I dont have very many thrifty ideas but I do one thing religiously when my mom goes shopping...

as soon as she gets dryer sheets, I cut all of them in half, works just the same! I take the liquid detergent and split it into 3 bottles and add water to each. We have 6 people doing laundry and every one using full strength laundry detergent and full sheets is crazy so I do my little part to help split it up.

Mom and Dad get 1 load of their clothes + a few towels
Johnathan and his friend that lives here get their own load + a few towels
Mike and I get our own load + a few towels

and we make sure we put as much as we can in our single load so we dont have to run lots of litle loads, when we could do fewer larger loads.

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We also have a chiminea so instead of taking gross old wood that cant be used from dads construction projects, we burn it in the chiminea and use the ashes at fertilizer...its AMAZING, theres people who have had volcanic ash on their lawns from an eruption, watered it and had 3 foot grass in 2 days! so the ash from our chiminea falls into a bucket and dad uses it on his tomatoes which he has THOUSANDS of.

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We use the sun for EVERYthing in my house, we keep our shades open as long as possible for heat and light and we only use the inside lights onces its too dark to see with sunlight. my dad is really concidering getting solar panels for the house not only for electricity but to heat our water.


hope that helped! :)

Freecycle.org is a good place to sign up...this is people giving away things they no longer need so they do not end up in the land fill. You just have to sign up and you can be a member for more than one area.

I gave away a new daybed...which I now need. lol However, the other family needed it worse at the time. I got two gallons of paint which painted an entire room at my daughters. I gave away two cases of mason jars and the lady gave me three jars of relish and preserves. If you need something...give it a try.


I now have two coffee makers I don't need one and it is new also..I got a double cappachino/coffee maker for my birthday. My brother keeps me in coffee because he is a member of a coffee club which is like 9 bucks a month. I think I have three or four bags of organic coffee he just gave me. lol

I don't throw away bread...I wait until it stale and then make bread pudding...I toast the rest and grind it for bread crumbs. I get fresh corn from my xhusband. When stores have by 10 cans of english peas or tomatoes for 6 bucks...I buy the limit then send my DH back for more.

I know I shouldn't but I also give some to my kids. I don't live close to a dairy any longer, it went out of business. One way to help with milk if the family drinks a lot...buy a box of Carnation powdered...buy your regular gallon.
Mix one gallon of the Carnation, then mix that with one gallon of the regular milk. It will taste a little different...but it doesn't take long to get used to the taste...it really is pretty good.

Find a local egg farmer and they will sometimes let you come gather the left over eggs. Another way to save is to swap things with the neighbors, I baked my own bread, made my own butter and raised my own meat for years. I didn't have a milking cow, the neighbor did. She milked the cow and gave me the cream, I made butter for both of us and would give her three loaves or more of bread every week.

this is a great site also that offers freebies! I get lots of samples all free!

http://forums.gottadeal.com/forumdis...=22&order=desc

Speaking of fabric softeners: long ago, before there were dryer sheets, clothes were hung out to dry. The towels and sheets came back in stiff and rough.

My mother used to keep a bottle of fabric softener in the laundry area. She would upend the bottle with an old facecloth pressed against it and get a wet circle of fabric softener on the cloth. She threw it in the dryer with the offending rough objects and turn it on for a few minutes. VOILA! Soft, scented sheets and towels, only a penny or two of electricity used, only a penny of softener used!

I tell you, that woman could squeeze blood from a stone! As I am trying to save and live lightly upon this earth. more and more comes back to me that I learned from her. She truly was a child of the depression, and that woman could scrimp and save, even when she didn't need to do it. I have bags of zippers from old clothes, boxes of buttons, hundreds of yards of pieces of fabric, etc. leftover from after she died. I never threw them out, couldn't bring myself to do it. I even found some material from pajamas she made us when we were kids, and I am 49 now!(yack!)

I am turning in to my mom!!:eek:
(and somehow, that is no longer a bad thing!):)

This has been posted before (originally by Sandy C at the old "other" forum) but it deserves to be repeated.

Angel Food Ministries provides boxes of groceries for $30 (feeds a family of four for a week and is about $60 worth of food). Anyone can order, food stamps are accepted and there is no income verification or limit.

The website is www.angelfoodministries.com and you can see where one is in your area. They are usually sponsored by a church or civic organization.

It's a really good deal and people from all walks of life participate.

Here's a suggestion:

Yesterday I needed to get a prescription filled. I had a coupon for a $25 gift card from Walgreen's if I transferred my rx to their pharmacy. All my rx's are at Rite Aid so I took the coupon and asked if they would honor it if I kept my rx with them. They did!! I got my meds and a $25 Rite Aid gift card!! I was able to get shampoo, hand cream, face cleanser and more Halloween candy (someone is eating my supply of it) with no $$ out of my pocket!!

In this economy retailers are desperate to hang onto your business. They will usually honor a competitors coupon if you ask them to. Grocery stores are the same. But you have to ask.

i want to add:

you can also purchase a box to be donated. :)

RW - I have a button jar. Doesn't everbody? Those things are expensive.

My button can is an old cookie tin. It's been in the family for 4 or 5 generations now. I used to go in to get a button to use when I lost one and my Mom would tell me the stories about some of the buttons. It would end up being one of those quiet times we shared when no one else was around. It was almost hypnotizing, I would barely breathe, sewing on the button and listening to her.

She told me how this one came from my great aunt Mabel's hat and that one came from a velvet dress that my great grandmother loved and this one came from my grandfather's coat. There's all kinds of hand made buttons in there, made from mother-of-pearl and bone and wood, rhinestones and porcelain.

I wish I had a daughter to pass it on to. I will pass it on to one of my nieces someday. I'm packing it up to go to our family's summer home, with a paper tucked into it, telling some of the stories I heard from Mom. Hopefully one of them will treasure it and understand why I saved it.:)

I still cut buttons off old clothes and save them, before the clothes go in the rag bag...oy:p

If you home dye your hair and it is a little too dark wash it immediately with Dawn liquid dish soap. My beautician cousin gave me this tip when my hair was a nice black color. lol Hey, it's cheaper than another box, doesn't harm the hair and saves tons at the salon which I have grown to hate sitting in.