Thursday, May 17, 2007

Frugal Habits

There are lots of ways to save money or to make money go farther... here are the frugal habits that I have cultivated that I am proud of

1. Wash and re-use Ziplock bags or better yet, use Tupperwear instead
2. Take my lunch to work everyday
3. Take my tea/coffee in a thermos to work everyday
4. Stopped buying books (very hard for a bibliophile) and use the library
5. Buy most, if not all, gifts and wrapping at Goodwill
6. Replace disposable Swiffer cloths with reusable microfiber
7. Replace disposable pads for Swiffer Wet Jet with reusable terrycloth
8. Refill Swiffer Wet Jet with my own cleaning fluid
9. Make cleaning fluid by reconstituting Simple Green Concentrate purchased in bulk and use it for everything
10. Make bread
11. Use my clothes line as much as possible
12. Wash all clothes in cold water
13. Make my sugar scrub instead of buying it.
14. Buy most of our produce at the produce outlet (5 pounds of bananas for $1.50)

Here are the habits I will cultivate when I deplete stockpiled items

1. Make laundry detergent
2. Make dishwasher detergent

Here are the non-frugal habits I need to break

1. I am still fat and fat us not frugal!
2. I have a tendency to shop when I am feeling blue/stressed
3. I LOVE Prestige cosmetics like Nars, Shu Emoura, Kheils, Benefit, and Philosophy
4. I give into laziness too often and rely on things like chicken fingers and tater tots for dinner.

What are your frugal habits/non-frugal habits?

5 comments:

jonathan said...

Mmmmmm... chicken fingers... tater tots....

But I like chicken fingers & tater tots!

Anonymous said...

Ok, so now you have me thinking of what I do that is frugal...so here goes: reuse baggies & tin foil, use only cloth napkins, use microfiber clothes for the swiffer, make my own instant oatmeal, once a year make spaghetti sauce w/fresh tomatoes for the year, shop thrift stores & yard sales, wash dishes once a day, take my lunch everyday, use tupperware to pack my lunch in, make my own ice tea, reuse a tea bag more then once. Mom

Anonymous said...

Okay, so it's not frugality exactly, but I take my own canvas bags to the grocery store and refuse to use produce bags (so yes, my apples and peppers roll around the conveyor belt at check-out). I CANNOT STAND the waste and excess use of plastic grocery bags. I guess overall, I just despise the excess of our consumer society and try to conserve in small personal ways.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, I forgot, I also hand all of my laundry to dry.

Alexandra said...

You might already do this, but if you don't want to cut out the prestige products, sometimes Amazon has some good deals on upscale brands. So does drugstore.com, and if you go through a rebater, like Bigcrumbs.com, you can shave a lttle more off.

That's what I do, although my cosmetic brands are on the lower end.