How Far Will You Go to Be Frugal? (2)by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 26 Dec 2006 01:16 PM
I judge not. I think that every frugal person has to find what works for her family, and some of these ideas may just inspire you. Collect the rain water off of your roof in a barrel and use it to wash your clothes. I wonder about this one. How clean is the roof? I imagine that all sorts of dirt would be in the collected water, but I could be wrong. Waiting for two or three uses before flushing the toilet. Since we are selling our house, this would leave a very nasty surprise for potential buyers! Use old hardware and discarded items for lawn decoration. My friend, Elaine is a whiz at this. Among her collection is a pretty bowling ball she uses on a pedestal. It is reminiscent of an old Victorian gazing ball. I would never get away with this at my house. One, I just don't have the knack. And two, my husband is a minimalist when it comes to the lawn. He has been known to remove perfectly nice bushes because they interrupt the line of the house. When buying produce, remove the stems of apples, pears, cherries, grapes, or anything that is sold by the pound. This way you aren't paying for parts that you won't use. This makes a lot of sense, but I am not sure where I would put 30 or so cherry stems! Cut band-aids in half to use when you have a paper cut or other small sore. Do you have any frugal ideas that others think may be going a bit too far? Please share! Related Articles: How Far Will You Go to Be Frugal? (1) Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments  Julie Gentry (5915) 26 Dec 2006 01:51 PMI'm not sure the stem thing is ethical. Surely stores must calculate the prices based upon the stems included :-(. We lost our water last week. Had to take the 5 gal bottle down to town to refill it so we'd have flushing water. To lesson the trips downtown, we did the three flush thing. After the first 'leftover', we modified it to KIDS ONLY. lol. Frankly, it wasn't worth leaving adult urine. Blecch. I wonder how much it actually saves? I'll have to try the lawn decoration idea. I have an old metal bedframe that might be great to raise peas on.  Mary Ann Romans (26876) 26 Dec 2006 02:30 PMOh wow Julie, I'm glad that you got your water back! How long was it out? I guess we could calculate the amount of water per flush and then calculate the cost of the water to see how much each flush costs. Hmm, I will have to get my husband on that one, just for curiosity sake. You are probably right about the stems. That is a very good point. Send me a photo of the bed frame for peas, if you decide to do it. I would love to see it. Julie Gentry (5915) 27 Dec 2006 05:33 PMFunny thing is, my father grew up in a household where it was the norm to leave it. "If it's yellow, it's mellow; if it's brown, it's down." Yeah, I know, gross. I guess if I was at that point, I'd rather go and pick up aluminum cans to make up the difference. lol. But we don't suffer for water here in the Northwest ;-). I am a Frugal Queen, though. I reuse food storage bags. My neighbor thinks that's the ultimate cheap :-D. I just use the cheapies to store meat, then put the cheapie bag (that will be thrown away) into a larger, heavy duty bag that gets washed. Mary Ann Romans (26876) 28 Dec 2006 10:06 AMThat double-baggin idea for meat is a great one! I always feel guilty for throwing out freezer bags that contained meat. I was trying to figure out if it would be more frugal to buy glass pyrex containers for the freezer instead of bags, but your idea may just tip the balance. I grew up in the city, in an apartment, where we never paid for water, so the saving water concept is new to me as an adult. I'll be posting a new blog on just that saving water topic! shellipsm (10) 03 Jan 2008 02:52 PMFor what it's worth, it's actually more environmentally sound to "let it mellow." We have the night enforcement rule in our house - DO NOT flush at night - we're light sleepers. You can save GALLONS of water but not flushing except, um, you know, when solids enter the picture... Mary Ann Romans (26876) 03 Jan 2008 03:21 PMThanks Shellipsm for that thought. I always feel self conscious about leaving it to mellow, as if someone will stop by and need to use the bathroom, such as my very clean inlaws. But we do practice the no flush rule at night, too. Hmm, maybe I could tell everyone that we are just trying to save the environment? Community Tags extreme frugality, garden, saving water Discuss this article
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