Friday, February 20, 2009

Frugal Friday

For the first time ever in my life, I am willingly attempting to spend God's money more wisely in regards to my grocery bill. I've had budgets in the past (and hated it!) due to necessity but for the last several years I have had the luxury of spending whatever I wanted to spend at the grocery store.
Last month I decided to purchase a box of dishwasher detergent instead of my usual package of drop-in action pacs. When I got home I recorded both the price of the box and the price of the pacs. Every time someone filled the detergent cup on the dishwasher, a hash mark was made to keep track of how many uses were in the box.


In the past, I've paid $4.99 for 20 pacs. The box of detergent was $4.49 and I got 40 washes from it. That's a savings of almost $50 over the course of a year....and $50 is a lot of thrift-store shopping!

I haven't purchased cookies for the kids' lunches from the store at all this year. (Although I did buy 3 boxes of girl scout cookies from the sweet little girl on our street.) I'm not sure that I'm saving any money by making my own.....I'm baking 2-3 times each week because Dr. Love & I are more likely to eat the homemade cookies. And I haven't yet tracked how much each batch of cookies costs me because I've been using up my flour, sugar & spice reserves.

I'll keep you posted :)

1 comment:

cheryl said...

I wondered how that came out! Those little "pouches" are so cute, but I knew they had to cost more b/c they are packaged so well! Ha! Next step...buying generic! LOL! I haven't had to buy that yet, but will be looking at it next time I have to buy a box!
Still have to buy Jet Dry though...that's what makes the dishes sparkle. I suppose we could somehow put vinegar in there...huh?