My Frugal Evoloution

[Englishlady]

I have posted (waaaaaaaaaay back in my time on here) how I bought a tiny house on minimum wage when I was 19.

Those days were hard, there were no resources like the internet then.

In those dark days op the 1970's and 1980's we had rolling power cuts and high inflation, my mortgage rose from about 5% to 15% very hard to grasp now, but true.

Anyway those days made me what I am today and shaped the way I think.

As I have just hit 52 I have been thinking about how I have changed in the way I look at things.

For example most people think that fresh vegetables are best and indeed if you pick your own from your garden then I am sure that is true.

If like me you don't grow anything and are reliant on supermarkets then the produce you get is often not good having been flown around the world and or stored in warehouses for weeks at a time.

( I am aware of the argument for buying local I am talking generally here).

So having osteoarthritis in my hands and post surgery on one hand I decided to go "frozen".

Frozen vegetables are picked and frozen on the same day so they are fresh and according to nutritionists are just as valuable in the diet as fresh veg ( given that a lot of it is not great).

I don't have to chop and cut things so it saves time.
Given the fickle nature of pricing of of veggies they are often cheaper and there is more choice.

I recently made vegetable soup with frozen vegetables and a stock cube and it worked out to be about 20 pence for 2 huge portions where as the same amount from a tin would have cost £1.50 or more.

When you get to the bottom of the bag and there are scrappy bits, they go into a bag and when there is enough, thats more soup!

I buy a bag of frozen mushrooms and make great mushroom sauce with it, so much cheaper than fresh and mushrooms have such a short shelf life.

Laundry liquid is something that is not often on sale, not the stuff I like anyway so I have been experimenting.

Now I just use washing soda crystals in the machine ( about 2 table spoons).
On shirts and tops I rub the collars and "pit" areas with a wet bar of carbolic soap ( very similar to your Fels naptha) this is very good for getting stains out, even tomato stains!
Doing it this way saves a fortune but of course there is no "fresh washing smell" so if that's an issue I can ( and have ) added a few drops of lavender oil.
So far I have not noticed any difference in cleanliness so that's money saving and less space needed in our tiny house to store laundry liquid
pan scrubbies are pieces of cheap netting from a fabric store, they are gentle but scratchy enough to clean the plates ( put the carbolic/fels naptha in a piece of net and get great cleaning on hard to remove stains).

Washing up: We buy bubble bath to refill handwash bottles and this is also used to wash up.

Fill a squirty bottle 2/3 full of water, top up with bubble bath, mix gently and squirt at the plates, add scrubby netting and bingo, great cheap washing up!

This saves us buying dish washing liquid, soap is soap right?
I like to keep my kitchen counter tops clean and years ago I decided that what is good enough for babies is good enough for me.

I bought sterilizer tablets (intended to sterilize babies bottles) in a spray bottle of water I add one tablet let disolve and that cleans the countertops really well and without streaking.
This is very cheap as one box ( about £1) lasts about a year or more!
Each time I come across something in the house, I ask myself if it is needed or can I use something else ( that I already have) that I can use instead?
Recently I got some great "colour catcher" sheets that work great and mean you can wash cloured items with pale items and the colour comes on to the sheet, not the other washing.

Being a cheapskate I couldn't bring myself to throw away the now dark colour catcher sheets so I thought, it's worth a few pence to try an experiment.

I put a bunch of the dark used sheets into a bit of bleach and left them for a few hours, they didn't go back to bright white, but about 95% of the dark dye came out, so I used them again and it works!!!!!!!! (Rinse well in clean water before re-use) I would only use a "recycled one" on less precious stuff just in case) but still it means that something meant to be thrown away can be used again
In the bathroom we use the cheap soft but "thin" toilet paper, it is about one quarter of the price of the "good stuff". Yes, I do use twice as much of the thin stuff, but it "dissolves" in the water easier ( less chance of blockage) and even using twice as much of the cheaper stuff is half the price of the "good stuff" ( IYKWIM)?

Breakfast cereals :
We buy store brand "all bran" for its er, theraputic effects but of course it's hardly a tasty start to the day. So we "cut it" LOL with a nice box of tasty cereal , basically we use the nicer more expensive cereal as a "garnish", this makes the good stuff last at least twice as long, maybe longer depending on your portion sizes.

As we are currently in the process of doing our house we decided that we wouldn't have a dishwasher.
They are not as common here as in the USA but they are pretty standard in new houses.
My thinking: I would have to buy the machine, then there are electric costs, then there are cleaning products for the dishes, rinse aids and stuff to clean the machine itself!.......Phew, at the end of that the water goes down the plug hole. ( I have not taken into account the water used to pre-rinse!)
Hand washing dishes here: sink already there, bubble bath mix = dirt cheap. water for soapy washing in one sink rinsing in another, both sinkfulls of water are then used to flush the toilet ( we live on one level so no hardship). Doing this we have reduced our water bill
Every day I try and think of ways of getting rid of stuff that isn't needed and using stuff that we already have, it's almost a hobby and I think eventually you can't think any other way

[Darlene]

52 looks good on you! I'm with you on the frozen veggies, I very rarely buy canned and only have a couple cans in case of power outages etc. Don't want to open my freezer.

Cheap tp here too, 1000 sheet stuff. My kids went to other peoples homes and raved over the cushy stuff,lol. I told them how much that costs and how quickly people go thru it. Told my kids it's good to be able to "rough" it, lol.
We're big on store brands (most times cheaper) and for the most part they really are equal in quality. Just started shopping at a new store that moved closer to me and I have only found their salsa to be watery, all other things are great.
Save where you can to enjoy what you want.
Carry on!

[ladykemma2]

excellent post.

note to americans. british washing machines are 1/2 the size of ours, so adjust washing soda amount.

[xtena]

Your comments on the rough toilet paper brought back on old memory of my years living in Beijing, China in the 1990s. My father in law worked in a paper factory. He used to bring home toilet paper made from recycled paper. This stuff was rougher than paper towels AND you could often see letters in it from the newspapers that it was made from.

[cab54]

Many good ideas here, Englishlady! The cheap bubble bath use is interesting...I will have to give it a whirl.

[mauimagic]

What a well thought out and informative post!! Mahalo!! Love how ou have evolved over the years and built on your experiences!! Looking forward to more!!