What is the super cheapskate habit you have?

I get max life out of the kitchen sponges with the scrubby on the back. I run them in the dishwasher to sterilize them once in awhile and when they look a little ragged it goes to one of the bathrooms. When it leaves there it gets another cleaning then goes to the greenhouse or paint closet.
They are usually pretty done when the hit the trash can.
 

Jondalar7 said:
I laugh at myself when I keep saying there is one more dab for my toothbrush tonight, I just need to slide it over the edge of the sink to flatten it out a little more and then push right behind the hole and 'wallaaa' there is still more for another day. I use baking soda in the morning and I use the one I took out of the fridge when I put the new one in there.
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Funny true story...a toothpaste company had a contest for employees for a sizable cash prize - on how to "increase usage" of the product.
A elementary age kid won the contest by saying simply "increase the hole"!
 
StarSong said:
I rarely use paper towels - maybe go through a roll every two months. I just never developed the habit of using them.

My (approximately) 30 terry cloth and other kitchen towels, plus sponges and dish cloths manage nearly all spills and cleanups.
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This is how I do it too.

I used to line my fridge vegetable crisper drawers with paper towel. Then I realized that a dish cloth or towel worked better.
 

Ruthanne said:
I have to be very frugal because of my income. I try not to throw any food away and plan on my meals accordingly so that I eat most of it. I did lately though end up throwing some veggies away that I thought started to turn but didn't feel bad about it because I don't want to get sick from them.

I only wash my hair one time instead of like the bottle says twice to save on shampoo. My hair still comes out clean and looks good.

I try to plan my errands so that I get everything I need to do done in one day and save on gas.

I don't skimp on heating in the very cold months and my heat bill shows it but since it's getting warmer I can turn the heat down a bit now and save on the gas bill. I turn lights off when leaving a room to save on electricity.

I do many things to save money so that I can afford the things I really need.
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Very good Ruthanne...wish I could get hub to do the same. He's an EE (electrical engineer), yet leaves all the lights on every room he goes into and leaves. When I call him on it he says "they're LED's." But, when I tell him to be more frugal on something else, he'll say "seriously, we won't spend the money we have before we die you know". Ha ha.

Its an ongoing "kidding"session. He calls me "tighter than the bark on the north side of a cherry tree" and I call him
a spendthrift. LOL. Sometimes I tell him "here, Jim, got something in my pocket for you".

Can you guess what that is?
 
Aunt Marg said:
None of my cheapskate practices are the result of me looking to cut costs and preserve the household budget, I do what I do frugally, because I loathe waste on all levels.

If something has use left in it, you can be rest assured that I will dedicate myself to garnering every last stitch of use out of whatever it is that I'm looking to get every last stitch of use out of, and then and only then will you see me retire the item or thing or send it off to never-never land (the landfill).

- I've used, and still use safety pins and diaper pins for fixes/emergency repairs, especially when it comes to holding up old sweat pants where the drawstring snaps and the elastic waistband no longer has any stretch.

- Same for panties. A safety pin to get me by until I buy new ones.

- When my kids were babies I used to safety pin their old worn-out rubber pants on like a diaper when the elastic waistband would go (learned the trick from my mom). Looked hideous, and was a pain at changing time dealing with an extra diaper pin or two, but it helped me achieve my goal... keeping extra plastic and waste out of the landfill.

- Been hand-washing plastic bags along with Ziploc bags for a good two decades now. To dry, I pin them up on the outdoor clothesline. Looks weird... I still haven't warmed to it, but at the end of the day those same plastic bags are sitting back in the plastic-wrap/tinfoil/wax-paper/Ziploc bag drawer in my kitchen, not in a garbage pail or sitting in the landfill.
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I too wash and reuse plastic bags. They can be expensive at the store.
 
The car wash costs two dollars but you can put more quarters in for more time which I don't. I run around the car quickly with the soap spray and then switch to rinse and let the pressure with the rinse drive the dirt off. Some people let the soapy part drive off the dirt and rinse later. It takes more quarters that way.

My mother, having lived through the depression was a master at cheapness. She saved remnants of what was left of a bar of soap, and when she had enough pieces, she made a new bar.
 
Jondalar7 said:
I laugh at myself when I keep saying there is one more dab for my toothbrush tonight, I just need to slide it over the edge of the sink to flatten it out a little more and then push right behind the hole and 'wallaaa' there is still more for another day.
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My lady's got you beat
She cuts open the tube
Lasts a week or two longer (I try not to keep track)

She also marries the thin bar of soap to the new one
Fortunately, I use different soap (Irish Spring only, for me...my bars stay single)

She's the self confessed cheapskate in our house

I'm the one who stocks up (price ain't the first consideration for me...quality is)
 
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My hubby loves stuffing whenever we have chicken. I don't buy the boxed stuff but I save all the ends from loaves of bread and freeze them. When I have enough I cube it and make my homemade stuffing.
I've also dried the bread for bread crumbs and croutons.
When I buy oranges I forbid anyone from eating one before I get to grate the zest which I then freeze. Same with lemons.
And like a lot of you have mentioned I wash out plastic bags. I just found one that was labeled ,extra charger for the cell phone, as long as it hasn't had rat poison in it I'll wash it.
 
Two cheapskate tendencies: I grocery shop for as much generic / store brand goods as possible. And, I bend over backwards to conserve water, almost to the point of obsession. Of course, I DO live in a desert area that has been hit with drought conditions, presently, and repeatedly over the last 30 years.
 
Nathan said:
Two cheapskate tendencies: I grocery shop for as much generic / store brand goods as possible. And, I bend over backwards to conserve water, almost to the point of obsession. Of course, I DO live in a desert area that has been hit with drought conditions, presently, and repeatedly over the last 30 years.
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I'm the same way about water, Nathan. I was visiting friends in NJ and was horrified at how much water they wasted and had to continually remind myself that it rains roughly twice a week there so water isn't a precious a commodity to them. It was difficult to stay mum.
 
StarSong said:
I'm the same way about water, Nathan. I was visiting friends in NJ and was horrified at how much water they wasted and had to continually remind myself that it rains roughly twice a week there so water isn't a precious a commodity to them. It was difficult to stay mum.
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Heh...when first living in Houston, I'd run the tap water for it to get cold.
It never got cold.
Learned the fridge water trick
 
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Peanut butter jars. It doesn't matter how empty a jar of peanut butter looks, there's enough to make a sandwich. It may take 15 minutes to scrape every molecule of peanut butter out of jar, and maybe there's not much to make a sandwich. BUT to throw out the jar, with maybe one, or OMG!! even two atoms of peanut butter left inside is a crime. Got to save it for next time.
 
Gary O' said:
My lady's got you beat
She cuts open the tube
Lasts a week or two longer (I try not to keep track)

She also marries the thin bar of soap to the new one
Fortunately, I use different soap (Irish Spring only, for me...my bars stay single)

She's the self confessed cheapskate in our house

I'm the one who stocks up (price ain't the first consideration for me...quality is)
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I'm an "Irish Springer", myself!(y)
 
Ruth n Jersey said:
My hubby loves stuffing whenever we have chicken. I don't buy the boxed stuff but I save all the ends from loaves of bread and freeze them. When I have enough I cube it and make my homemade stuffing.
I've also dried the bread for bread crumbs and croutons.
When I buy oranges I forbid anyone from eating one before I get to grate the zest which I then freeze. Same with lemons.
And like a lot of you have mentioned I wash out plastic bags. I just found one that was labeled ,extra charger for the cell phone, as long as it hasn't had rat poison in it I'll wash it.
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What is zest? how do you use it?
 

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