Watching reruns of Extreme Cheapskates made me think about my own cheapskate ways and how a couple of things I do are a little embarrassing. My daughter has allergies ,so she blows her nose a lot and we go through a lot of tissues and napkins. So whenever I'm in any situation where I'm given a napkin, I take it home. When my daughter needs to blow her nose, there's a drawer of napkins including a napkin from a birthday party, a few napkins from a fast food place, some free samples of Puffs tissues that CVS was giving out, a paper towel from a spill station at Walmart and so on. As a single mom, and the sole breadwinner, I would rather spend my money on food than tissues which will be thrown away. Do you do any weird or embarrassing things to save a buck or two? I have another one. When I was in college, my dorm had a community laundry room. Girls would throw out laundry detergent bottles that still had a little detergent left in them, so I would pour all the remains of those bottles into one bottle and actually end up with enough free detergent to do one or two loads of laundry.
I don't do this but I've seen some people do it. How gross would it be to go about for a month or longer without washing your hair? Well, some people do that so they can save money on shampoo. They wash their hair only once or so in a month and the rest of the time . . . they just forget about it. Sounds to me like one of the oddest ways to save money. p.s You could try it for a week and see how it works.
Wow, Denis. Some shampoo, like Vo5 and Suave, only costs a dollar. So wouldn't it make more sense to buy cheaper shampoo instead of walking around with greasy hair? I saw a young woman on Extreme Cheapskates who conditions her hair with used coffee grounds. I wonder if there are any actual beauty benefits to used coffee grounds, because as a coffee drinker, I sure have a lot of them.
I don't use a lot of coupons and stuff like that, but something that is really stupid that I do and saves a ridiculously low amount of money is to turn off the car air conditioner to save a bit of the gas! The economy of that is so small people laugh at me. But when I'm not super hot I'll always turn it off to try and save some!
Oh my goodness, I'm aware that you should only put shampoo every other day, but I have a need to put it on everyday. It just feels really weird if I don't put shampoo on my hair for a day, let alone a month! That would be too difficult for me to do. To save money, I'd probably mix my shampoo with some water so it would last longer, but never would I go a week without washing my hair. It's a need for me to do so. That is quite odd, in my opinion.
I have never done anything odd to save money so far, but when I was in high school, I did not eat on some days to be able to save my allowance to buy the things that I want. Now my only way of saving money is to just walk when going home, since my place is near where I get off from the public transportation vehicle.
This is funny, my daughter and I where just talking about one of the funny things I do to save, not so much the money as it is just plane wasteful. When you use paper towels and take more than you need and it is not dirty I recycle the paper towel and have been known to even wash the towel let it dry and use it again. My daughter was telling her son who had taken too much towel to not be wasteful. At one time she had told me it is just a paper towel let them take as much as they wanted to throw away. I would call that pay back.
I don't do anything too extreme to save money. I just try to be sensible when I want to save and figure being careful all around will benefit me in the long run in terms of my checking account. The only thing I do that could be a little extreme is I never throw out left overs, even if it is a very small amount. I figure it doesn't have to be a meal but maybe I could eat it as a snack. I don't like to waste food because I feel very guilty when I do.
I reuse paper towels, but I try and be reasonable with it. If I use a paper towel to wipe my hands after washing, for example, I'll try and save the damp paper towel for later and I may use it for wiping the table after eating. Sometimes I'll use a paper towel to cover up hot food in the microwave and when I'm done using it I make sure I don't throw it away immediately since it's mostly only filled with moisture, and afterwards I can still use it to wipe my pan clean of cooking oil. I use a lot of paper towels so I try and not be too wasteful when I do.
When I was in college, my classmates and I would eat in a cheap restaurant and come out with all the paper napkins. It's just like stealing, all right, but young girls with no money would think it is an opportunity. And what do I do with the paper napkins? I bring them home so my mother would not need to buy when we have gatherings at home.
