02.04.08

143 Specific Ways to Save Money and be more Frugal

Posted in Abundance at 11:50 am by BartonG

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.
- Ralph W. Emerson

I’ve created spent the last few days creating a mega list of ways you can save money in tons of different areas in life. The list could grow larger and more complex, but I hope given you enough to blow you away.

After a while though, you’ll notice that there are but a few underlying themes that motivate everything. Live moderately and cut back on consumerism. Simplify your whole life by organizing the order of which you do things. Learn the principles and you’ll find the specifics.

I’ve divided the long list into chucks for easer viewing. The sub-topics include philosophy, general savings, your car, what you eat, your house, and utilities. In total, there are over 143 tips to help you save a little extra money. 143. Just scroll down to the section you like the most and start saving.

Furthermore, I’m certain that my huge list will spawn great ideas in your head. Please, do us all a favor and share, no mater how trivial you think it is!

Frugal Philosophy

What I love about frugal living is the positive side effects. When I cut down on gas, I reduce pollution. When I eat more vegetables and legumes, I improve my health and eat cheaper. It’s a nice deal.

As a philosophy, frugality isn’t about asceticism and denial. It’s actually about balance, simplicity and respect. When I fast once a month, I acknowledge the abundance of life and recognize that food will always be there but I’m temporarily choosing to go without. When we live in balance, we know that there will always be enough, food-wise, financially, and everywhere.

The gluttony that leads to obesity isn’t just a costly side effect of self-disrespect, its a fear based mentality. You eat something so good that you can’t stop, surpassing satisfaction. Is a meal so good that you will never taste something like it again? Will there be some kind zombie-apocalypse induced famine that will prevent you from eating in the future? Seriously, if you are viewing the internet, you are living in a reality where you will always enough food to eat.

The tricky part is that marketers are always baiting us the with fear-based emotional crap. “For a short time only!”, “While supplies last!”, “On sale!”, and “I’m only teaching these secrets to a selected few people who are willing to work three hours a week for $134,000 a year*.” They’re good at it. For a fun time, look at the magazine rack at the supermarket and look at the scarcity they impose upon you. No doubt they’ll tell you how to have amazing sex (as if you’re not already having it), how to catch him/her and keep them (because without a half-page insert, you’d be single the rest of your life), how to loose 20 lbs (because you are fat), and find out the top ten stocks you need to know (because you’re not smart enough to discern for yourself). Insulting.

Be smart, be simple. There is enough in life to make you wildly happy, and constantly searching for it will consistently deny it from growing from where you already are. Cut down enjoy what you’ve got. You’re already globally rich if you own a car or have air conditioning in your home. A bigger house isn’t going to make you happier. Frugality is a way of paring back to a more essential style of living, one where creativity and discipline make a difference. Find out what you need, and what you want. Not that all desire is the cause of suffering, but you get the idea.

The ingenious part of it managing your needs vs wants is that you trade off momentary wants for long term wants - which are typically more satisfying. A big mac every day for a year, or bring your lunch from home and enjoy a month in Thailand in December. Hmm……

In General

1. Little things add up. Saving here a little, there a little can mean a huge difference over the course of a month and more so over several years.
2. Buy in bulk, saving in the per unit price but also cutting back the time you’ll have to spend restocking the items.
3. The corollary to the above is to buy just what you need, especially when it comes to items that have a short shelf life. Think of all the money you threw away in spoiled, unused goods!
4. “What gets measured gets managed.” - Peter Drucker, guru. Keeping records will help you identify opportunities to improve. The next step is to form plans with your ideas of improvements.
5. Recognize the point of diminishing returns. Know the point where additional micromanagement just adds frustration but not an equal or greater amount of satisfaction and personal value.
6. Everything is negotiable. We’ve had the instinct beaten out of us, and we behave like sheep buying most products as if there wasn’t a choice in paying less for the item. You’ll be surprised to find out that you can often get a discount just by asking for one. An easy step beyond that is to identify the win/win situations and present them to sellers. If there exists a fairly logical reason why they would ultimately benefit from cutting you a break, find it and tell them! My father and I successfully have negotiated meals at expensive restaurants, hotel prices (million dollar deals), nightly rate to stay at hotels, home prices, free food at Arby’s, canned pineapple at the grocery store, frozen ice-cream after a brief power outage, the price of car rentals, car purchasing prices, half month utility bills, school grades, vacation times, pay raises, baseball cards, comic books, free drinks, extra fries, cheaper airline tickets, and so forth.
7. Persuade, charm and flirt. I made one small little lie above. I didn’t actually negotiate the free food at Arby’s. I just smiled brightly and entertained the cashier before I asked her, “Is there anything you can hook me up with? Maybe extra stuff, lying around, …” followed by my beautiful brown eyed puppy dog look.
8. Batch tasks and purchases together. More than just buying in bulk, it helps you get in the flow of whatever you’re doing to develop a rhythm that will cut down on time.
9. Beyond Multi-tasking -do two or more tasks concurrently with the exact same effort. Many things can be done at the same time. I cook frozen veggies in the same hot water I use to cook the pasta, throwing them in a few minutes before the pasta’s done. Additionally, my wife and I both shower at the same time. While I’m rinsing, she’s letting the conditioner penetrate in. Then we swap positions, she gets wet and I scrub. It sounds dirty, and certainly can be, but this time I’m serious.
10. Wait. Developing the “I can wait” attitude will take your frugality game to the next level.
    1. Many things get cheaper and more powerful as time goes on, such as computers. The more I wait, the better that laptop will be for cheaper.
    2. When you hold off just for a few little while longer, money in the bank can accumulate more interest.
    3. Make due without for a little longer: If you have an addiction to blueberry pie, instead of buying it once a week, buy it once every nine days. that’s a savings of 12 pies a year.
    4. Waiting allows the universe to present more options to you. By postponing to buy a couch for 4 months, I found a great one that my family was trying to get rid of.
11. “A stitch in time saves nine.” When you are prepared, you prevent many expenses that pop up. If you actively put aside money every month above and beyond your car payment, knowing that will break down someday, when you have to fix it or replace it you won’t have to pay as much interest in “emergency” credit card uses or other loans. In fact, you probably will have made a little interest off saving. Also, just keep up on regular maintenance to prevent breakdowns. Bring your own extra batteries when going on vacation. Tourist spots hit you hard for those.
12. When you don’t need it, get rid of it. Instead of maintaining, heating, cleaning and caring for old stuff that you don’t use sell it or donate it to charity and write it off on your taxes. Cultivating simplicity in life will make you happier, as well as give you more breathing room. This tip does not unnecessarily work for family members.
13. When buying appliances, look for energy-friendly options. Do the math and see if the savings of electricity are worth the investment (savings divided by purchase price = annual yield). I know that front-end loaders can be great a choice for many budgets.
14. Learn to be trustworthy so that friends and family can feel comfortable loaning stuff to you, or helping you out. I have a large network of solid friends whom I respect enough to loan anything to, and they in turn do the same for me. If I’m sick, I call my mom who’s a doc. If I need a home loan, I’ve got a guy who does that for a living and will make sure I don’t get ripped off. I’ve got a friend who is plummer and one who’s an electrician. Just like the Beatles song, I get by with a little help from my friends.
15. Make sure to withhold the right amount of taxes from your paycheck. There is no reason to give the government a zero percent loan that you could have made interest from when it is in the bank.
16. Furthermore, spend some time NOW to become familiar with what you deduct from your taxes.
17. Own your own business, if only for tax purposes.
18. When you shop for clothing, shop for outfits instead of pieces. Buy two shirts that each match with two pair of pants. You’ll have four outfits instead of two. When you buy pieces by themselves, instead of thinking as your wardrobe as a whole, you’ll find that you can’t wear certain pieces very often. By knowing and following a specific style direction, you can make everything you purchase fit into your wardrobe and be very interchangeable without looking like a drunk clown dressed you. I personally own a very small number of clothing items, but since they all work together, I have a lot of great outfits and don’t need to buy clothing very often.
19. Additionally, when buying clothing, I purchasing twice the quality and half the quantity. I spend the same amount, but have clothes that last longer and are WAY nicer. Like I said, with these two strategies, I don’t buy clothes very often.
20. Fight the urge to buy anything on credit. Buy quality used items until you can afford to purchase new items with cash.

Your Car

You may think that you have a nice car and that it serves you well. On one hand that is true - it gets you to work, the movies, school, church, etc. Do yourself a favor and remove the sex appeal, machismo, and false social status you believe a cars gives you and logically think about it as part of the business of your life. Stocks, bonds and real estate are investments in the fact that they produce money for you. Your car is a liability, and although it performs valuable services, it also constantly serves the purpose of taking your money and giving it to someone else.

I used to sell cars for a living, and now I can hardly stand them. I know the dirty truth about the business. Please. I beg you. Cut back.

1. Spend less in auto insurance by shopping around for a cheaper insurance carrier.

2. As your car gets older and you are close to paying it off, trim off excess insurance. Consider just having liability insurance.
3. Raise your deductibles to lower your monthly premium.
4. Maintain your car properly and regularly to prevent costly and untimely breakdowns.
5. Do some of the maintenance yourself. Things such as changing the oil, checking the battery, and replacing minor parts are all within your ability if you have a book. Your local library might just have one to suit your needs, too.
6. Spend less money on gas by planning your errands to be done in batches, cutting down on excess miles. Furthermore, make sure to plan routes that minimize travel and and avoid backtracking.
7. Plan and combine grocery shopping and fueling up at stores like Smith’s that give you gas price reductions when spend enough buying food. At my local Smiths, I save 5 cents a gallon with 20-30 bucks and up to 15 cents at something like $100. If I’m going to buy the groceries anyway, might as well save on gas too.
8. Buy your gas early on cold mornings. Gas expands as it gets hotter.
9. Never have less than 1/4 of a tank of gas. Sediment (gunk) settles at the bottom of the tank, and having enough fuel means not pumping it through the engine, causing wear and future expenses. Additionally, avoiding “close-to-empty” situations allows you to choose where you fuel up, getting better gas prices.
10. Consider the work/reward ratio’s of using and/or creating bio-diesel. Check out www.biodieselcommunity.org
11. Find the closest and cheapest gas stations are. Try www.gaspricewatch.com.
12. Buy lower grade octanes, especially in higher altitudes where effects of premiums gasolines are greatly diminished if not completely lost.
13. Wait a few seconds to make sure all the gas has left the hose and nozzle. Tipping the hose may still get a little extra gas from the hose at some stations.
14. Get better gas mileage by keeping the car as empty as possible. Removing all the un-needed stuff from your trunk, and un-used ski racks.
15. Get better gas mileage by accelerating slowly and avoiding race off the line starts.
16. Get better gas mileage by staying in higher gears without speeding, as well as shifting properly at the cars suggested RPM’s.
17. Get better gas mileage by maintaining proper tire pressure.
18. Break slowly - if you feel comfortable with it and it’s safe, use the rolling stop maneuver and keep flowing slowly on.
19. Get better gas mileage by turning off your car instead of letting it idle. My rule is that if you are going to wait ten seconds, just turn off the car.
20. Get better mileage by learning the best and shortest routes to places you frequently go, and if you’re anal enough learn to time the traffic lights to places you go daily, like work.
21. Carpool.
22. Do group errands/ share the load of driving. Switch off picking up kids from school, etc.
23. Don’t wander around a parking lot looking for a super close space when the distance is arbitrary. Just park, and walk the twenty extra feet.
24. Favor parking spots that allow you to pull out forward instead of using reverse.

25. If you have to buy one, consider buying a quality used car. Cars are not investments and rapidly decrease in price, especially the first few years.

26. Obviously, dealers mark up their cars, but American cars with about 50k miles are bought by dealers way below blue-book value and usually marked up a LOT. Negotiate.
27. You can save some money by choosing the right type of car to purchase. Quality imports such as Honda Civics, Toyota Corollas, etc, are popular because they are quality cars. In many places, their popularity also means that they dealers have to be competitive price-wise to sell them, ergo less mark up.
28. Also, the smaller new Scion cars (without the add ons) have very little mark up, so you pay less in commission and get more car value per dollar.
29. When buying a car, save up as much money to pay as a down payment as possible, lowering the amount of interest you’ll pay for over the life of the loan.
30. Secure financing with your bank or credit union before shopping for cars to get good interest rates, as almost all dealers won’t be able to beat them.
31. The exception to the above is when you great credit (tier one) and qualify for manufacturers financing, which can be very attractive, the best being the zero percent loans. Remember that life is a parade - there will inevitably be a time when the car or brand you desire will have special incentives.
32. Trade in your car to the dealer as a last resort. Six months before you think you want a new car, start putting it in the paper, craigslist, etc. It is ten times easier and quicker to get into a new car than get out of an old one. Time is your ally, and the longer you can wait the better chance you have to accept a fair offer for your car. Salesmen are good at what they do, and you’ll get suckered into buying a car and having to unload your old car unfairly to avoid paying two car payments.
33. Again, learn to negotiate. Salesmen are the professionals, and will most likely be much better than you. Complicated schemes or trying to be a hard-ass don’t work as well as you’d think. Cut out the wheelin’ and dealin’. Find out what a fair price is for the car you’d like to purchase, by finding out the invoice for the car - what the dealer paid for it - and expect to pay more than that but way less than sticker. If you can’t get the sales staff to agree, just leave as friends and wait until you can.
34. Learn to live without a car, or just function with one car. It can be challenging at times, but after I worked out some of the details my wife and I share a car with little hassle and a fatter pocketbook. Check out www.walkscore.com to see what’s in close proximity to a location, or if you’re serious consider the book How to live well without a car.
35. Walk or bike wherever possible. Ironically enough, when I was selling I frequently walked to work, two miles one way.
36. Buy a bus pass and learn all the routes. Many cities have the full route maps downloadable for PDA’s, route planner websites, or a 800 number to help. You’d be surprised how useful this can be outside of the money saved. I’ve read dozens of books and completed hundreds of homework assignments on my way to the university.

What you eat

For me, eating is one of the largest, and most enjoyable expenditures.

I learned a lot about frugality in the kitchen from my mom, who in turn learned a good deal of it from the Ken Rosebery, the Grocery guru. If you live in Utah, you can listen to his radio show and learn his methods. (Sat. 11-12 AM, 1160AM or 102.7 FM) His website, www.gurusdeals.com, has meal plans laid out according to the stuff that will be on sale. He typically buys a weeks worth of groceries for 4 people at half the cost. You can read a little more about his system, of course for free, here.

1. Shop at one store, learn where everything is to minimize time spent shopping. This will also prevent you from buying crap you didn’t intend to.
2. Shop from a list that has been constructed around smart meal plans - including between meal snacks.
3. Use coupons.
4. Acquire more coupons and use them. Organize them in a little 3X5 card box, alphabetized. Use the weekend newspaper coupons, often available online early, or whatever channel you can get them. One of my favorites was revealed to me by Elsworth. By looking on the back of the package of whatever you are using or eating, find the “Questions?Comments?e Call …” number and tell them how much you enjoyed it or the lack thereof. They often respond by asking to send you coupons. If they don’t, ask if they having anything new coming out and if they have coupons or special deals for them. If the product was defective and they won’t appease you, ask for a manager.
5. Buy what is in season for cheap. Squash in the winter. Apples in the fall. Apricots in the late summer. Fruits and veggies are healthy too.
6. Change your diet to eat mostly vegetarian. Dried beans, rice, potatoes, bananas - a lot of healthy, nutritious, powerhouse foods are cheap.
7. Cut out beef and replace it with ground turkey, chicken, or tofu. Make hamburgers out of half beef, half turkey. Cheaper and healthier.
8. If you have to have your beef, learn to cook the cheaper cuts to make them taste better. I’d rather have a cheap sirloin cooked and spice to perfection than a over done expensive rib eye steak.
9. Do pot luck dinners with friends, splitting costs and having a good social time.
10. Eat a light lunch at Costco, Sams Club, or any other large place that has a regular planned free sample day.
11. Do lid’s on cooking (reduces heat loss, saves energy, cooks faster).
12. Use your crockpot to make nutritious meals that are easy to prepare and really cheap. You can do all the prep-work ahead of time and let the low and slow method of cooking will be result in some nice meals. What’s more, is when you smell that nice aroma when stroll through the door after a long day, you won’t break down and buy pizza.
13. Prep several meals at once, by cooking double portions of what you are already making, or just making use of the already hot oven or pans. You save on energy and total food preparation time.
14. Using the above, you’ll have some nice “left-overs” to take to work instead of eating out.
15. Fast once a month for 24 hours. There are health and spiritual benefits I won’t labor you with here, but at the least you’ve saved some cash on food.
16. Drink a lot of water. We often eat out of dehydration. Keeping hydrated will keep you from overeating, as well as help your body in the ways that only H2-O can. Drink a cup of water right before you sit down to eat.
17. Don’t buy bottled water. Just refill on bottle from the tap or your chosen filtering device. Penn and Teller did a funny episode of the show Bullshit on this topic.
18. Discover medium rare, al dente, and raw foods. Less cooking = saved energy.
19. Develop a finer taste for foods, and chew your food more. This will help you eat less and be satisfied without adding extra fats - not to mention helping you eat foods that are cheaper too. If veggies taste lackluster, it could because you have bombarded your tongue with ultra sweeteners, excess trans-fats and artificial flavors. After reading a book called The Warriors Diet, ate tried cutting out all artificial foods, and ate one large meal at night. At that meal, I ate less aggressive tasting foods first, such as salads and then moved to up to heaver tastes like grains, beef, etc. Until then, I never knew how deliciously sweet carrots were, or how good raw spinach tasted. You’ll find that natural flavors are great, and probably save on spices.
20. Conversely, learn to spice food properly. I can make cheap vegetables and potatoes taste like a full meal, satisfying the most lumberjack like man out there.
21. Develop and maintain a years worth of food storage. It’ll save you a ton of time and money. For more information, see one of my articles on abundance or google it.
22. Don’t eat out as often. With little extra effort (and perhaps the food network) you’ll enjoy cooking more and eat out less often. It has become a vicious circle in my family - if we want the best food money can buy, we cook at home. Very infrequently do I have something when dining out that I have had not had better in my parents kitchen. The bonus of going out for me is that the staff treat me like a king. I do no cleanup.
23. If you do eat out, go for lunch instead of dinner, as portions are often the same but much cheaper.
24. Learn the art of getting invited over to other peoples houses for dinner. Be gracious, absolutely. Ask if you can bring anything. Your portion will undoubtedly be cheaper than theirs. Don’t even ask to help clean up. Just do it. If you can be sociable, funny, or a good listener and you may be invited back.

Your House

1. Pay down your mortgage down faster, saving money on interest. One way to do this almost effortlessly is to pay the mortgage payment every four weeks instead of once a month. You hardly notice the difference in cash flow because you probably get paid every two weeks.
2. When buying a vacuum, shop for the bags first. You’ll be changing a lot of these over time, so it makes a big difference if the bags are expensive or not.
3. Re-upholster your furniture instead of buying new pieces.
4. Don’t use sticky notes for the house message system. My preference is a dry erase board, but scrap paper from old print jobs that is cut into 8 pieces work great. You even can punch a hole in one corner at put a metal ring around it to prevent them from getting away.
5. Learn how your home printer works so that you can use old paper and print on the other side.
6. Furthermore, you can get your ink cartridges refilled for less than buying new ones.
7. Don’t get a daily newspaper. If you must, just get the weekend edition (for the coupons, of course). Chances are you won’t even miss out.
8. Use cheap, natural cleaning agents to for general cleaning. Vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and lemon juice can remove stains, keep dishes from spotting and remove mildew at a fraction of the cost of commercial cleaners (not necessarily mixed together). Check out an additional article here.
9. Use bleach mixed with water in a spray bottle for cleaning bathrooms instead of expensive commercial cleaners. Bleach is the powerhouse chemical in most of them anyway, so there is litter difference.
10. At sinks, use the soap foamer dispensers instead of straight liquid soap dispensers. I like the later I get from the foamers, and filling them up with dish-detergent is really cheap.
11. Lower your home owners insurance premium- an excellent article on how to do so can be found here.
12. See if you can pick up any unsecured wireless networks for internet service instead of paying for it, or split wireless internet service with a neighbor.
13. Save on heating and air conditioning :
    1. Make sure you have and use a digital thermostat. Set the temp up 2 degrees in the summer and down 2 degrees in the winter.
    2. Maker sure your thermostat is away from doors and windows. Cold blasts of air will cause the thermostat to chill quickly and over-heat the whole house, wasting energy.
    3. Program your digital thermostat to turn off when no one is at home or you’re on vacation.
    4. Program the thermostat to go lower after the time when you’d be asleep.
    5. When it’s cold, wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat.
    6. When it’s hot, open a window or turn on a fan.
    7. If you don’t have a fan, consider getting one. Fan’s spend much less energy but make the air feel cooler.
    8. When heating or cooling the house, close off vents and doors to rooms that don’t need to be conditioned.
    9. Never block used air vents. A lot of wasted energy goes into heating the underside of a couch that you never use.
    10. Install storm windows or energy efficient double paned windows to keep the unwanted heat transfer from driving up your bills. (You can even cover windows with a thick sheet of plastic for some effect)
    11. Check for places where heat leaks occur and patch them. Bottom of the doors have thresholds that can be adjusted or replace, as well as where pipes come out of the walls. Check around windows and seems. Caulk as necessary. Feel for leaks on a windy day.
    12. Make sure your attic is well insulated with the pink-fiberglass stuff.
    13. Also make sure your attic can be well ventilated to transfer out heat that can be trapped in the summer.
    14. Make sure fireplace dampers are full closed.

Save on Utilities: Electricity, Gas, and Water

1. Clean off bulbs and fixtures so they give off the full amount of light so you can use less light sources or lower wattage bulbs. Cleaning off bulbs and fixtures periodically also helps the bulbs from getting overheated and burning out prematurely.
2. Make a habit of turning off lights when you are done in a room.
3. Open window shades instead of turning on lights.
4. Have task lighting, like desk lamps, in place so you can light up specific parts of a room instead of the whole room.
5. Use energy efficient light bulbs, compact fluorescent lights (CFL’s) or LED’s. They save on electricity and many I’ve purchased have mail in rebates attached to reduce their price. Although initially more expensive, CFL’s us 1/3 of the energy and can last up to ten times as long as cheap bulbs. Over the bulbs lifetime, you can expect to save$40-$50 (replacing a 75 watt incandescent bulb, assuming 8 cents/kwh).
6. Use the right amount of light for the job - install dimmer switches, and set the mood.
7. Have outside lights on a timer or have controlling photoelectric cells that turn off when it’s light outside. Remember to reset light timers during periods of long sunlight days and daylight savings time.
8. Place lamps next in corners, so that light can reflect off two walls instead of one.
9. Use less hot water by washing clothes in warm or hot water instead of hot.
10. Buy and install a hot-water sleeve. They are just like blankets, and often called hot water blankets, keeping heat in the water heater from dispersing out.
11. When going to the fridge, decide what you want before you open the door - or at least open the door to see what you want and then close the door while deciding.
12. Clean the coils on the back of the fridge periodically as to not overwork the machine and use extra energy.
13. Make sure the seal of the fridge (the gaskets) are sealing tightly. You should have a bit of resistance pulling out a dollar bill you’ve closed in the door.
14. Inside the fridge, make sure you have food well placed, never over-loaded or shoved all the way to the back wall. Lack of circulation will cause some spots to be warmer and some colder, which can cause ice build up or spoil food quicker.
15. When cooking, remove all the ingredients you’ll be using for the meal from the fridge at one time, and put them all back at one time. In the culinary arts, this is called “mise en place.”
16. Store liquids with covers on them. Not only do smells and flavors mingle to unprotected foods, but liquids will give off vapors, causing the fridge to work harder and can freeze, creating a problem you’ll have to defrost later.
17. Use the right appliance for the job. Instead of heating a large oven, use a toaster oven instead. Instead of a toaster oven, use a basic toaster. Instead of a toaster, sun dry it.
18. Consider building a solar powered cooker. They are fun, cheap projects and function like a solar powered crock-pot.
19. Use reliable thermometer to test how cold your fridge is and adjust it as necessary.
20. Same thing goes with the oven - don’t trust your dial on the top, as cooking temperatures can vary wildly - burning food, under cooking it etc. Having a good thermometer, like the ones you can poke into a roast and read the temp from the control unit outside, will help you from opening the door to check on things. Every time you open the door, you lose 10-30 degrees.
21. Clean your oven regularly. Basically, a dirty oven walls don’t reflect as much heat back into food as a clean ones, slowing cooking time and wasting energy.
22. Wash dishes by hand or set dish-washer to lower water temps, saving the energy to heat the water.
23. Avoid over-drying clothes, which weakens the garments. Separate heavier materials to be dried together, as light weight fabrics dry much faster and will be done before other pieces.
24. Do all the batches of drying you can in one setting, saving the energy needed to reheat the dryer.
25. Clean the lint trap after every use, making the dryer as effective as possible and keeping it from potential breakdown.
26. When weather permits, dry clothes outside on a line.
27. When brushing your teeth, turn off the water and don’t turn it on again until you’re done and ready to rinse. Oddly enough, I learned this from watching the Ninja Turtles cartoon.
28. Consider having a rain barrel for non-potable water uses, like watering your garden. In an natural disaster/emergency, this water can still be made drinkable when water lines break.
29. Fix all leaking faucets or slowly draining toilets. Sometimes all it take is replacing a $2 piece of rubber or plastic. The flapper valves inside the back tank of toilets are common culprits. I read an article full of awesome water saving knowledge that suggested that you put food coloring in the tank if you don’t know it the toilet is leaking (14-20 gallons a day wasted!). If you see color in the toilet bowl in a few seconds, you’ve found a leak.
30. Lower the amount of water you flush down the toilet - the largest source of water consumption in the house - by installing a low-flow toilet. Older toilets use a lot more water per flush - some made before the 70’s use 5 gallons while early 80’s toilets use 3. Newer ones can use even less.
31. If you don’t want to spring for a new toilet, fill a large plastic bottle with sand, seal it up tight and put it in the back of the toilet tank. Every time you flush, you’ll save that much water.
32. Learn to take quick showers, or take invigorating cold showers. Cold showers have many positive benefits, from cooling you down to making you shower at lightning speeds.
33. After you squish a spider with a square of toilet paper, just throw it away in a wastebasket instead of flushing the arachnid down. Garbage services are much cheaper than the water spent.
34. Only do full loads of laundry and dishes.

In Closing

I hope you’ve found something that can save you a little extra money, making you get rich slowly. Again, if you know of a tip tell us!

- Barton

* Using my reverse funnel of love system.

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