Budget Stretching

Blame this on @hot diggity its his idea but i got tired of waiting on him

Post your best budget stretching ideas.
#1 post was over on random cool tricks for diluting hand soap (also @hot diggity fault)
Here are my refinements for foaming soap

KITCHEN
Half water Half Dawn... Dawn removes grease from anything
put foaming soap on pan swirl around or scrup then rinse. or let it sit and everything comes off easily

BATH SINK
Bronners or Castile Half water and half soap
put soap on hands lather up, scrub a dub dub, then turn water on and rinse.
saves water and soap

BATH/SHOWER
Add 20-30 drops of oil to half/water half/soap mix Castile or Bronners liquid soap are relatively cheap and if you are like me you want smell good add essential oils of your choice.

Anytime my hands get too dry i use oil in the foaming soap.

You can do any of the above by buying cheap soap from the Dollar store and diluting it half and half.

Ive never bought foaming bottle tops i purchased Watkins foaming soap on sale and just refill the bottles.

Ok post your best budget stretching ideas.

 

Use cheap shampoo instead of hand cleaner.

just the thing for the gunk from working on Das Auto.

 

I seem to be stuck on that v05 shampoo for over all washing. It's cheep and a bottle last me for a while, so stocking up is easy.

 

Women can be so impatient.

Last two nights I've fallen asleep on the sofa as soon as I got home. This morning I woke up and found an unopened beer next to me. I guess that indicates I need more sleep. At least @Ganado has picked up the thread idea and run with it. Thank you.

Hopefully we won't need to remember this much longer, but it has saved the day on numerous occasions recently. Personally I hate a mask and landed in the hospital with respirator fatigue in 1990, so I have an aversion to them. They are, however, required at both my jobs when in contact with the public.... making me even more antisocial than ever.

The spare mask. Whatever kind you prefer, except the bulkier filter style will fold up and fit inside an Altoids tin. Toss it in your gun bag, purse, or whatever and it's ready when you need it.

Thrifty yet efficient washing of icky cloth masks and summer face towels. I've found that all the funky smells and bacteria that are in these things can be killed off with a quick wash in just a little water with a shot of Scope or Listerine. Choose your scent. I like Cool Mint. Rinse in fresh water and roll in a towel to get most of the water off, then hang it to dry before you go to bed. Next day you start with a fresh clean mask. Works for Chilly Pads and other cooling towels too. You can wash them before use and just leave them wet. nice evaporative cooling and a fresh scent.

 

Soap chips. Don't you hate trying to use that last little sliver of soap? A little advance planning, in good prepper style can prevent ever suffering with a soap chip again.

This is one of those, "doesn't everybody do that?" kind of things. I take the last 1/4 of each shrinking soap bar and drop it in the tub when I get out a new bar. After my shower I take the softened smaller bar and mash it into the lettered side of the new soap bar. Both being wet and reasonably softened and warmed, the two bars are then forever joined, and I never suffer with a soap chip.

I worked with a guy overseas that collected old soap chips and melted them in the rec room microwave. to form a "new" bar of soap.
It smelled as bad as it sounds, but he got out of the Marine Corps with $20K in the bank after four years of thrifty living. That was a pretty good nest egg in the early 1980's.

 

Tracking experiment. Now concluded. One roll of my favorite toilet paper will last about ten days. Just the awareness that I was tracking use, caused me to use less. It also gives me a ballpark estimate of how long my stores will last without resupply. Since fig leaves and pine needles are the alternative, this is good to know. (There's also the shower bidet, but that's another story)

 

Small barter and trade arrangements are something I really like to use to stretch my budget or support my hobbies.

You have to ask around, but often the old "one mans trash is another mans treasure" is true.

I used to haul my empty beer bottles to the recycler. I got nothing in return. Now I take them to a local craft lady who turns them into "sea glass" for craft projects. In return for bottles I've traded for tools and lanterns. Things that will be useful with proper maintenance 100 years from now.

I've traded empty plastic buckets for full plastic buckets of lead wheel weights for more than 20 years. Now, with more non-lead weights in the mix, I trade the labor of sorting this stuff for the hard lead, and get all the dead-soft tape weights for my muzzle loader bullet casting in return.

Got ammo?

The non-lead weights are still great fishing weights, and don't hurt your wallet so bad when you snag one in the rocks or cut a line on sunken razor wire. (I fish in interesting spots.)

Win, win, win.

What kind of treasures are you throwing away?

It's all about relationships. People powered. Just takes a little networking.

 

I bought two Budget stretchers one at Walmart lasted a week and one off Amazon and it lasted two weeks now they have them at the gun store but I think it will break even sooner than the other two

 

Good thermos bottle and lunchbox. Mine has saved me thousands over the years. Coffee a couple or three each day going to work, home, at lunch, is about $8 a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, is $2,000. Wife makes coffee for breakfast, puts hot water in thermos, lets set, pours it out and puts hot coffee in it, stays hot all day and 4 cups costs about 50 cents. Likewise a good lunchbox and tupperware. Wife makes soup, spaghettti, whatever, for supper, makes extra and freezes it in plastic container, keeps lunchbox cool, heat in microwave at lunch and eat. Much less salt and fat, saves $8 or so a day eating out. Makes muffins and cookies to go with coffee. All told, probably saves at least three or four thousand a year.

 

Right on Duane!
For years before retiring I seldom ate lunch out, unless the company was buying which they did sometimes. It wasn't because restaurant food was bad. It was because I got tired of paying $8 to $10 for $0.50 worth of food. The difference will buy one heck of a lot of groceries (or beer).

Back to the soap-ends...my father, who grew up during the Great Depression, saved soap ends and put them in a plastic cup. When he collected enough, he bought a soft bristled brush, added water and whipped it into a lather for shaving cream. He never ran out since there is always a virtual endless supply of soap bar ends.

 

@DKR i use cheap shampoo as well. I read 'cosmetic cop' book one time and saw that suave shampoo was one of the best shampoos on the market and cheap and have used it ever since. And you are 100% right you can use it for foaming hand soap as well. I use it for foaming body wash but I do add oil.

Scaly skin... oil with baking soda for a body scrub. I hate paying $30 for body and face scrubs.
While sugar sounds better and for some skin types it does work better, the finer particles in baking soda work better for me. mix oil and baking soda, rub on body/face, rinse of with cool water and the oil stays on to moisturize and the baking soda scrubs off you dead skin..

 

I alos save twist ties from packages. Those things are useful for hanging decorations to tying cords together at your computer or other electronics in a pack

 

You can tie an odd size lantern mantle on with a bread tie.

 

Talking about soap. If you buy bar soap, buy lots. Set it away and let it dry out. It will last much longer, won't lather up so much though. I discovered this after my wife and daughter passed away, haven't bought soap in three years. (Yes I still shower) And soap chips can be stitched inside a folded over wash cloth, harder to drop the soap and it's easier to use.

 

I do this a bit differently, putting the chips in the toe of 'retired' panty hose leg & tie it closed. While afield, makes for soapy goodness and good for scrubbing the hide to remove the dirt/smoke smell that seems to get embedded.

Hang to dry.

 

We finally got a Goodwill store in Anchorage - two actually.

I buy all my clothes at these places. Have for years now. New clothing prices at retail stores here in town are just stupid high. I would shop at Factory Outlet malls when Outside. Now, I have Goodwill.

Not uncommon to find new jeans (in my size) with the store labels still attached. 3 pairs of tan dress (Dockers brand) pants - $10. New Levis - $6. and so on.

I mentioned this to a work mate and got an odd look. Which is OK, I smile all the way to the bank....

My parents wee Depression babies/kiddos. We had the never buy on credit/use it up, wear it out/do without pounded into our noggins from day one. We've managed to pass some of that along to our kids...

 

That's a great tip for a guy that lives on the beach. Keeps the sand off the soap too. You could roll it around in sand and just rinse it off. Without the panty hose you'd have permanent sand embedded in the soap bar.

I remember doing this in the past, but I'd forgotten what great field pack applications it had. Thanks!

 

"Possum Living" - the book

this thread talked about the book Possum Living which also had great tips for living frugally.

 

Buy dawn soap by the gallon and use it for hand washing and clothes washing.

 

Take two ply toilet paper and make two rolls out of one.

Green onions clip the tops put the bulbs in a little water place on window seal in sun light 4 days clip again and place the clippings in a empty water bottle in the freezer and freeze use as needed

Don't throw away fish back bones bread it in flower and yellow corn meal and fry a few will make a meal

Milk jugs and any HDPE beor can#2 recycling made into boards slingshots blow gun cone darts knife handles all kinds of styff