frugal hacks

How often do you wash your jeans?

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If you take Real Simple’s “When-to-wash-it handbook” as gospel, then I’m a total pig. Apparently I should wash my jeans after four to five wearings, launder my PJs every three or four days, and spend $10 on four ounces of a special swimsuit shampoo.

I don’t do any of those things. Oink, I guess.

Good thing I don’t wear silk PJs – Real Simple says they’re supposed to be washed daily.

In fact, I don’t wear a nightgown at all except in the winter. Sorry if that’s TMI for you. But I have an even dirtier image to share: Sometimes I wear a shirt twice before washing it.

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In praise of the rag bag.

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It takes me forever to use up a roll of paper towels. I wish I’d written the date inside the cardboard tube of the roll currently in my kitchen. It’s been there at least a couple of years. Even though I’ve been traveling a lot, that’s still a long time for one roll to have been operating – and to be only about 50% reduced.

It’s not that I’m particularly neat. It’s that I see no reason to use paper towels when I have plenty of rags.

Sure, paper towels are convenient. But they’re expensive, too. Why use and toss wads of paper when I can use a piece of cloth, launder it and use it again? And if you’re just draining salad greens or wiping up spilled water, you don’t even need to wash the cloth – just hang it up to dry.

Call that eco-friendly if you like. I prefer to think of it as common sense.

 

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8 ways to get rid of a headache. (Nine, if you count divorce.)

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Right in the middle of a recent deadline I developed a real blinder of a headache. Rather than take an aspirin or ibuprofen I drank a glass of water – and felt better almost immediately.

I won’t say I was actually dehydrated, but I might have been on the way. Or maybe I wasn’t. All I know is that water made me feel better. It often does.

It was also, of course, free.

Whether your headache is caused by incipient dehydration, stress, lack of sleep, lousy working conditions or marriage, try one of these no-drug methods to relieve the pain.

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Drivers: Watch where you’re going.

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Somebody pulling out of a parking lot hit my daughter and son-in-law’s car. The driver was too busy looking off to the side to notice that she was aimed straight at the Chevy Cavalier in the left-turn lane.

Even though she wasn’t going fast, the T-boning she gave the car damaged both doors on the passenger side. Neither one will open now and there’s probably unseen damage because it felt wonky during the drive home.

As Abby notes in this post, it looks as though the other driver’s insurance company will declare it totaled, as in “It costs more to fix than it’s worth.”

Here’s the thing: Their car was old. But it was still reliable transportation. With luck it would have lasted them several more years, years during which they would have been saving for a replacement vehicle.

 

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Frugal sniffles.

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Last summer I did a guest post over at Bargaineering called “Sick happens: How to prepare for an illness or injury.” For the past week I’ve been in the grip of la grippe and practicing what I preached.

It’s not actually la grippe, but rather some other kind of virus: sore throat, headache, malaise and a cough that snaps me forward like a willow tree in a high wind. I’m acutely aware that my Aunt Elna was alleged to have broken ribs while coughing.

At least I was ready for it.

 

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Cache some cash.

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Yesterday I used a Groupon voucher to get myself a discounted massage. The practitioner didn’t take credit cards. Time to raid the cash cache.

For the past six years I’ve kept a stash of ones, fives, tens and twenties hidden in my apartment. I believe in having legal tender on hand for emergencies.

Call it pin money, bail money or get-outta-town money. If you’re a numismatist, call it a collection of state quarters. Having a little ready cash means you’re, well, ready.

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Garbage in, supper out.

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My apartment smelled delicious last night after I threw the following into a pot: chicken stock from the freezer, organic chicken stock from a carton, a bunch of spices, a little balsamic vinegar and half a can of tomatoes.

While it simmered, I diced carrots and cooked them along with frozen corn and peas. I added some pasta to the stockpot; after it was tender, I added about a third of a cup of leftover quinoa and the strained vegetables.

And wished it weren’t hours past suppertime. I wanted soup. But I had to wait until the next day, except for the few spoons that I tasted in order to, um, adjust the seasonings.

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Guillain-Barre syndrome: The anniversary.

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Recently my daughter noticed she was having trouble swallowing. This perplexed her until she realized what day it was: Jan. 21, the anniversary of the day she wound up in the ICU back in 1998.

What put her there was Guillain-Barre syndrome, an auto-immune disease that attacks the peripheral nervous system and, in Abby’s case, paralyzed her right up to her eyeballs and nearly killed her.

 

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