Time Is Money
This week my thoughts are revolving around time and money. Most of you who know me, know that I am frugal when it comes to these two commodities. There is a very simple reason why; when I think of purchasing something, I imagine the time I will have to spend at work to earn the money to pay for the thing that I am buying. I consider whether losing the money I have earnt on this item is worth it or if I can find a cheaper way of getting the same outcome, meaning I can make my money go further. I know this isn't a new idea to you but here are some examples that have been playing on my mind...
I had a collection of hair ties that, as gross as this sounds, I wasn't using because my loose hair had knotted around them making them look really yukky. I didn't throw them out though, because I knew I could and should still use them. When I used to wear these hair ties I would just get a new one each time they started to look like gross, rather than removing the hair and continuing to use the one I already had.
Well! I sat down on the deck yesterday in the sun with all these hair ties and used a sewing unpicker to cut off the hair. They look brand new! It took me 5 minutes to get all the hair off. Now, if I were to buy all these hair ties again after throwing the old ones out, it would cost me about $10 if I got the same brand (it was a big packet). This equates to roughly 20 minutes of a working hour in the office for me. So essentially I have saved myself 15 minutes worth of office time by repairing the old ones.
It may not seem like much but all small saving ideas, I have learnt, can apply to everything in my life and collectively these sum up to big savings that I can put towards larger, more meaningful purchases...like a house or travel etc.
Here are some more examples...
Making my own bread - A good loaf of sourdough costs $6-8 depending on where you buy it from. My homemade sourdough loaves cost $1.50-$2 and take me about 10 minutes to bring together. After stirring all I have to do is leave the bread to rise and then later cook it. $8 per week of bought bread is $416 a year, compared to my $2 a week on homemade bread which is only $104. That's a yearly saving of $312 on bread alone. See my blog archive for a post on my bread making adventures!
Making your own sauerkraut - A cabbage costs about $4 and will make 2 jars of sauerkraut. One bought jar of sauerkraut costs about $16 in the supermarket! That's $1 a jar, versus $16 a jar!
Now, I know that sauerkraut isn't considered a staple food and a lot of people don't eat it so this suggestion might seem missed on some of you, which is ok because it's just one of my examples. It is worth noting though, that fermented food is definitely gaining popularity again and is becoming a staple for those who are interested in keeping their gut healthy. It's delicious so I definitely suggest adding it to your diet if you're interested in looking after your health.
Making my own apple cider vinegar - This one is new for me this week! From a general search, apple cider vinegar is about $12 per litre with the probability of it costing more if it were in the health section of a store or in a specific health food shop. I have learnt that it is very easy to make yourself and will cost virtually nothing if you're already an apple eater! Why? Because apple cider vinegar is made from apple scraps - the skin and cores mixed with a bit of sugar and water. Because my family eat apples every day, making apple cider vinegar is just about saving our scraps from going into the compost bin and making them into vinegar. I will post the recipe for this in my next blog post! Apple cider vinegar amongst many other things can be a super food and a home cleaner so it should definitely be a part of your household staples!
Hankies - A box of disposable tissues is about $2. Let's say a family buys 12 boxes of tissues a year (the internet says this is about average). Well that's $24 a year...and hankies? They're about a dollar for a pack of 4 if you buy them new. You could always buy some fabric and cut up your own as well, which would be even cheaper. Hankies last until you compost them (assuming they're 100% cotton, and you want 100% cotton so they're soft on your nose!) and you shouldn't need to compost them until well after you're dead!
As a side note, I just went on Kleenex's website and under their FAQs they say their tissues are not biodegradable and that they suggest you throw them into landfill (big holes in the earth which get people's discarded 'waste' thrown into them which then festers and create seriously dangerous levels of greenhouse gases due to the lack of oxygen, just FYI)...and we all know how I feel about that!
Shower habits - Water pressure in the shower has a massive effect on how much water you use and has little effect on your shower experience. I make sure that I set the pressure of my water to low, with a bucket under my feet to collect the water that comes off my body. Doing this means I can use less than a 15 litre bucket for my whole shower - hair washing included! The average usage per shower per person is 50-100 litres of water. After my shower I take the bucket to the garden which with our lack of rain over the last few months, is in desperate need of water! (Water which I would have to get from a hose if I didn't put my shower water on the garden so thats another saving there). As a comparison, if I have the water on full pressure I will fill my bucket just in the time it takes for the water to warm up - forget the possibility of me catching the run off water!
Other shower habits I use to save money include using a reusable scrubbing mit to exfoliate rather than a liquid cleanser scrub in a plastic bottle/container, I use a bar of natural soap for washing my body and hair. A few people have said that using soap for shampoo will dry my hair and scalp out but I have found this only happens when you use home brand soaps or chemical based soaps like I have done from the dispensers in the showers at work. Natural soaps made from herbs and olive oil are amazing for your hair and skin.
Finally, once I have finished my pack of plastic disposable razors I will buy a metal safety razor. I reuse my plastic razors over and over so I think this purchase is a few years away because I first have to get through my 12 pack of plastic razors but I thought it was still worth mentioning.
I really believe we have been convinced that we need both shampoo and soap and cleansers/scrubs and disposable razors so that we spend more and more money!
Finally, my sister took her car to be washed today. This usually costs a minimum of $50. That, for her, is 2 hours of working time to earn the money to pay for this... instead, she could have taken half an hour to vacuum the car herself and figuratively save the $37.50.
This is the subjective part; personally, I would MUCH prefer to be in the kitchen making sauerkraut and bread, and be outside in the sun vacuuming my car or listening to the birds whilst fixing my hair ties, than sitting in the office tapping away on a computer saving the money to get someone else to do it for me. What I'm saying is that I save the money I could be mindlessly spending on these seemingly small things so that I can accumulate these savings for larger purchases later in life like a house. Of course, no one has to follow this perspective, its just working really well for me. Who knows too, later in life I might not have the security of a job and may need to save every cent I have and the thought that I will have the skills and know-how to do so makes me feel very secure.
Do you do the same sorts of things in your life? What household money saving tips do you have?
Love,
Liza
I had a collection of hair ties that, as gross as this sounds, I wasn't using because my loose hair had knotted around them making them look really yukky. I didn't throw them out though, because I knew I could and should still use them. When I used to wear these hair ties I would just get a new one each time they started to look like gross, rather than removing the hair and continuing to use the one I already had.
Well! I sat down on the deck yesterday in the sun with all these hair ties and used a sewing unpicker to cut off the hair. They look brand new! It took me 5 minutes to get all the hair off. Now, if I were to buy all these hair ties again after throwing the old ones out, it would cost me about $10 if I got the same brand (it was a big packet). This equates to roughly 20 minutes of a working hour in the office for me. So essentially I have saved myself 15 minutes worth of office time by repairing the old ones.
Good as new!
It may not seem like much but all small saving ideas, I have learnt, can apply to everything in my life and collectively these sum up to big savings that I can put towards larger, more meaningful purchases...like a house or travel etc.
Here are some more examples...
Making my own bread - A good loaf of sourdough costs $6-8 depending on where you buy it from. My homemade sourdough loaves cost $1.50-$2 and take me about 10 minutes to bring together. After stirring all I have to do is leave the bread to rise and then later cook it. $8 per week of bought bread is $416 a year, compared to my $2 a week on homemade bread which is only $104. That's a yearly saving of $312 on bread alone. See my blog archive for a post on my bread making adventures!
Making your own sauerkraut - A cabbage costs about $4 and will make 2 jars of sauerkraut. One bought jar of sauerkraut costs about $16 in the supermarket! That's $1 a jar, versus $16 a jar!
Now, I know that sauerkraut isn't considered a staple food and a lot of people don't eat it so this suggestion might seem missed on some of you, which is ok because it's just one of my examples. It is worth noting though, that fermented food is definitely gaining popularity again and is becoming a staple for those who are interested in keeping their gut healthy. It's delicious so I definitely suggest adding it to your diet if you're interested in looking after your health.
That colour!
Making my own apple cider vinegar - This one is new for me this week! From a general search, apple cider vinegar is about $12 per litre with the probability of it costing more if it were in the health section of a store or in a specific health food shop. I have learnt that it is very easy to make yourself and will cost virtually nothing if you're already an apple eater! Why? Because apple cider vinegar is made from apple scraps - the skin and cores mixed with a bit of sugar and water. Because my family eat apples every day, making apple cider vinegar is just about saving our scraps from going into the compost bin and making them into vinegar. I will post the recipe for this in my next blog post! Apple cider vinegar amongst many other things can be a super food and a home cleaner so it should definitely be a part of your household staples!
How beautiful do these apple scraps look!
Hankies - A box of disposable tissues is about $2. Let's say a family buys 12 boxes of tissues a year (the internet says this is about average). Well that's $24 a year...and hankies? They're about a dollar for a pack of 4 if you buy them new. You could always buy some fabric and cut up your own as well, which would be even cheaper. Hankies last until you compost them (assuming they're 100% cotton, and you want 100% cotton so they're soft on your nose!) and you shouldn't need to compost them until well after you're dead!
As a side note, I just went on Kleenex's website and under their FAQs they say their tissues are not biodegradable and that they suggest you throw them into landfill (big holes in the earth which get people's discarded 'waste' thrown into them which then festers and create seriously dangerous levels of greenhouse gases due to the lack of oxygen, just FYI)...and we all know how I feel about that!
Shower habits - Water pressure in the shower has a massive effect on how much water you use and has little effect on your shower experience. I make sure that I set the pressure of my water to low, with a bucket under my feet to collect the water that comes off my body. Doing this means I can use less than a 15 litre bucket for my whole shower - hair washing included! The average usage per shower per person is 50-100 litres of water. After my shower I take the bucket to the garden which with our lack of rain over the last few months, is in desperate need of water! (Water which I would have to get from a hose if I didn't put my shower water on the garden so thats another saving there). As a comparison, if I have the water on full pressure I will fill my bucket just in the time it takes for the water to warm up - forget the possibility of me catching the run off water!
Other shower habits I use to save money include using a reusable scrubbing mit to exfoliate rather than a liquid cleanser scrub in a plastic bottle/container, I use a bar of natural soap for washing my body and hair. A few people have said that using soap for shampoo will dry my hair and scalp out but I have found this only happens when you use home brand soaps or chemical based soaps like I have done from the dispensers in the showers at work. Natural soaps made from herbs and olive oil are amazing for your hair and skin.
Finally, once I have finished my pack of plastic disposable razors I will buy a metal safety razor. I reuse my plastic razors over and over so I think this purchase is a few years away because I first have to get through my 12 pack of plastic razors but I thought it was still worth mentioning.
I really believe we have been convinced that we need both shampoo and soap and cleansers/scrubs and disposable razors so that we spend more and more money!
Finally, my sister took her car to be washed today. This usually costs a minimum of $50. That, for her, is 2 hours of working time to earn the money to pay for this... instead, she could have taken half an hour to vacuum the car herself and figuratively save the $37.50.
This is the subjective part; personally, I would MUCH prefer to be in the kitchen making sauerkraut and bread, and be outside in the sun vacuuming my car or listening to the birds whilst fixing my hair ties, than sitting in the office tapping away on a computer saving the money to get someone else to do it for me. What I'm saying is that I save the money I could be mindlessly spending on these seemingly small things so that I can accumulate these savings for larger purchases later in life like a house. Of course, no one has to follow this perspective, its just working really well for me. Who knows too, later in life I might not have the security of a job and may need to save every cent I have and the thought that I will have the skills and know-how to do so makes me feel very secure.
Do you do the same sorts of things in your life? What household money saving tips do you have?
Love,
Liza
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