Saturday, January 12, 2013

Housekeeping No-No's and Saving Money!

Housekeeping rules! Every homemaker has them. I was trained as a young girl that there were certain duties you do every day. Make your bed, wash the dishes after every meal, sweep the kitchen floor. a few pennies. Those pennies do add up after a while.

For instance..... it's been my daily routine to wash my dishes after each meal. I really don't like having dishes piled up on my sink. I especially do not like to leave my house without the dishes being washed. Nope, don't like it at all!  But, I started noticing that I'm running a lot of hot water for the small amount of dishes that my husband and I use at breakfast time.

So, sometimes (shhh.. don't tell my mother) I will LEAVE my breakfast dishes on the counter and wait to wash them with the lunch dishes. I know.. it's disgraceful! Truthfully... it really bugs me! And sometimes it bugs me so much that I just do them .. regardless whether I save money or not. :-) But, other mornings I opt to break the unspoken rule and leave them till lunch when I can run just one dishpan full of hot water and wash two meals at one time.



My method of doing laundry is another task I am reevaluating. There are many products on the market to make your whites their whitest and your clothes the softest. But, each of these products can make a dent in your otherwise shrinking grocery budget. The price of groceries continue to rise and the less I have to spend on non food items the better.

So, in order to save money I often break a few taboos. Today I had a few dirty rags and I did the unforgiveable and threw them in with my towels to make a full load. I know.. shameful! If the truth be told I cringed when I did it! :-) But, stretching our income is a higher priority right now than having the whitest whites on the block or the perkiest towels.

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

How about you? 






4 comments:

  1. I value time and my husband's health more than saving money and keeping those housekeeping rules, but am trying to add them because I am the one to change--not the husband with Alzheimer's.

    Recently I was talking with someone about what we learn from our mothers. My mother was more creative than a neat housekeeper. I am the same way and am choosing to change myself. Wish my mom were still alive and I could show her what I am doing.

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  2. I totally agree about being 'bothered' by leaving dirty dishes, but I've started putting the few I have in the sink with cold water to soak, until I have a full load.

    Hope you have a good week!

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  3. Yes, I would wash dirty rags with towels. I have probably washed them with white clothes as well. Actually, I wash white towels with white closthes, and colored towels with colored clothes. Not sure why I do it that way.
    I am also kind of by laundry like you say you are by dishes. Knowing there is a full load of dirty laundry in the house drives me crazy until I wash that load. My mother bought laundry detg., Clorox, Clorox II for colors, and dryer sheets. I decided to see if I could eliminate some of this, and I have, I do not use Clorox II or dryer sheets. Our clothes seem just as clean as what I remember from growing up, and I do not notice any static cling. I think people just buy things because ads do such a good job of convincing us that we need it.

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  4. When I have just a few dishes to wash, I use one of those sponge-on-a-handle that has a hollow handle for dish soap. I put just a little soap in the handle and fill it up with water. Then i wash the dishes without filling a dishpan, just the sponge thingy. Then i just have to run a little water to rinse the dishes.

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