more to eat.

Tried to switch from Tide when it is not on sale, always go back to Tide when on sale.

Tried to switch from Dove.

Tried to switch from Dawn.

Waste more money on hair products that are suppose to make your hair look luxurious. Have never found the product that works for me.

 

[goodeats]

We tried cutting cable, but then ended up spending more money at the sports bars trying to catch our team.

 

[DawnM]

Making homemade laundry detergent was one that didn't work for me either. It started out great, and I'll give myself credit, I stuck with it for two years even when it wasn't ideal because we needed the money for our wedding and honeymoon, but now I use Biokleen brand off Amazon. Cost effective, doesn't make me break out, clothes look great, and I can use it on my baby's clothes and cloth diapers as well as mine and hub's clothing.

Another thing that didn't work for me was swagbucks. Seemed like I couldn't get anything out of it (or st least not enough to make it anywhere close to worth it). Shopkicks, ibotta, and checkout 51 worked much better for me.

We made homemade laundry soap for a couple of years (well, I should say I did), and Dh kept saying, "Can't we afford laundry soap?"

I had read online that washing machine manufacturers say that the laundry detergent people recommend using way too much soap and to use half per load.

I now buy Kirkland (tide knock off kind) on sale, (50% off of Tide on sale) and use half of that. It comes to under .10 per load. I am good with that. Homemade ran about .05 per load. But after a while our clothes just looked dingy.

 

[SirDuff]

I had read online that washing machine manufacturers say that the laundry detergent people recommend using way too much soap and to use half per load.

That's one of the reasons why I don't use those "pods". I always use less the recommended about of detergent and it works well (I actually find that using the recommended amount doesn't always rinse out as well).

 

[DawnM]

That's one of the reasons why I don't use those "pods". I always use less the recommended about of detergent and it works well (I actually find that using the recommended amount doesn't always rinse out as well).

I use pods on vacation, they are easier for me to take, but at home, no way, they are .25 each typically.

I did read a blog on how to make your own laundry pods! And I actually have the ingredients still, so maybe I should do it just for kicks and to use up what I have.

 

[1st*toright]

We also used to belong to a CSA (farm share) where we got a selection of produce weekly from June-October. It was nice for the first couple years we did it, but then we had a couple disappointing years with it (not as much variety/less veggies we really liked) so we stopped. I'm not sure if we saved money by doing the CSA since we rarely ate everything we got on a weekly basis.

I am positive that my CSA does NOT save me money - especially because they have amazing bread from a local bakery for sale (not included in our CSA cost for the year) and other local products that are delicious, but cost an arm and a leg! Every week I go in saying I won't buy anything, but I do - every week! They let us pick out our own share - so there are bins of what is available and you fill your bin or bag (depending on size of your share) with whatever you want. So I don't wind up with veggies we won't eat. It does give us a great variety of fresh, local produce all summer, and the cost of share probably covers the cost of all the veggies we get (if you compared them at Whole Foods prices for organic etc.) Also, the farm owners are good friends of ours, so we are happy to support the farm.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I tried being an "extreme couponer"...well not to the extent of that on TV, but trolling coupon websites, etc. It was way too much work with very little results. I shop the sales at my local grocery store and use their coupon App. instead.

 

[DawnM]

I tried being an "extreme couponer"...well not to the extent of that on TV, but trolling coupon websites, etc. It was way too much work with very little results. I shop the sales at my local grocery store and use their coupon App. instead.

Yup, I did it for a while, but we ended up with 50 tubes of toothpaste, 20 mustard bottles, and 40 boxes of some new cereal that we ate for months.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

I tried being an "extreme couponer"...well not to the extent of that on TV, but trolling coupon websites, etc. It was way too much work with very little results. I shop the sales at my local grocery store and use their coupon App. instead.

Yeah I see extreme couponing working best for those who want to donate the items to a charity like the food bank or shelter. Too often the item in question is some branded product that you don't need to stock up on. One would have saved more money by NOT buying the bulk quantity branded item on a loss-leader sale and either doing without, waiting until an actual sale, finding a generic version or making your own.

Because yeah, as others have said, what are you going to do with 30 bottles of mustard?

As for our local CSA garden box program, I like using it as I feel it's a good value, but oh it drives me crazy when they throw two bags of onions in there. Or even one bag of onions. Our household just can't eat that many as my DH is the only one who will eat them.

 

[DLgal]

I never understood all the savings people are seeing with homemade laundry detergent. How much detergent does the average family go through?

We go through less than one (small) bottle per year. I put it into a soap dispenser and just use a few pumps for each load. The clothes are always clean and even have the detergent scent, so I think it's plenty.

One bottle per year??? How many people live in your house? We do no less than 8 loads per week. One standard bottle of Tide lasts us about 2 months.

And I also use less than recommended. I read the HE kind only needs about two tablespoons per large load.

 

[tzolkin]

That's one of the reasons why I don't use those "pods". I always use less the recommended about of detergent and it works well (I actually find that using the recommended amount doesn't always rinse out as well).

Yes, it seems like you're being cheap by using a tiny amount. But I learned this from my mom (who got a HE front loader before I did). Her machine would run for over two hours trying to rinse out all the detergent until she started using a tiny amount.

One bottle per year??? How many people live in your house? We do no less than 8 loads per week. One standard bottle of Tide lasts us about 2 months.

And I also use less than recommended. I read the HE kind only needs about two tablespoons per large load.

5 people (6 when we had an exchange student)

I probably use a little over 1tbsp per load. (I use a soap pump bottle.)

I only do about two loads plus sheets and dog items as necessary per week.

I had a bottle that I just replaced that I had brought from our previous home two years ago.

I really don't try to be stingy or save money. That just seems to be the amount needed.

 

[leebee]

Saving change doesn't work for us. It's great, in theory, but we also know it's there and any time we are going someplace we know we'll need quarters (to pay tolls, parking meters, whatever), we just dip into the change jar.

Buying meat, most produce, and frozen veggies in bulk (Sam's, BJ's, etc) doesn't work. There are only two of us. Produce rots, meat/veggies get freezer burn. Throwing things out does NOT save money!