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Tag: Save Money
Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill
Five Simple Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill Fast!
The average US family makes two visits to the grocery store each week typically spending over $70 each time. That adds up to a lot of money – are you looking for ways to cut your Grocery Bill while still eating healthily? It is easy to cut out luxury items but if you really want to save money then you need to look at making a few simple lifestyle changes. Lets face it…if you carry on eating what you always eat then you end up spending the same amount of money and as for your waistline…well, you know best whats going on there! Read on to discover the latest trends in food choices and learn ways to cut your grocery bill along the way!
So simple it sounds stupid right? Well actually no….because the average American family wastes roughly 25% of the food they buy…equivalent to over $1800 a year! The solution is simple, check what you have in stock before your go shopping and make a list of what you really need. When you get to the store only buy what is on the list and don’t be temped by the “buy on get one free offers” since these are for the more expensive brands and you will usually end up filling your trash can with the free stuff! If you buy less then you will waste less so this has got to be your priority when you are looking for ways to cut your grocery bill.
Another really simple suggestion based on the fact that roughly 30% of Americans are obese and another 30% are overweight. So if you are reading this article then the chances are that you at least have a growing muffin top and that means you are simply eating too much. Eating less means that you will buy less. If you opt for the 5:2 Alternate Day Fasting regime then you should be buying at least 25% less food each week…so that will save you another $1800 a year! Eating less is probably the one of the quickest ways to cut your grocery bill….
Check out your eating habits for a week or so and work out what you buy most of….then for the non-perishable foods buy the largest packs available. Good choices here are pasta, flour, rice, dried beans, nuts and olive oil. But you could also think about toilet paper and cleaning products that can be decanted into smaller containers. See if you can share some purchases with your friends, neighbors and family in order to get the best discounts. Bulk buying can easily achieve a 5% saving which is equivalent to over $350 a year!
Humans are creatures of habit and don’t the big stores just know it! We tend to buy the same brand of a particular product for most of our life…and often the choice will be based on what we were fed as children. Well check out the price differential between the in store brand and the luxury brand you usually buy. Have a fun night at home by switching some brands and doing some “blind testing” with your friends and family…can you really taste the difference? Being picky about what you choose rather than slavishly always buying the same product should shave yet another 5% or $350 off that ever decreasing grocery bill! Another one of the most simple ways to cut your grocery bill…just change your habits….
Taking a frozen pizza out of the freezer and popping it into the microwave is not cooking. Ready meals tend to be high in calories, high in salt, high in sugar…and of course high in price compare with actually making something yourself from INGREDIENTS! The fresh meat, fish and vegetable sections of our big stores are getting smaller every year as the typical family cooks less and less and relies more heavily on ready meals and processed foods. This is bad for your health as well as your pocket…but those big stores are going to welcome you with open arms. Start making the time to cook from scratch and you will find that it is great fun, really tasty and works out a lot cheaper. Don’t forget that you can easily cook a big batch of risotto or curry and freeze portions for later. A home made pizza will cost no more than $1.50 for the ingredients and will taste as good as a $5 frozen pizza. If you are worried about the complexity of real cooking (since this is hardly taught at school any more…) then start with simple dishes and also look at getting a bread machine to make bread. It takes literally 1 minute to load the ingredients into a bread machine and it will give you perfect loaves every time for around 30% of the store price. So long term, one of the best ways to cut your grocery bill is to switch over to cooking from ingredients rather than relying on ready meals and take-a ways! Learn this essential life skill and you will save at least $500 a year for the rest of your life!
The Bottom Line – Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half!
One of the best ways to cut your grocery bill long term is to start cooking from ingredients!
If you add up all these savings the amount is impossibly large since once you start eating less you will also be wasting less and buying less. However, if you really analyze what you are eating and look at what you could change or cut out then it really is possible to cut your grocery bill in half.
Take a Frugal Tip from the MeanyGoat and set your self a target to find Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half!Here are some useful links to help you think about ways to cut your Grocery Bill….
Food Waste How Much Food Does the Average American Waste
Homemade Bread How to Make Home Baked Bread
Bulk Buying How to Save Money by Buying In Bulk
How to Service your Lawn Mower
How to Service your Lawn Mower at Home!
Do you know how to service your lawn mower? If not then the chances are you either don’t bother…in which case it will soon break down, or you are paying somebody else to do it for you! Either way, learning how to service your lawn mower at home will save you money and ensure that you have a tidy lawn all season. It doesn’t take long and it isn’t difficult…read on to discover how….
Types of Lawn Mower:
In the old days people used to cut grass with a scythe….yes really! These days we have the following choices:
- Had Pushed Lawn Mower – Only suitable for tiny lawns unless you have muscles like Charles Atlas. The only routine maintenance required is a hearty breakfast for the user, oiling the wheel bearings and sharpening the blades
- Electric Mower – Great for medium lawns. Just make sure that you don’t mow over the cable! Just needs cleaning at the end of the season and the blade sharpening once a year
- Petrol Powered Lawn Mower – Since these are generally wider they are more suitable for cutting large lawns. Most common petrol mowers either have a Honda or a Briggs and Stratton 4 stroke petrol engine. Both of these are very reliable and require only very simple maintenance…basically sharpen the blade, clean the spark plug, change the oil and clean the air filter.
- Ride on Lawn Mower – For fields and paddocks as well as really huge gardens. The bottom of the range ones are great fun to use and are hardly more complicated than a standard petrol mower to service…they usually have a couple of large rubber belts to provide the transmission so those need checking…there are tires to pump up and brakes to adjust. Possible to service at home but best left to the experts unless you feel brave!
Most people have a gas powered lawn mower fitted with a small 4 stroke engine. This will take around one hour to service and is really simple with only standard tools needed. With regular maintenance these machines generally go on for ever….you should get at least 10 years use and probably double that! So learning how to service your lawn mower should save you the costs of paying the store to do it plus the mower will last ages so you won’t have to shell out for a new one…the Meany Goat calls this a win win situation!
How to Service your Lawn Mower – The Tools:
How to service your lawn mower at home…..these are the sort of tools that you will need…nothing special!
Typically for a basic service you will only need the following tools:
- Fine Glass paper
- A Screw Driver
- A Wrench
- A Pair of Pliers
If you are going to sharpen the blade then you will need either a file or an electric grindstone. A file works fine! Always wear gloves (eg thin rubber gloves) since the dirty oil and petrol can be toxic. A can of WD40 should be all you need for standard lubrication of the wheels etc! The next step is to do a search on YouTube for your make and model of mower…if you get no results then just search for the actual engine. There are loads of really good videos that show you exactly how to carry our the routine annual maintenance as well as how to undertake more complex repairs and tuning:
How to Service Your Lawn Mower – The Exact Steps:
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Put the Mower on A Stand | The important thing with a petrol mower is not to tip it up since the petrol will spill out of the tank and the oil will flow back into the filter. So, lift the mower onto a stand – I use a couple of old saw horses. This way you can get underneath to check and remove the blade and carry out all the other tasks at a sensible height. |
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Clean the Spark Plug | Find the spark plug and remove it with the plug spanner supplied with the mower…or else a pair of pliers. Blow off any loose black carbon deposits and clean the plug with a rag and then carefully with fine glass paper. Normally the gap will not need changing, but you can check it if you like with a feeler gauge. Screw the plug back into the engine and remember to clip the lead back on! |
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Clean the Air Filter | Cleaning the air filter is the only tricky bit really. Basically you undo the screw on the top and it will come away from the mower. Inside there will be some foam like a sponge. Clean the foam by soaking it in a small bowl of petrol (be really careful with the petrol and don’t even think about lighting up that spliff). Squeeze the foam out several times and put it on one side to dry for a few minutes. When it is dry gently pour some oil onto it and rub it in. Put the air filter back together and screw it back onto the mower. |
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Check the Oil Level | Find the oil level gauge…unscrew it and check the level. Top up with the correct oil if the level is low. You should really change the oil once a year if you use the mower regularly since this will extend the life of the engine. In reality the MeanyGoat mower is ten years old and the oil has only been changed twice…& it is still going strong! If you do change the oil then locate the drain plug which is usually under the engine and can be accessed from underneath…hence it is a good idea to put the mower on the stand! The plug is small and will be difficult to spot since the underside of the mower deck is covered in old grass. Loosen it, remove it and drain the oil into an old plastic bottle and dispose of it correctly at your local recycling point. On no account put the oil down the drain. |
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Sharpen the Blade | The blade really needs to be removed in order to sharpen it properly. Use thick leather gloves to grip the blade with one hand and use a long handled wrench in the other. Take the blade out, put it in a vice and file the edges sharp before replacing it. If the blade is really dented or otherwise beyond repair then think about replacing it. Do not file off a lot of metal to try to reapir it since the blade will then become unbalanced and this will cause loads of vibration and can damage the engine. |
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Fill up the Gas Tank! | When everything is done give the mower a quick brush over and wipe away any oil or petrol with a rag. Top up the gas tank, prime the engine and pull the cord…..it should start first time! |
So, take a Frugal Tip from the MeanyGoat and learn how to service your lawn mower….a standard service should take under an hour once a year…that has got to be worth the effort since it will save you hundreds of dollars by not having to buy a new one! If you have any doubt about how to service your mower always ask a professional for advice and always follow safe working practices including the safe disposal of any surplus oil or petrol.
More information about lawn mower servicing click this link:
How to maintain your lawn mower
If you want to learn how to cut down the amount of mowing you need to do then read this article on Eco Grass:
ECO Grass – Growing a Frugal Lawn
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Bad Vices
Stay Healthy and Save Money by Understanding Your Bad Vices!
Most of us have been brought up under the shadow of the “7 Deadly Sins”, but in the modern world our Bad Vices have been cruelly manipulated by Marketeers who have discovered that there is big money to be made by giving us what we want and crave most. These bad vices like fast food, that extra beer after work and “social smoking” the odd pack a week not only make an immediate dent in your monthly budget but also carry the risk of serious long term health effects for you and your family. Read on to discover the true cost and how to balance “Good Vices” against “Bad Vices“…..learn about the costofyourvices.com website that will automatically work out the annual cost of your bad vices so that you can instantly see the value of becoming a Quitter!
Bad Vices
Bad Vices We Can Easily Live Without:
On our sophisticated modern world we are completely surrounded by vices and temptation, and of course this isn’t by accident. Corporations like McDonald’s and the big supermarkets spend huge sums of money every year understanding our buying habits and analyzing how we make buying decisions and choices. Actually it’s pretty simple..we eat chocolate because we like it, we smoke because we think it is cool and we play the lotto every week because “somebody has to win”! These are basic factors of human behavior that we all have to some extent or another.
- Smoking - There is no such thing as “Social Smoking”…you either smoke or you don’t. If you smoke then you are literally burning money and stacking up long term health issues like heart disease and cancer. Each year smoking costs the US economy $196 Billion health related spending while only $22 Billion is spent on Education….
- Junk Food - Eating bad food and snacks between meals not only costs you a fortune can also help explain why your pants don’t fit you any more; The bigger you get the more potential health problems you will encounter…particularly things like Type 2 Diabetes and high blood pressure. Currently ONE THIRD of Americans are considered to be medically overweight.
- Gallons of Soda - Mega Gulps, Pepsi, Coke…whatever, they are all pretty bad for you. The regular versions are stuffed full of sugary calories and many are loaded with caffeine. You are looking at bad breath like a Komodo Dragon (yuk!), stained and decaying teeth worse than Shane McGowan and a waste-line expanding like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
- Coffee to Go - Why do you need that paper cup of coffee to go? If you are thirsty drink some water! Caffeine is addictive and can interfere with sleep patterns so too much is certainly bad for you. If you like coffee then treat yourself at home and drink it properly from a nice cup!
- Lotto Tickets - OK, somebody has to win, but the chances are that it wont be you and every time you buy another ticket it is the lotto company that is really winning. Your chances of winning the Powerball lottery are 1 in 175 million. Unless you can afford to waste the money keep it in your pocket or put it in your piggy bank!
- The Booze - Stopping off for a beer a few nights a week after work then? Pretty soon that can build up into a difficult habit to break and it brings with it the risk of yet more health problems in later life including serious liver disease. If you want to drink alcohol then follow the consumption guidelines, enjoy it and keep it for special occasions!
Good Vices
Good Vices We Can Cultivate:
But there are actually good vices and bad vices…many things that we are told are bad can actually be good for us in certain circumstances or in moderation. So what are some of these “Good Vices” that we should be searching out?
- Gambling - Yes, gambling! Recent research from the University of Salford has found that recreational gambling, like a monthly poker night or a group visit to a casino, is actually good for us! Early days in this research but it seems that the positive health impact is most for the over 65′s. Just keep it under control and don’t lose your shirt!
- Video Games - Hmmm, spending all that time alone blasting people to bits can’t really be good can it? Research work from the University of Rochester found that regular action gamers could make decisions 25% faster than non gamers without losing accuracy. In addition they found that experienced gamers could do six things at the same time without becoming confused…while for you and me the average is four or less…Time to drag that old Nintendo console out of the loft?
- Beer - A recent study from Italy has looked at beer consumption and found that people drinking a pint a day had a 31% lower risk of heart disease when compared to those who drank nothing at all. It seems that both beer and red wine carry similar beneficial health effects if consumed in strict moderation!
- That Take Away Curry - OK, we know fast foods are generally bad choices, but some “take aways” could be good for us after all. US research from Oregon State University has shown that regular consumption of Curcumin, which is the active ingredient in the spice Turmeric, carries big health benefits. It seems that this standard ingredient in curry helps boost the body’s immune system meaning fewer infections and quicker recovery.
Remember This….
Conclusions
STOP the “Bad Vices” that you know are really damaging to your health & pocket
Eliminate things that are just a waste of money
Cut down on “treats”
Cultivate & Manage your “Good Vices”
Live life to the full and enjoy yourself!
Quantify the True Cost of Your Vices:
Bad Vices – Discover The True Cost of Your Vice§
Ok, so you already know what you should and shouldn’t be doing, but like many of us you simply lack the motivation to get started and make those first difficult changes. Well, this is exactly where the costofyourvices.com quiz can help you out. This is a really helpful micro-site with only one aim….to help you improve the quality of your life by discovering how much all that bad stuff is really costing you. Hit the “Start to Save” button and you will be guided through a series of informative and educational screens covering the major vices of smoking, coffee, alcohol, fast food, the lottery and soda. Select your average weekly consumption of each and your total annual saving is automatically calculated on the last screen. The annual total is broken down into sections so that you can identify and attack your most expensive vice first! This is a really useful tool that could help kick-start some lifestyle changes that have a huge potential impact on both your health and your bank balance.
The MeanyGoat Bad Vices Test Drive:
Bad Vices – Wow, look how much I could gain if I became a “Quitter”!
I tested the site as a non-smoker who drinks a few coffees a day and some wine a couple of times a week…I flagged up 2 or 3 fast food meals a week and some lotto tickets, but gave the soda a swerve….and guess what that very modest set of vices is costing me a massive $2716 a year. Come on, get real, just think what better uses you can put that sort of money to! And you don’t have too far too look because eBay Deals always has a great selection of bargains to delight even the most hardened Frugalista! This handy quiz really is packed with information and will act as a real eye-opener for you…full marks to the creators at the eBay Deals Blog for taking the time to bring this to us!
Take a couple of Frugal Tips from the MeanyGoat: Discover the true cost of your bad vices and then look for better ways that you can use that money! How about telling your own money saving story concerning Bad Vices in the comments below?
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Frugal Ways to Save Money
Quick Frugal Ways to Save Money!
Looking to kick start your money saving plan? Need some extra inspiration? Here is list of really quick and easy frugal ways to save money. Like any checklist most of it is not rocket science…the trick to cutting down your expenditure is simply to zoom in on your lifestyle and start changing small things. If you don’t change anything in your life then the money tree isn’t suddenly going to appear over night in you back yard. So read the list and start doing as many of them as possible, and you will soon notice the difference in your bank balance at the end of the month.
Checklist of Frugal Ways to Save Money:
One of the best frugal ways to save money is simply to stop burning it…you burn money by smoking, having your heating set too high and by driving too fast!!!! All easy things to change!
- Start Breathing Fresh Air & Stop Smoking Now - Not only is smoking bad for your health and will knock years off your life but it is literally burning money. Don’t bother trying to cut down just cut it out. If your cigarettes are costing you around $6 a pack and you have “cut down” to around 3 packs a week then that adds up to close to $1000 a year.
- Drink More Tap Water - Water from the tap is treated to a high standard and is always the number one choice when you are thirsty. Cut down on all other types of bought drink like cola, energy drinks, beer and wine. The more water you drink and the more you cut down on the other beverages the more money you will save….and also the less calories you will consume so that should also help with your weight loss. If you are paying $1.50 a pop for your beverages and having two or three a day then that adds up to over $1500 a year and plenty of calories that have gone straight to your butt!
- Make a Brown Bag Lunch - Honestly, it takes literally two or three minutes to put together a really cheap and healthy packed lunch that should save you at least $5 a day… so that is another $1200 a year in your pocket rather than in McDonald’s! All it takes is a tiny bit of forward planning to make sure you have the ingredients in stock and then just a couple of minutes work either the night before or first thing in the morning…job done …curching! This just shows that frugal ways to save money can be really easy!
- Turn Down Your Heating Thermostat and Put on a Sweater - Almost every house has a programmable thermostat to regulate the heating but many people simply don’t use them. The idea is to program your heating to run at a lower temperature when you are out of the house or asleep. Spend 30 minutes reading the instructions for your thermostat and programming it for your lifestyle and this could knock up to 30% off your heating bill. The average annual heating bill in the USA is currently around $1000 so that 30 minutes of puzzling over the instructions could save you $300 a year. Get real, if you can program the TV and the DVD player then you must be able to figure out the heating!
- Reduce Your Water Temperature - Lowering your domestic hot water temperature will save you between 3% and 5% for each 10F. Each heating system is different, but just search out the hot water temperature either in your heating programmer or directly on the hot water tank. Reduce the temperature to around 120F to achieve a good saving, remove the scalding hazard and reduce the “scaling” effect in hard water areas. Five minutes work could save you $50 a year!
- Learn to Drive Economically - To get maximum MPG from your car then leave it in the garage and bum a lift with your neighbor or buddy. The optimum speed for maximum mile per gallon varies from car to car and also depends on the road surface, your tire pressures and the weather. However, everybody knows that the faster you drive and the harder you accelerate the more gas you burn. Try to drive at a constant speed around 60mph for maximum fuel economy. This little bit of patience while you are driving will also reduce your “road rage” and enable you to arrive at your destination feeling much more relaxed…plus you could be saving up to 20% on your annual fuel bill. To help get such a big saving also look at removing all unnecessary “drag” from your car…like the roof rack when you aren’t using it…getting rid of extra weight like your spare sports equipment. The average driver in the USA uses around 700 gallons of gas a year so at $3.70 a gallon that is $2590……reduce that by 20% and you save a cool $518 a year.
So if you have a crack at just these six frugal ways to save money then you should have over $4500 a year extra..from doing almost nothing apart from modifying your own behavior.
Frugal ways to Save Money…..every penny counts and small regular changes can add up to a lot of money over a year!
Take a Frugal Tip from the MeanyGoat and start checking out these simple frugal ways to save money right now…these are all simple positive steps that anybody can make right now to give you more cash in your pocket!
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Shopping Habits
Shopping Habits – Is it Time to Change them?
We all have distinctive shopping habits, and these days the big stores track them relentlessly every time we use our store cards. We tend to shop in the same places for the same kinds of products since familiarity is very comfortable. We also believe the big stores claims that they have our interests at heart and are offering the very best value for money. Actually this is total hogwash! Get off couch and get out of your comfort zone…review your shopping habits and you can save some serious time and money. Read on to find out exactly how.
The Big Store Trap:
As soon as we step foot into a big store or supermarket then the pounds, dollars and euros start flooding out of our bank account. How often do you leave a shop without buying anything? Not very often probably! Think about your regular “weekly shop”…you probably get most stuff from the same store. A typical weekly shop averages around $100……which is $5200 a year and $52,000 over 10 years. Boy those supermarkets must be rubbing their hands together when they see you heading towards the checkout. Quite simply our standard weekly shop is big bucks. Once you are inside that safe familiar environment the big stores then whack you from all sides with special offers. It takes a real shopping hardnut to walk past all those “buy on get one free” offers and not drop something in your basket.
Basically, the longer you are in the shop the more money you will spend.
Since the supermarkets know this they arrange the isles so you have to walk past loads of stuff to find what you went in for in the first place. This is retail science in action and it is actually pretty aggressive! Recognizing the tricks that the supermarkets and stores use can help you change your shopping habits and avoid wasting money.
Comfort Shopping:
The regular weekly shop is really just the tip of the iceberg….think about all the other small purchases you make during a typical day…the coffee, the muffin the bottle of soda from the gas station. These are impulse buys under your control. However, we all tend to follow patterns or habits in our daily lives and this is reflected in what we buy as well. That Starbucks coffee you buy every day costs a few dollars and also contains around 300 unnecessary calories that will soon start to build up around your waistline! Soon you are worried about your weight and so you take out a gym subscription. Wow it feels great after a workout…but how often do you then stop by at the bar to pick up an energy drink or a “healthy” cereal bar? That sneaky purchase at the end will cost you more money and means that around half the calories you have just burned you have just eaten again! Time to tink about those shopping habits again….
So here is the kind cycle of spending that is triggered by Comfort Shopping:
- Buy a mid morning Muffin & Coffee – $5 a day
- Start piling on the pounds
- Clothes feel tight
- Take out Gym Membership – $750 a year
- Buy Gym clothes and new Trainers $250
- Buy energy drink and cereal bar after workout – $5 a day
So that innocent coffee and muffin then locks you into a new cycle of consumption with a gym membership, new clothes and of course a post workout snack. It is well documented that intensive gym work also stimulates tha appetite…so the chances are that you will also eat more to compensate. Hey presto you are out of pocket by a thousand bucks in your first year and you haven’t lost any weight at all! If this sounds familiar then it is certainly time to review your shopping habits, as well as you overall lifestyle.
Time to Update your Shopping Habits!
Look out for Farmers Markets when you update your shopping habits because these often offer better choice and lower prices than the big stores
If you are serious about reducing your spending without actually reducing you quality of life then there are two key concepts to keep in mind:
- Supermarkets are not always the cheapest places to shop
- Impulse buys will soon eat away at your weekly budget
Ok, what next? Use this Checklist to help you update your shopping habits. The objective is to take control of your spending so that you buy what you need not what the stores want you to buy. Don’t forget that in a typical household up to one third of all the food purchased gets wasted! This means that ” buy on get one free” really means “ buy one get one free, leave it in the fridge for a month and then chuck it in the trash!”
- Never go shopping without a list
- Never buy anything that isn’t on the list
- Spend as little time as you can inside the shop…plot out the quickest route in your mind to get to the checkout!
- Always check the “unit cost” of a product ie the cost in dollars per pound or kilo. Special offers often use smaller packets so the real cost can be higher
- Reduce or eliminate your impulse buys and put the money in a box for your holiday fund or some other special thing you are saving for
- Checkout online shopping…prices for many items can be a lot cheaper
- Look for local markets and farmers markets. Research from teh UK shows that these offer better value than the big stores…more choice and lower prices!
- Keep active…the more you walk and the less you sit then the more calories you burn naturally without needing hours of workouts
Take a Frugal Tip from the Meany Goat and update your shopping habits. It is good to do this at any time of the year….but obviously if you do it before big spending times like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving then it will have the biggest positive impact on your budget!
Read why Produce is better value at farmers’ markets than superstores
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Use Elbow Grease
Why Use Elbow Grease?
I grew up to the chants of “get on and use elbow grease” from my Grandparents, but I suspect plenty of the current generation struggle with this concept. And it is not difficult to understand why…just take a look in the local supermarket and see how many shelves are devoted to different cleaning products. There is now a specialist cleaning product available for every conceivable kind of dirt, spot or mark….and it goes without saying that the costs of buying all these different products soon mounts up. Are they really necessary or should we just get on with the cleaning and use elbow grease instead?
What is Elbow Grease?
The Online Etymology Dictionary says that the term Elbow Grease has been in use in English since the 1670′s as a phrase used to describe “hard rubbing”. Due to this you can find several rather more obscene interpretations if you study the Google results closely!!
Google really is a source of most interesting information…..
However, let us confine ourselves to the frugal objective of reducing the costs of cleaning. What our elders and ancestors knew and understood well was that almost anything can be cleaned using just simple materials providing enough effort is put in. “Spit and Polish” is derived from army vocabulary and has the effectively the same meaning…in this case using the natural enzymes present in saliva to do the cleaning if you put some effort in yourself. It seems that modern generations have lost the ability to put in much effort (except when masturbating) and prefer to buy an off the shelf “miracle cleaning product”!
How to Use Elbow Grease:
Every day we are bombarded with adverts on the TV and internet about new and improved cleaning products…particularly for toilets where there seems to be a complete paranoia about “germs”. Most things around the house can be cleaned really well and hygienically using just a few simple and very low cost products that you probably already have in your cupboards.
The key to low cost cleaning is to use elbow grease little and often. In other words do a bit of cleaning every day so that you only spend a few minutes at a time and also so that the dirt never has a chance to build up. Once your toilet has become encrusted with limescale and skid marks then it will take ten times longer to clean than if you give it a quick once over with the bog brush on a regular basis and a dollop of bleach if you are really scared of the “germs”.
Lets get this dirt thing into perspective recent scientific research by Dr Chuck Gerba, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Arizona has found that an average toilet seat has around 50 faecal bacteria such as E.coli per square inch. Now that might sound like an awful lot…but hang in there and sit tight. Dr Gerba found 200 times more bacteria on kitchen chopping boards than on the toilet seats…and a whopping 200,000 more bacteria on that dinky little kitchen sponge you have tucked behind the tap!!! Don’t even think about how many bacteria there are on your telephone, mobile phone or computer keyboard……
Yuk, those “cleaning” cloths and dish cloths contain zillions of bacteria that you are just spreading around your house!
Full details here: The Times of India
So just forget about all those fancy and expensive cleaning products and just start following some basic hygiene rules and use elbow grease.
Cheap and Effective Cleaning Methods that Use Elbow Grease:
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Windows | Forget about paying for a window cleaner or buying those expensive spray on products. If you clean windows on a regular basis with a nice soft sponge soaked in hot water with just a dash of either dish soap, lemon juice or vinegar (not all 3 at once) then they will keep sparkling. Just polish clean and use elbow grease and a proper chammy leather |
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Plugholes | Soak a paper towel in vinegar and leave for half an hour or so. Rinse off with warm soapy water and the chrome plug hole will really shine. |
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Bathroom | Here you need a system…start with the bath or shower, then do the sink and finally end with the toilet. Use a disposable cloth (or one of your recycled cloths) and flush it away at the end of the cleaning process. The cheapest all purpose cream cleaner will do the job perfectly well. Use vinegar for any limescale and then finish off the toilet with the cheapo diluted bleach rather than the expensive gel stuff that just gets flushed away anyway. |
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Floors | Wood and tiled floors are fine just swept on a regular basis and mopped down with hot water and lemon juice once in a while. Carpets you just vacuum |
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Dusting | Never, ever use those horrible “Mr Sheen” type aerosol cleaning sprays. They might make the room smell clean but they dont actually help make your book selves clean. There are two processes here….dusting and cleaning. Unless you have allowed the dust to accumulate to epic proportions then you can clean and dust at the same time buy just using a clean soft cloth and a bucket of hot water with a dash of dish soap. For wooden surfaces wring the cloth out really well…let dry and then apply some wood polish. For plastic surfaces polish dry with your trusty chammy leather. |
Make a Clean Start and Use Elbow Grease!
Unless you use elbow grease your toilet seat will be cleaner than your chopping board!
All your regular cleaning can be accomplished really efficiently using just hot water, lemon juice, vinegar, dish soap, the cheapest cream cleaner and the cheapest diluted bleach. That’s all there is to it…apart from the elbow grease of course. Basic hygiene means that you should be cleaning a little and often and that way you just don’t need all those expensive cleaning products.
Take a Frugal Tip from the Meany Goat…start making your salad on the toilet seat since it could be cleaner than your chopping board unless you learn to use elbow grease!!
And here is the rest of the story…..Should I buy a Roomba or just use Elbow Grease?
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DIY Peanut Butter
DIY Peanut Butter, Healthy, Quick, Cheap and Tasty!
DIY Peanut butter is quick to make, tasty and less than half the price of shop bought products. The added advantage of making your own peanut butter is that you can control the important ingredients since most shop versions contain excessive amounts of sugar and salt.
History and Origin of Peanut Butter:
Since peanuts are native plants from the American continent this is where we must look for the origins of Peanut Butter. It seems that the Aztecs were the first to discover that the nuts could be roasted and then ground up finely to form an edible paste.
More recently, the Canadian Marcellus Gilmore Edson obtained a patent in 1884 that described how peanuts could be roasted and then milled between plates to form an edible paste.
But it was not until 1903 that the the US physician Dr. Ambrose Straub obtained the patent for the first peanut butter making machine. Incidentally, his interest was in creating a nutritious product that could be used to feed patients without teeth! Just suck it and see!!
The Good, the Bad and the Toxic……
The great thing about Peanut butter is that it contains around 25% protein, vitamin B3, vitamin E, plenty of fibre and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid. The protein is what is called “incomplete”, but when eaten with wholemeal bread the two foods compliment each other to form a complete protein….pretty handy for those sandwiches!!
The bad thing about peanut butter is that commercial versions contain a lot of added salt and sugar…and some even have added hydrogenated vegetable oils which have been associated with risks of heart disease and strokes. However, the biggest concern is that sometimes low quality peanuts are used to make the product, and these can be contaminated with the molds that create carcinogenic aflatoxin. Since this is a well known risk most countries carry out rigorous monitoring of both raw peanuts and and various products they are used in.
Why take risks with your health when you can easily make DIY peanut butter so that you are in complete control of the quality of all the ingredients. It takes just minutes to make, and since it has no additives needs to be stored in the fridge where a jar will keep for a month…but you are unlikely to be able to keep your hands off it for that long!
Ingredients for DIY Peanut Butter:
This is all you need to make delicious peanut butter at home:
- Unsalted dry roasted peanuts without their skins
- Any other kind of roasted nuts or seeds you feel like adding (eg pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds or almonds etc)
- A pinch of salt
- A small spoonful of honey per jar
- A couple of spoons of Peanut oil per jar
- A food processor with a rotating blade
The cheapest way to buy the peanuts is to grab a bag of the ready roasted nuts still in their shells. Sprinkle them out on a work surface, put a wooden chopping board on top and press down firmly to split the shells. Take out the nuts and rub off the skins before putting them into an empty jam jar. You will need One and a third jars of shelled nuts to make one jar of DIY peanut butter: The best way is to measure it out like this and make one jar at a time so that you can use it immediately.
Shell the nuts and fill a jar so you know how many you will need….one and a third jars!
It has to be said that shelling the peanuts does take some time….but you could get the kids involved since they are going to be eating most of it anyway. Alternatively look out for the unsalted roasted nuts that have already been hulled….or your last option is to buy the nuts and roast them yourself in the oven for around 15 minutes at 350F
Read how to roast peanuts at Homecooking
How to Make DIY Peanut Butter:
Once you have all the ingredients to hand it will take you literally two minutes to turn them into DIY peanut butter…just follow these steps:
- Put the nuts into the liquidizer container…preferably one of those with a lid otherwise the nuts will fly everywhere!
- Blast the nuts for 15 seconds. Take the lid off and stir everything up. Repeat 2 or 3 times or until the nuts are getting pretty fine
- For a standard jam jar add one T spoon of honey, a pinch of salt and a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil
- Put the lid back on and blast for another 15 seconds. By now you should have a nutty paste
- Check the consistency and taste….if it is still too solid add another spoon of oil
- The nuts are naturally pretty sweet so you can also make it without the honey if you want
- If you want really smooth peanut butter just push the paste down into the liquidizer and give it another couple of blasts
Use a blender with a lid to make your DIY Peanut Butter so that the nuts don’t fly everywhere!
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Once you are happy with the product then just spoon it out into a clean jam jar with a plastic screw top lid. You need to store this in the fridge since you have not added any preservatives except the pinch of salt.
DIY Peanut Butter…the final product…really tasty!
Final Thoughts
Take a Frugal Tip from the MeanyGoat and start making DIY Peanut butter today. Do the math, if you are a regular eater of Peanut Butter then it is really easy to save over $50 like this. That means $50 more in your pocket rather than in the coffers of some fat-cat supermarket chain. Don’t forget to make double quantities on January 24 which, as we all know, is National Peanut Butter Day!!
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Should I Buy a Roomba
Should I Buy a Roomba or just use Elbow Grease?
I often wonder….should I buy a Roomba iRobot Vacuum Cleaner so that the house could be vacuumed while I am out at work. Think of all the extra time I would have, and think how clean the house would be! But a new ones around $300 so that is a lot of money…frugal common sense suggests I am heading in the wrong direction here so lets look at the question in more detail.
Roomba Options:
The Roomba “autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner” is manufactured by iRobot, was launched in 2002 and has sold over 3 million units worldwide. Surely this invention is what what we expect from the technology that took man to the moon? This is what we have all dreamed about…a friendly robot that performs a useful and labor saving task while we can enjoy a life of leisure! Well, like all dreams we have to wake up eventually, so what is the real options for vacuum cleaning your house or apartment?
- New Roomba: $300 to $800 depending on the model so that is a serious investment!
- Second Hand Roomba: $50 to $100 on ebay. The older models like the Discovery have a much better reputation for reliability than the more recent models and the spare parts are widely available.
- Normal Vacuum Cleaner: $250 or so for a Dyson or $50 for a simple traditional model
- Dust Buster Handheld Vacuum Cleaner & Dustpan: $30 for the lot
Why not use a dust pan and brush and save the $300?
The Dead Tortoise:
So should I take the plunge? Should I buy a Roomba….or choose one of the other options? Take a reality check, is a battery powered over-sized frisby really going to clean up my place properly and save me time? Realistically the answer is “no” for the following reasons:
- Maintenance: The Roomba is small and so is the dust compartment so you need to empty and clean it after each session. Those funny straw like brushes have to be replaced regularly and if it encounters fishing line, string etc you could be in for a long job untangling it
- Intelligent Navigation: Ok so I need to spend time on a bit of maintenance…but the Roomba will navigate around my place and find all the dirt right? Well it might….but then again it might get stuck inside the bathroom for two hours until the battery runs down. The Roomba is not that smart since it can nudge its way into a room through a half open door, but can just as easily shut itself in as well.
- A Dead Tortoise: What happens when a tortoise gets stuck on its back….well it dies. A Roomba does the same, and there are plenty of obstacles around the place that can tip it over. Once wedged in a corner or stuck on its back it can’t right itself so it will “wurgh” away happily until the battery runs out….and then you have do the cleaning as well as fix the machine
- Stairs: Ha ha ha, well the Roomba is really stuck here since it was not designed to clean stairs, so you will just have to get on and do those yourself…
- Cables: Mobile phone chargers, phone cables, all that stuff behind your PC….well that is a perfect place for a Roomba to get stuck, gobble up the cables and try to make a nest. Basically you need to tidy stuff up first before you “release the beast”. Actually you should just put things away after you have used them so that you have a tidier house in the first place!
- Noisy Little Bugger: Well, if you are able to schedule the Roomba to “do its thing” while you are out of the house….and if it doesn’t lock itself in the bathroom or die on its back then after a couple of hours you might come home to a pretty clean couple of rooms. However, if you have to use the Roomba while you are in the house then you will soon get fed up with the irritating noise that goes on and on forever….well at least until it gets stuck on its back and the battery runs out!
So, Should I buy a Roomba?
A fine example of a second hand Roomba worth seeking out on ebay. Oscar the cat particularly likes to tease the robot but so far has not managed to achieve the “Dead Tortoise”!!
It is pretty clear that there are a lot of downsides to this robotic cleaning lark. How long does it actually take to wizz round yourself? Get organized and you can do it a lot quicker than you think probably! Of course it depends on the kind of floors you have….wood, lino (does that still exist?) or carpet etc…and do you have a herd of pets that shed hair everywhere.If you have no pets (or just Goldfish) and mostly hard floors then a quick 2 minute sweep with a broom and then wizz up the dust with a handheld vacuum cleaner before doing a quick suck round the skirting boards. Honestly, you can do that in no more than five minutes per room….not bad exercise either. You have to do the stairs anyway. Just find five minutes a day to do some quick cleaning and your place will be spick and span the whole time. Leave it for a month and not even the Roomba can help you out since there will be so much dirt that you will have to empty it every few minutes. Hmmm, I am confused, should I buy a Roomba or not? Best checkout the YouTube video for more information to help me decide if I should buy a Roomba or not…
The Second Hand Option:
If you like scouring the pages of ebay then it is fairly easy to find older models of the Roomba available very cheaply…buy two so that you have one for spares. There is a lot of information online about how to repair and fix them so if you want to invest the time then you could get up and running for a sensible price. But going down this route commits you to fiddly regular maintenance and repair which you will need to learn how to do….perhaps this is a good option if you really hate housework, have mostly carpets and perhaps plenty of pet hair to cope with.
Final Thoughts:
Technology is great, and really can help us to save time and often money….but you need to choose carefully and not just “buy now think later” or else you might end up with cupboards full of stuff you never use and a huge credit card bill! In certain circumstances a Roomba could make sense, particularly if you are able to get one dirt cheap second hand. But for most of us it is probably better to find a quick and simple “low tech” solution, and focus on getting the job done regularly and quickly. Should I buy a Roomba to save time and money….then the answer is certainly “NO” if you are thinking about a new one…but searching for a low cost second hand one could be worth considering.
Another amusing point of view that may help you answer the question “should I buy a Roomba” can be found at this link:
During 2012 several very low cost Roomba clones have appeared in the shops. These can often be had for under $100 and are about the size of a Frisbee. I think common sense will tell you that these robotic cleaners are just not up to the job since they are just too small and will not be able to store enough dust. If you buy a Roomba then at least can be sure that you will always be able to obtain spare parts….with these cheap clones your guess is as good as mine!
More details about cheap and reliable cleaning methods here: Use Elbow Grease!
Credits: Many thanks to Anne & Pete for the ideas and the pictures of the Roomba, which is in fact part of a fleet of three that they own. Oscar the cat is not impressed, but is at least part of the justification! He is probably thinking “should I buy a Roomba?…….narrr, perhaps I will lick my bum and then go out an catch another mouse”
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Frugal Tip: Make a DIY IPAD Stand
Need a DIY IPAD Stand for Time Lapse or Stop Motion Animation?
The IPAD rear facing camera is great for creating simple time lapse videos or stop motion animations….but to be successful you will need a stand or bracket to fix the IPAD to a standard photography tripod. There are several good quality products out there but they will all set you back upwards of $50 for something decent. With frugal filming in mind the MeanyGoat set about building a DIY IPAD stand using scrap materials lying around in the garage! Follow these instructions and with less than an hours work you can also save at least $50!!
Materials Required to Build a DIY IPAD Stand:
Here is a list of what you need to look for….first search in your garage…and then start looking in bins or skips for anything that you don’t have yourself. This really is something to build for zero cost!!
- Two or three feet of thin wood (less than a meter)
- A metal “L” bracket
- Some small screws – I used eight in total
- A small section of plastic “U” section cable duct
- A screw on nut that will fit the screw fitting on top of your tripod
- A small amount of felt or foam to cushion the IPAD
As for tools you will just need a saw, a drill and a screwdriver.
Instructions for Making a DIY IPAD Stand:
DIY IPAD Stand Construction Details
Once you have found all the stuff you need then grab your IPAD and measure the critical dimensions. Then put it down somewhere safely where you will not sit on it or tread on it….
- Drill out one of the holes in the metal “L” bracket so it is big enough for the screw fitting from the tripod to fit through easily
- Cut the base of the stand just slightly longer than the IPAD so you can eventually add side supports to prevent it falling out
- Cut the 4 upright supports to length….ie the height of the IPAD plus the height of the piece of wood used for the base
- Screw the plastic cable duct to the base (This is a “nice to have”, but the stand will work fine without it)
- Carefully measure where the round button is on the face of the IPAD and drill a hole in one of the vertical sections to allow access to it
- Screw the 4 vertical sections onto the base after drilling pilot holes to ensure the thin wood does not split
- Make sure that on one side 2 of the verticals are inset so that they do not obstruct the camera
- Stick on some felt or foam pads to cushion the IPAD
- Screw the metal “L” bracket to the base & fix to the tripod using the nut
Once you have assembled everything you just need to carefully check that the IPAD fits correctly and that you can access the button. Since you made the stand a bit wider than the IPAD you can now cut two pieces of scrap wood to size to fit on the outside verticals to act as stops to prevent the IPAD falling out of the stand sideways. Glue them on with superglue and then you will be finished !
Checkout this YouTube video showing the results that are possible once you have built a DIY IPAD Stand…..The MeanyGoat DIY IPAD Stand on YouTube
Testing the DIY IPAD Stand:
Once you have assembled everything carefully slide the IPAD into the DIY IPAD Stand and check that it fits securely and that you can access all the controls. Make any final adjustments. All the materials in contact with the IPAD should be checked to make sure that they are either padded with felt or sanded smooth…that way the case will not get scratched. If you want to make a Rolls Royce DIY IPAD Stand then you can of course paint it…but really, it is no work of art and is just intended to be really practical!
Looking After you IPAD:
It might not look pretty but this DIY IPAD Stand really does the job & is ideal for stop motion and animation photography
Please be careful with your IPAD……….
Any cases, stands or brackets in contact with an IPAD have the potential to scratch the case so be careful! However, if you study the pictures and follow the instructions you should be able to build something safe. Also always be very careful when sliding the IPAD into and out of the stand…this is when you are at greatest risk of dropping it. Make sure that the wooden stops are correctly aligned on the outer verticals to prevent the IPAD slipping sideways out of the DIY IPAD Stand. The MeanyGoat can accept no responsibility for any damage and these instructions are just intended as a guide to help any competent Frugal DIYer to make a simple tripod connector for free.
Next Steps:
Head over to the App Store and download a free copy of iMotion HD and use this to create stunning time lapse videos of clouds moving or flowers opening etc. Alternatively use your creativity to make a short Stop Motion animation of some kind. For both of these projects the IPAD is a superb tool and creates the videos much quicker than traditional methods. However, the results will be best if you have the IPAD securely mounted on a tripod. Spend less than an hour making a DIY IPAD Stand and you can save $50 and get great videos.
Take Frugal Tip from the MeanyGoat: Build a DIY IPAD stand from scrap and you can start a new hobby making time lapse videos and stop motion animations!
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