Tuesday, July 13, 2010

"Extreme" ways to be frugal

I really liked this post from Money Saving Mom. Along with the link she provided from Getting Freedom's corresponding post.

A little over a year ago in my efforts to become more frugal I made a baby step by getting rid of my beloved swifter for an "old fashioned" mop. Nothing extreme about it. I actually still use my swifer for my upstair bathrooms since they are small spaces and I don't want to lug a wet mop up the stairs. Which may change soon...

This portion of Getting Freedom's post reminded me of my new mop instead of swifers...

"• Toss the disposables. Cross the paper towels, napkins, and diapers off of your grocery list. Purchase or make affordable reusable alternatives; old rags are usually free! (It has now been over three years since I bought my last roll of paper towels, and my cloth cleaning rags are still working great!) Nurtured Family offers an affordable, basic kit of “one size” cloth diapers from Econobum that can fill the need (and they don’t even need pins!). Or, contact The Cloth Diaper Foundation (formerly Miracle Diapers) for assistance. (You can always decide to “upgrade” your cloth diapers later, when your budget allows, if you want to.)"

So I am taking another baby step. I ran out of lysol/clorox wipes along with swifter wets last week and I am NOT going to buy any more!! I'll be using towels/sponges and cleaners to clean my counters, ect... from now on.

I don't have an amount that I have saved from using my mop instead of my swifer over the past year+ but I know I have saved just by the amount of swifers I used to use/buy compared to the amount of cleaner I use/buy now with my mop today. And I usually can get the cleaners for cents with sales and coupons!

I also plan to stop buying paper towels when I run out of them. I have a large package in my garage so that baby step is not upon me yet. Can you believe that my girls used about 5 paper towels one night at dinner??? That's when I knew it was a bigger expense than I realize.

What new or old baby steps are you doing to be more frugal?

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