Just when I thought we were already tight, we need to get even tighter.  What an adventure!  Learning to do with less and being more thoughtful about what we do with our small income.

I am so thankful we don’t have a mortgage – just one of those blessings of caring for someone else’s home.

Here are some things we are planning on doing or are already doing to save cash:

  • This year we are definitely putting in a garden.
  • We take fewer and shorter showers.
  • We use the dishwasher now.  I didn’t want to use the dishwasher for years thinking it took a job away from the kids.  Well, after finding out that a dishwasher only uses 2 – 3 gallons of water as opposed to the 20+ gallons of water (three times a day) used during hand washing I was convinced to change.  The kids still get to wash the meal prep stuff and rinse the dishes for the washer, but I figure we use less than half the water now.  That is less heated water as well as less water going into the drain field.
  • Clothes are more carefully used.  Even though I rarely bought brand new, the used stuff got tossed rather than repaired.  Now I am repairing!
  • Reusing clothing.  This is different from repairing.  This involves remaking a dress, shirt, pants into something that fits a smaller person.  It is fun and very creative to see what we can remake.  My favorite thing is to remake denim items.
  • We cut our garbage bill down by two thirds just by carefully recycling.  All paper is sorted.  Cans are all smashed.  Glass is sorted.  Plastic is rinsed and sorted.  Clean cardboard and packaging is broken down.  Veggie scraps go to the compost.
  • What goes into the garbage?  Plastic packaging and plastic wrap that comes on packaging.  Meat and bones.  Wet or food covered paper is trash.  Bathroom trash (and diapers, if we were still using the disposables). That’s it!  Not much anymore.  We go to the dump every 5 – 6 weeks now instead of every other week.
  • My next step is to try to only buy things that come in recyclable packaging.  We buy apples from the local produce store by the box instead of those plastic packages like they use at Costco.  There may come a time when we can incinerate our trash again, too.
  • Taking one trip to town per week for all needs instead of multiple trips for any excuse.

All this and more will help cut out wasted $$.  I won’t bother to (or continue to) beat myself up thinking I should have started this years ago but now is the best time to start.

I thought I might spend some time talking about how we save here and there in future posts.  Feel free to share your ideas, too.

Filed under: budgeting and finances

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