Friday, January 4, 2013

Frugal Flops!

I thought it best to do an update on a few frugal ideas that flopped!

 Our water bill was higher than I wanted so I went on an all out campaign to save every drop and reuse it when possible! I'm not positive but I may have ended up causing problems with the pipes from the kitchen to the bath because they backed up.  There is no way to know for sure if my water saving methods caused this problem but  I want to warn you  just in case.

 

Now granted.. our pipes were thrashed. We had problems as soon as we moved in this summer. I'm wondering since I wasn't putting any water down the kitchen pipes  if it caused things to not move through easily.

I'm still saving water from the kitchen .. but not to the extreme that I was before. I only save the water that normally gets wasted when I'm waiting for the hot water to travel from the garage to the house. That usually amounts to a small bucket full. Sometimes I'll save the rinse water.  I place the bucket of water in the bathroom tub and we use it to flush. In the summer I plan to use the extra water on my patio plants. 

The second idea that flopped had to do with  putting my shampoo into a hand pump soap dispenser.  I hoped the pump would stretch the shampoo by administering a smaller amount of shampoo.  The idea was great but the administration failed. I'm not sure if the shampoo was too thick or if the pump just wasn't efficient but the pump ended up not working after the first few times.  I'll keep my eyes opened for a better hand pump because I think the idea would really work well!

The majority of the ideas I've tried are keepers but every once in a while I come across a dudley!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that your New Year was a blessing!