cheap ways to get by ...

[rsanders3]

Great tips!  Both the foil and the vaseline.  Here's a fun tip...the most inexpensive and irresistable cat toy in the world is.....(drum roll please)...used dental floss!

They can't resist it!  You can run their little buts all over the place with it until they're to tired to play anymore (which is a great way to insure that they will allow you to sleep thru the night).

[LenoraMinogue]

Some really great ideas here. Thanks for the tips!

[dwggs]

So many awesome tips here ... can't wait to try them.  Thank you to everyone for your contribution.

[drpybutt]

Definately a good idea. I also have reused tinfoil but not like that. Got to try it

[bobes915]

Thank you for the tips.  I love to hear of lower cost solutions/free ways to take care of things. 

[potluck6]

i haven't done it but my mother would wash out ziploc bags turn them inside out to dry.Use cloth towels instead of paper towels just be sure you have a ton of towels can get them at the 99cent store. I found that bathroom mirrows only need to be wet to clean don't really need windex and dust with kleenex can get into hard to reach places.

[rusgiftsaolcom]

I save all of my dryer sheets from the laundry. I put them in the laundry bag along with the dry cloths that I bring home and put them in the dresser drawers with the cloths when I put the cloths away.

[StarlitNirvana]

i put dryer sheets in my sock drawer to keep them smelling nice.

Wow! I never thought of that but that is such a great idea, I love it! I'm going to have to start doing it 

[de3ik]

i'll use the plastic bags you get from stores for garbage bags

That's a good one short. We do that too. My mother has done that for years. She just saves the bags and puts them into the trash bin for this. She found that Meijers and Walmart bags work better for the Kitchen bin which is larger and gets a lot more trash, since their a little longer. Any other grocery bag will work for the smaller bathroom trash bins as long as the bag isn't a mini.

[dorannmwin]

And one from us that we did today. We had a sink that absolutely would not drain. Well, my husband had the bright idea to run the garden hose into the house and stick it down the drain. Seal around the drain with an old rag and turn the water on full blast.

It didn't take but running the hose for a minute and then pulling everything out. Our sink drains better than it has ever drained since we've owned our house and we didn't have to spend hundreds of dollars for a service call from a plumber.

[CHANEYLAKEGIRL]

We make our own foaming soap, both for dish and hand washing. If you fill the pump bottle 3/4 - 1 inch from the bottom with liquid hand soap or dish soap, then fill the rest of the bottle with warm water and gently shake. You may need a little more or less depending on the size of your pump dispenser.

We use cloth napkins in place of paper napkins, we have cloths we use instead of paper towels and rarely use paper plates.

Also, we have cut back and rarely use the dryer, but hand all our clothes up to dry.

[Cuppycake]

To completely eliminate bugs, use powdered boric acid ( the kind you use for eyewash) around cabinet top corners or anywhere you suspect they are entering. Within two weeks any room, apartment or home will be completely bug free.  Boric acid is cheap and can be purchased at drugstores. It is safe, harmless to humans.  Don't believe it is harmful to pets either but if you have pets you can just place it in higher up locations like countertop corners or shelves. This works excellently on crawling bugs like roaches etc.

Allot of people put it in the walls when they build a house. You can also cut a hole and put some in the walls and then just patch the holes.

[sliebshner]

I do recycle all our aluminum cans.  Not a lot of money, but every few dollars adds up.  I cook almost every day from scratch.  Cheaper than eating out or frozen dinners.  If I'm short on time, I use the slow cooker. I buy generic foods a lot instead of name brands and use coupons as much as possible. We grow a garden in the summer.   We change the oil in the cars at home.  Just a few ideas.

[Paulinha]

thats a good idea!

Thank you

[sak4kat]

I'm so glad someone started this thread.  There are some great tips on here.  I would like to add a couple of my own.  We recently moved further out into the country.  Now we're on well water and our laundromat's are that much further and the prices are a little higher compared to where we used to live.  So we bought a wonder washer.  It works great on so much of our laundry we save about $20 per week...can't do jeans or sweatshirts in it but that's ok.  If you don't mind you're clothes being a little crunchy from line drying it get's the job done...less gas in trips to the laundromat, less use of electricity and even less detergent is required.