In the comments the other day, Belinda from the Frugal Workshop mentioned that there are numerous small ways to save money, but only a few major ways. How true is this. I commented back that I think I must do a dozen small things a day, that save us money.
Well, later in the day, I got to thinking, "do I really do a dozen things per day to save us some money, or was I exaggerating?"
So, I wandered around the house to see what I could find, and took photos, as a reminder for this post. And yes, I did a dozen things, and then some. Here are the first 12 things that I thought of.
1) I made granola for the next morning's breakfast (we'll be out of bread by the end of dinner)
2) I made ham stock from the ham bone, and froze 6 pints
3) with the ham stock, I made split pea soup from scratch, a double recipe for lots of leftovers
4) I made croutons with the end of the French bread,
to top the soup
5) I served crabapple sauce, made with crabapples from our tree, to go with dinner. It was too tart the last time I served it, so this time I rescued it with a mixture of cornstarch, sugar and additional water. It was not just passable, but delicious.
6) I washed 2 loads of laundry on cold/cold setting
7) I hung those 2 loads of wash to dry, on racks in the kitchen and family room
8) I washed baggies
9) I stayed home all day, keeping the car in the garage, and saving gas
10) I set up autopay for another account, saving postage each month
11) I made another batch of citrus and spice cleaning fluid. I now have 2 quarts stored in the laundry closet.
12) and I reconciled December's budget,
and set up January's budget.
I think we all do many, many small things each day, which wind up saving us money. The next time you feel down about your frugal efforts, see if you can't make a list of everything you've done lately. You might be surprised at just how hard you work at economizing.
The year is off to a great start, don't you think?!
