One penny at a time

These days it's become quite popular to save money.  I've seen it before.  At least a couple of times in my life.  This wave of wanting to save money.  The time I remember most is during the 1960s and 1970s because that was when I was young and full of enthusiasm  for the life ahead of me.

How long will the zest for saving money last this time?  How long before people stop feeling the need to save and go back to the life of spend, spend, spend?  I'm not sure.  What's important is that it's popular again.  I'm enjoying sharing the simple little things I do to save money.  Some ideas I've abandoned over the years and now want to do again.  Some ideas are new to me because our daily lives have changed as the grey tsunami gets older. 

Whether it's saving money by thrift store purchases instead of paying new prices.

Or baking our own bread instead of stopping at the store every couple of days.

Or freezing canned biscuits so we use only what we will eat instead of the whole can.  Or even better, making our own scratch biscuits to freeze.  (I do that too.)

Or making a cooking grease strainer so that grease isn't simply used once then thrown away.  It will be used, then used again, and then used again.  When it starts to pick up odors it can be cleaned with ginger root and used again or used in other ways like maybe in a lamp as lamp oil.

Or knitting and crocheting our own dish cloths then taking apart a damaged dish cloth so a new one can be made from the saved yarn.  The yarn can be used over and over and over again until the yarn itself falls apart.

Or making our own pot holders and placements.

Or using powdered milk and making our own kool-aid to go mix.

Or using lower energy cooking appliances which also has a meal hot and waiting on us at dinner time.

Or making our own sheets and pillow cases from our fabric stash and later to be repurposed into other things like kids clothes.  The outgrown clothes can be saved and remade into other useful items like more clothes or quilts.  The old quilts, when no longer useful, can be repurposed into soft toys and other things.

Or making window quilts to keep the heat in during cold weather.  These can also be repurposed when you want to change the window quilts to go with new decor.  Hmm.... how about making house slippers or appliance covers from old window quilts?

Or saving plastic grocery bags to be used as small garbage bags or repurposed into rugs and dog leashes and house shoes.  If you cut these bags into strips for using as crochet, knitting, and braiding material it's called plarn.  Plastic yarn.

Or keeping a price book so we know when a sale price really is a sale price and not just an advertising gimmick to fool us into believing it's on sale.

Or keeping a household manager binder, with all the information we need to have handy, that saves us money and time because we aren't searching for where we stashed the information.

Or crafting cardboard furniture, or quilting, or knitting sweaters and socks, or other crafts to make our lives happier and more meaningful.

Or saving the butter wrappers to be used when the recipe calls for greasing a pan. 

It all adds up.... one penny at a time.   

I'm so glad I'm once again a part of the growing crowd of people that believe in saving by changing the way we think.  I'm no longer simply the crazy lady down the street that does weird stuff.  The internet has helped me stay in touch with like minded people.  All the thrifty things I do are not new.  These thrifty ideas have been around for generations.  From cave women, to all the generations that followed, there have been thrifty people coming up with new ways to save as well as pass on knowledge of what is already proven itself as useful.  I'm happy to be a part of passing the knowledge on to the next generation. 

Thank you, to all the followers of my 3 blogs, for being a part of my life.  I hope everyone continues to follow as I remember fogotten skills and learn newer ones.  Some things I post about will be familiar to you and hopefully some will be new ideas for you to learn.  In either case, please know that I appreciate each and everyone of you..... my internet friends.