Saving Money the No-Brainer Way

I have to admit that I grew up thinking I was quite the princess. My parents, however, had no idea they were living with royalty and the complete torture they put me through, at times! I'm that kid that pays attention to details-- the disturbingly stupid details. I'm that kid who notices the stuff other people couldn't care less about, like trash bags (I know... useless information. I promise you, if you're ever on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire  I need to be on your call list. Waaaay to much useless information floatin' around inside the old nugget...). I was horrified when my parents would use plastic grocery bags as bathroom trash bags! I mean, who does that?? I'll tell you who does that-- SMART people! People who know those goofy bags are gonna have hair wads, filthy ear swabs (I kid you not, I think my young'uns have birds that are shedding feathers inside their ears), snotty tissues, other nasty, disgusting piece of trash you can think of in it.

For your reading pleasure, here's an Ecology lesson for you friends... you know where those bags of trash go after they leave your house? Well, if you're me and you live in the boonies and "Fred" doesn't come and get your trash in a truck once a week (or twice a week, if you live in "those" kinds of neighborhoods), your trash gets piled up in the back of your mini-van (because you don't have a truck) and taken to the dump. Regardless of how it gets there, sooner or later, it ends up in the LANDFILL. Last time I checked, there weren't different sections for "snooty-fied purchased trash bags" and "goofy old grocery sacks". In my opinion (and everybody's got one), saving money on small trashcan bags is a no-brainer, when you most likely get plastic bags for free at the store and they are the perfect size. And before you can throw a flag for putting plastic bags in the landfill and not recycling them at your local store, let's be real about it... aren't your regular trash bags (you know, the big ones) made out of plastic, too?

A few years ago, we moved. In the process of moving, somehow the water temperature knob on our washer got broken of-- literally, just sheared right off. The knob has been stuck in the "cold" position ever since. At first, I thought that was a crying shame, because I couldn't wash clothes in warm or hot water. However, using cold water to wash your clothes is a big energy saver. I'm sure you can imagine that I still have the "old-timey" washer... not the kind with a washboard and hand-crank wringers on it, but definitely not the new high efficiency washers. I just can't give up something that works completely fine and spend a load of money to buy something that saves some money. It just doesn't seem right to me... At any rate, hot water is a big drain on your energy bill. Using cold water to do your laundry is just as effective and will really save on your electricity bill. That said, should my family start passing the stomach funk around, we'll probably be headed to the laundromat. :)

If you're looking for ways to cut costs, but don't really want to change a whole lot, start with easy, no-brainers. Pretty soon you'll be saving even more money. Stay cheap & save on, friends!