- I cut out, or cut back on buying these things to save money, for health reasons, or have found alternatives.
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1. Bottled water: I finally bought a filtered pitcher.
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2. Cleaners: I buy these 4 things: bleach, vinegar, blue Dawn dish soap, and baking soda. I make my own cleaner and it works great. My house is clean and sanitized. DISCLAIMER: This does not work on all bathroom surfaces. It depends on your type of tub and shower materials.
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3. Air fresheners and plug ins: I make a freshener using an essential oil. There are tons of recipes for this on-line. I really don’t even use this much as I am sensitive to most perfumes and fragrances.
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4. Lunchmeat: It’s just too expensive. I really don’t miss it.
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5. Soda: I drink mostly water. I do like diet iced tea with my meals and will have coffee in the morning and make an occasional iced coffee.
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6. Pre-packaged salty snacks: I have zero willpower with chips and pretzels etc. And can you say shrinkflation? I buy bags of unpopped popcorn and use my air popper and a little melted butter if I am craving a crunchy snack.
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7. Liquor: I have never been much of a drinker, so this was easy for me. I will occasionally have a glass of wine or a beer when I go out to dinner.
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8. Most Vitamins and Supplements: I do buy and take a daily vitamin, and a prescription Vitamin D supplement per my doctor but no others. I really try and eat a healthy, well-balanced diet.
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9. Plastic food storage containers: A while ago I invested in some glass containers. They work great and last a long time.
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10. Laundry soap, fabric softeners and dryer sheets. I still use them but will stop when I use up what I have on hand. I do have a good amount in my stockpile but will investigate alternatives when these are used up.
These are just things that work for me that help me to save money and for health reasons. I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong with purchasing these items if they work for you! Since I retired, I have the time to make cleaners and research alternatives. I am also the only one in my household and I fully understand it is harder to cut out certain things if others in your household enjoy them. Is there anything you have stopped buying or found an alternative for?
July 24th, 2022 at 07:16 pm 1658690172
And for the most part I've swapped out buying hard-copy books for electronic (Kindle) versions, but that's still a major item of my discretionary spending. At least the clutter from having too many books no longer continues to accumulate as it once did.
I also buy fewer clothes. I've been losing weight this year and going "shopping" in my closet. When I get closer to my goal weight, I will buy a few new outfits since image is important in the job space in which I operate.
July 24th, 2022 at 07:38 pm 1658691496
July 24th, 2022 at 07:43 pm 1658691797
July 24th, 2022 at 07:51 pm 1658692260
I prefer glass food containers not only for the durability, but after the scare of plastic stuff leeching into your foods, need I say more!
I gave up soda a number of years ago. We were some place where there wasn't water or iced tea available, so I had a sip of soda and couldn't believe how sweet it was and how I really didn't like it. Tastes do change.
July 24th, 2022 at 11:46 pm 1658706418
I never used air freshener or fabric softener - I don’t care for the smell.
Not frugal - in fact extravagant - but I use a cleaning service and they bring their own supplies. I watch for sales on the detergents I buy, and often use my CVS Carepass reward so get them for ‘free.’
I like popcorn because any size bag of chips is ‘single serve’ to me. The price of a bag of chips means I need to have been craving for weeks before I buy any!
I don’t like soda generally, and I always had a ‘no drinking alcohol at home alone’ rule. Since the pandemic, I just stopped drinking but if life ever goes back to ‘normal’ I might go back to the occasional drink when out with others.
For a complicated reason, I will not outlive the amount of plastic containers I have…
I’m not a big lunch meat person, but I do sometimes buy a small amount of ham. I tend to have eggs for lunch, and I use ham in omelets.
I have a Medicare advantage plan that includes $50 a quarter in OTC drugs. I use that for my vitamins mostly, also CVS Buy 1/get 1 combined with Extrabucks. I fear I will put CVS out of business sometimes…
My biggest cost savings is that I live in the city and I walk most everywhere I go. Fortunately, we have pretty decent mass transit so that I can bus or train outside the city and now that I am a ‘Senior’ I ride for half price on public transit…if people want to see me, they have to meet me at the station!
Nothing I do is a hardship (well, the chips but that is good for me too). Looking for bargains on what I need is entertainment to me…
July 25th, 2022 at 03:47 am 1658720849
July 25th, 2022 at 12:41 pm 1658752908
Any suggestions on that ?
July 25th, 2022 at 01:46 pm 1658756779
July 25th, 2022 at 03:13 pm 1658761986
July 28th, 2022 at 11:12 pm 1659049931
I rarely buy yogurt, I make my own. I don't buy dishwashing pods. I buy the liquid dishwashing detergent and my machine measures it out. Seems cheaper but I also run it more. And apparently it washes better because of the pre-wash.
July 28th, 2022 at 11:48 pm 1659052118
Gas for yard machines. We now have battery operated yard machines such as a lawn mower, a chain saw, and a string trimmer (Weed Eater generic). We are thinking about a snow blower next, if they make battery operated ones.
Dryer sheets. I use plastic dryer balls with bumpies instead. They keep clothes from getting staticky and can be used over and over again. And the clothes don't reek of fragrance.
I use an air cleaner instead of smelly plug-ins with obnoxious scents. It can be moved to whatever room smells.
We use the filter on our fridge for water that we put in reusable water bottles.
No cable TV from whatever year Netflix started streaming. We do pay for Netflix and Hulu with no add-ons, but also watch free with ads services like Peacock. We do get some free shows and movies with our Prime membership and if we want to watch something that costs, we use the free trial add-ons and then cancel them on time. We will watch whatever else interests us during the free trial as well.
New containers. I use the soup containers we get when we get Chinese food and the deli containers we get from the grocery store for freezing leftovers. This way our glass storage bowls are not tied up in the freezer.
Throwaway aluminum pans. I bought a bunch of cheap cake pans for my freezer meals instead of getting aluminum ones and throwing them away. Same with pizza pans.
Plastic bags (except garbage bags) and parchment paper. I wash and reuse parchment paper. I didn't even know you could do that until a month ago. I also use aluminum foil more than once as long as it isn't yucky. I wash and reuse any Ziploc bags that did not store raw meat. I do that with my food saver bags, too.
Metal canning lids. I mostly use reusable canning lids instead of metal lids.
I use the back of envelopes from bills or junk mail to make lists, like grocery lists or to do lists instead of post it notes.
We use the trash as little as possible. We recycle everything that we possibly can (including fiddly bits of paper or cardboard) and reuse whatever we can. We compost anything that is fruit and vegetable waste so we can have a lower garbage bill.
Junk. Everything that comes into this house comes in with a purpose.
Books. I use the library and if they don't have the book I want, I request it. If I had the room for books, I would buy some, but only series that I loved and would read again. Most of our books are in storage. Most of them are from series I've read several times.
DVD's. While I do make the occasional exception, like the Complete Supernatural Collection this year, I haven't bought DVD's in a long while. I get them from Netflix or stream the movies and shows elsewhere.
July 31st, 2022 at 02:52 pm 1659279156
Well, probably the most unusual thing I'm not buying anymore (or at least buying much less of) is....wait for it....toilet paper! It's a holdover from the start of the pandemic, and actually, Dido gave me the idea in one of our conversations. Remember the TP shortages? That kind of freaked me out, so Dido gave me the idea to go on amazon and buy about 50 cheap white hotel-style washcloths. I cut them in half. I use these for number 1 only, have a designated, trashbag-lined hamper for them and just throw in a cup of bleach when I launder them. I mean, if people do this with dirty diapers, I can too (and they're much cleaner than baby poop).
I haven't had cable TV in years and rely on roku, hulu and my library, which provide free movies thru Kanopy.com and Hoopla.com.
I gave up soda about 5 years ago due to health concerns, think bottled water is a waste of $$ and let's see, I also embrace glass food storage containers.
I've always been pretty thrifty, so I really can't think of anything else I've given up recently (aside from the TP) as I've been doing this for years!