My newest kick besides trying to make things better for the environment is becoming a tightwad. Not only does this save you money but if you try to reuse everything possible rather than buying new you are making an impact on the environment from the amount of waste going out.
My family did a book swap and out of that swap I took The Tightwad Gazette volumes 1,2, and 3 which apparently was huge in the '90s written by Amy Dacyczn. She has some great ideas of how to reuse items, cook from scratch recipes, and crafts. She started with a goal in mind in her case a house and worked on saving enough money for that house which then led to just a whole lifestyle change. I'm not there yet but I have a goal and am slowly making the change to being a tightwad. It is very difficult when the rest of the world is all about spending money and not saving. I'll be putting up ideas of Amy's, mine and other people I get ideas from up every so often on how to save money.
I just made the switch to not buying wipes but using homemade. This one is hard if you have a sitter that is younger and doesn't know much about cloth diapering and expects store bought. I have dealt with this by buying a pack of wipes (with coupon) and only using them with the sitter so one pack will last a couple months if not longer since we don't go out much.
I am learning about canning and freezing food as I go. There are so many things that can be frozen that I didn't realize. This helps save on the amount of food thrown out! I just froze my first batch of tomatoes that i will use for goolash.
One main things that sticks with me from the books so far is that if you read your dishwasher detergent it usually doesn't say to fill the dispenser in the washer some say only fill halfway. I just started this and mine says to only fill halfway so make sure to read the directions on the detergent!
A lot of the things I already did are saving us money as well. For example, using vinegar to clean and in laundry. A bottle of vinegar is roughly around $2-$3 and I can use it for a couple months for everything. Same goes for the baking soda and lemon juice. So many more ideas to come! And would love to hear some ideas from others!
In my effort to be more thrifty, I decided to go to the library to look for the Tightwad Gazette instead of Amazon like I normally do... well Miss Heidi, you must have a large reader base in Nappanee, because all 3 copies were CHECKED OUT!
ReplyDeleteFound a couple other books, I'll let you know what I think after I'm done!
Definitely let me know what books you read and what you thought. I completely finished all 3 Tightwad Gazette books and would love to find some more to read!
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