Saving Money With Your Mind
It may be very obvious, and then again, maybe not, but to me, the best theory about saving money (and what few take time to understand), is not under-estimating the small savings. I talked a lot about this in Finding Financial Freedom.
When you read a book like The Tightwad Gazette, it is tempting to think “re-washing ziplock bags doesn’t save very much money”. But the trick is that the mentality of “using less and re-using everything” multiplied across thousands of daily practices becomes a big savings–IF it is a mentality.
How far can you stretch it? How little can you use? There are so many areas to apply this! (Shucks…we’re still making a game out of how many little people we can stuff in the bathtub together 
My hairdresser was talking about how many people over-wash their hair–that washing it every day is not healthy for it. So how could washing your hair every other day save that much money? Hot water, shampoo/conditioner, electricity for hair dryer….Now, multiply that across the whole family. That’s just one small area.
Apply the same concept to food, washing detergent, peanut butter, toothpaste–anything consumable. It will add up!
Just an extra bit of inspiration!
Related posts:
frugal living/saving money | Word Warrior | 
October 18, 2008 11:43 am
Good point! It has to become a lifestyle.
It’s like having a second income, if, the wife is looking for every way to save a penny. It could “pay” for her to be home/home-school.
Diana
Absolutely brilliant point…one that we must make more mothers aware of!
I agree with a thought that someone mentioned recently. Menus are wonderful! We have used menus for years, and it not only saves money, it also saves time! I don’t have to stand in the kitchen at 4:30 and wonder, “What are we going to cook?!”
It saves money, time, sanity, and removes the temptation to order pizza! :0)
I’m just wondering… if the every day hair-washing that you mentioned was hypothetical or is it a unique situation with Caucasians. I’ve never heard of anyone of African descent washing their hair on a daily basis unless it’s ultra-short.
You can tell on which side of the divide I fall for sure. So which is it? I really do want to know.
Ruth (Love your name!!!)
Some caucasians can go many days without washing their hair. I have thick, curly hair and can go a week without washing it. It does tend to get frizzier, bigger, but, never greasy or oily. I acutally have to put products in it to make it have shine/control it.
My husband, can only go a couple of days. His hair is finer and looks greasy if he doesn’t wash it as often.
Kelly, this is true! Being thrifty becomes a mind-set, and a good one. I wash out zip-lock bags, too. Here is another savings tip (I get made fun of for this one, and it probably doesn’t save much money, but it is part of the mind-set, like you said):
I like to use paper napkins. What I do is (don’t laugh) I cut them in half. My grandmother did this. It seems wasteful to just wipe your mouth once on a thick napkin and then throw it away.
I grab a handful of them, with the folded side facing you, then get the scissors and snip them in two, one after the other. It takes almost no time and you can do it while multi-tasking something else. Fold them in half or in triangles when you are done cutting them in half, so that they are easy to grab out of the napkin holder. Two packages of napkins for the price of one. A child could do this pretty easily and not cut herself, if watched.
I keep some uncut napkins for guests, because I got tired of people saying, “What’s with these napkins?”
Lots of people use cloth ones, too, which is a savings. When I was growing up, families simply passed around a cloth dish towel for the purpose, and threw it in the wash when they were done.
Oh, washing your hair didn’t come into vogue until the 60′s. They even had a product called “Every Night Shampoo”. Before that, I remember washing my hair only once or twice a week.
We didn’t bathe every day, either. Gross! But, that was the ’50′s. We used to think that your hair would fall out (really!) if you washed it every day.(But your eyebrows don’t fall out, and you wash your face every day!)
But, in the ’60′s, hair was long and loose (the hippies!) and seemed to need washing more often. Before that, it was set on curlers and sprayed in place. If it was greasy, we didn’t notice.
In the ’60′s and ’70′s, the “wet look” (hair plastered in place with Vitalis) was out, and the “dry look” was in. There was even a TV commercial that told us so! You had to wash your hair every day to achieve the dry look! A girl in my H.S. class put talcum powder in her hair to make it less greasy between washings. And, you could buy dry shampoo.
How is that for a history lesson?
I did a blog on grooming in my series on the 1950′s Housewife.
Civilla,
Cutting napkins–that sounds just like something I’d do, but actually haven’t–new stuff, I love it! I have torn paper towels in half.
I also wash aluminum foil if it’s not too dirty.
Good Points! It has to be a mindset first. We’re working our way toward that.
I started using an organic shampoo/conditioner which is unfortunately more expensive, but it allows me to wash my hair every 3 or 4 days. Hubby has switched to the old soap and straight-razor method of shaving. More expensive upfront (for the re-usable razor and brush) but far more economical in the long run (no expensive blade refill/cartridges or shaving cream.)
I know we have a long way to go – we had a dairy goat for a while for milk, but it was becoming alot more expensive than buying it : ( She required alot of grain to keep her supply up and she kept getting mastitis so $$ for meds was expensive.
Gardening also doesn’t work well up here…it doesn’t help that I can’t even keep houseplants alive.
You can iron the tissue paper that comes with those gift bags to make it look almost like new, so that you can use it again.
Smooth it out on your ironing board and iron it, with your iron at a low setting, no steam. It works!