Cheap or Thrifty?

Cheap or Thrifty?

  • Cheap

    Votes: 7 28.0%

  • Thrifty

    Votes: 18 72.0%
  • Total voters
    25
RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
13,157
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Upstate New York
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Geek on the Hill
I say it's thrifty to let the last bit of dish washing detergent drip into the new jug. My daughter says it's just cheap. Am I cheap or thrifty?

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Rich
 
What, no button for "efficient" or "environmentally friendly"?
 
Dunno if that is cheap or thrifty, but seems like a good idea. Clearly you do have a special skill at determining the center of gravity of objects!

Gary
 
I do that with shampoo. I also attach the sliver of bar soap to the new bar so as to not waste that last little bit.
 
Cheap. Although I understand, why waste those last few drops. Now that's just thrifty! ;):D
 
I do the soap thing like @Greg Bockelman, but I get the last drop out of dishwashing detergent and shampoo by pouring a little water in it and using it in its dilute form the last couple times.
 
I'm proud to call myself "frugal," not cheap. Been doing the soap thing for years, but we now use the little dishwasher pouches. For occasional sink use, my wife puts it in a smaller squirt bottle, because the giant jugs from Sams/Costco are too large to set out. Easy to put the last of one bottle with the beginning of the next, even if they are different colors.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I do that with shampoo. I also attach the sliver of bar soap to the new bar so as to not waste that last little bit.
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There you go. If an airline pilot does it, it has to be categorized as "cheap."

I also usually do the add water trick rather than use the balanced bottle. The exception is with large refill bottles for hand soap, in which case I will balance the bottle. Seems like you'd waste a lot of soap over time if you didn't find a way to use it all.


JKG
 
I flip the old bottle over onto the new on everything...

Shampoo, dish detergent, laundry detergent, ketchup, mustard, salad dressing, steak sauce, hot sauce, etc.

Everything.
 
I'm a huge believer in little things adding up to big things, both positively and negatively. I work in a field that has very standard pay rates, yet everyone I work with assumes I have a trust fund, because my money seems to go waaaaaaay farther than theirs. Yet a few times that I've made comparisons with my co-workers I've found:
1) I have a cell phone bill HUNDREDS of dollars less than theirs.
2) I paid cash for my new car, and I'm saving for when I need my next new car, so I have no car payments, and they have hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month in car payments.
3) I paid off my 30 year mortgage in 7 years.
4) I own some nice, large items, but not a lot of small junk.

I'm constantly asked why I do things like the original poster...but when we go out for lunch, no one asks why I usually buy...
 
tawood said:
I'm a huge believer in little things adding up to big things, both positively and negatively. I work in a field that has very standard pay rates, yet everyone I work with assumes I have a trust fund, because my money seems to go waaaaaaay farther than theirs. Yet a few times that I've made comparisons with my co-workers I've found:
1) I have a cell phone bill HUNDREDS of dollars less than theirs.
2) I paid cash for my new car, and I'm saving for when I need my next new car, so I have no car payments, and they have hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month in car payments.
3) I paid off my 30 year mortgage in 7 years.
4) I own some nice, large items, but not a lot of small junk.

I'm constantly asked why I do things like the original poster...but when we go out for lunch, no one asks why I usually buy...
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It's pretty simple math. If you're paying interest on loans you are not accumulating wealth. You're making someone else rich.
 
I do that with motor oil as well. If you take 2 caps, cut off the tops and epoxy them together, you can make a sleeve to join the bottles...

Top that one, frugal boy...
 
tawood said:
I'm a huge believer in little things adding up to big things, both positively and negatively. I work in a field that has very standard pay rates, yet everyone I work with assumes I have a trust fund, because my money seems to go waaaaaaay farther than theirs. Yet a few times that I've made comparisons with my co-workers I've found:
1) I have a cell phone bill HUNDREDS of dollars less than theirs.
2) I paid cash for my new car, and I'm saving for when I need my next new car, so I have no car payments, and they have hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month in car payments.
3) I paid off my 30 year mortgage in 7 years.
4) I own some nice, large items, but not a lot of small junk.

I'm constantly asked why I do things like the original poster...but when we go out for lunch, no one asks why I usually buy...
Click to expand...

Most people just don't get it. All those little savings and the absence of interest add up to more money in our pockets (or saving account, investment portfolio, IRA, etc.).

Rich
 
Everskyward said:
I do the soap thing like @Greg Bockelman, but I get the last drop out of dishwashing detergent and shampoo by pouring a little water in it and using it in its dilute form the last couple times.
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But...

With what we know of Rich from his posts, I strongly suspect that he's far too OCD to ever consider that. I'm confident that he measures the amount of dish detergent he uses each time and he likely has a special measuring spoon adjacent to the sink that he uses for this. And only this.

If he diluted the last bit of detergent in the bottle then he wouldn't know exactly how much he was using. And that just wouldn't work.

No how, no way!

:)
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
I bet the store brand was on sale for Cheaper.... :lol:
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One thing I've learned (the hard way) with generics/store brands is that many aren't concentrated and you'll use far more of it to get the job done. It winds up being more expensive, not less.

With dishwashing liquid, if the bottle doesn't say "concentrated" then it's not.
 
Cheap? Frugal? I hope not. Your method is SOP for me, and I'd hate to think I was cheap.

My wife, on the other hand, will NEVER use 100% of anything from any package. It drives me crazy to watch her open a brand new box of Lucky Charms when the box she has been eating from still has two bowl fulls left - and she does that every time. Never in her life has she emptied a cereal box, a jug of milk, a bag of sugar, etc.
 
And another thing. I think your builder put your window in sideways.
 
The dish soap thing has never occurred to me but it sounds like a good idea and I'd probably do it myself if it were my department. I don't do the Bockel-attach-the-sliver-of-soap thing, but how I handle it is once it becomes too small to use in the shower, it reverts to hand soap at the sink until it disappears.

Tortilla chips can be confounding when you reach the bottom. Lots of little broken chips and dust. Those usually find themselves on top of a baked dish if they aren't eaten.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I don't do the Bockel-attach-the-sliver-of-soap thing, but how I handle it is once it becomes too small to use in the shower, it reverts to hand soap at the sink until it disappears.
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It's never too small to use in the shower. You're just not lathering enough.
 
Here's another example of what I consider thriftiness, not cheapness.

My credit union branch doesn't have a coin-counting machine. I think maybe the main branch does, but I rarely have any reason to go there. Neither have I the patience, however, to sit around counting and rolling coins. But that's what I did for a long time because I certainly was not going to pay the fees that the Coinstar machine at Price Chopper charges to count coins (11 percent or thereabouts).

But my daughter (who, ironically, is always telling me how cheap I am) mentioned that Coinstar doesn't charge any fees at all if you take payment in the form of an Amazon (or other) gift card. I checked it out, and sure enough, the lass was right!

So now every coin in my pocket goes into a coffee-creamer can and eventually winds up in my Amazon account via Coinstar. Of course, that means losing the 5 percent I would have gotten back had I used their plastic, but it's still better than paying Coinstar 11 percent to count the coins.

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I just turned in some coins a couple of weeks ago, but they add up pretty quickly.

Another source of endless amusement for my family and friends is the way I buy tires. I have a CarCare1 card from Synchrony Bank. The interest rate is exorbitant, but I don't give a rat's because I don't pay interest, anyway. The reason I keep the card is because Discount Tire Direct often has specials during which they, the tire manufacturer (General in my case because I like General tires), and Synchrony all offer rebates at the same time. By timing my purchases to coincide with those happy alignments, I've saved roughly half the cost on many tire purchases. I also managed to do the same with a set of very nice alloy wheels that wound up costing me about $50.00 each by the time all the rebates were considered.

I figure that it's cost Synchrony about $400.00 in rebates alone to have me as their customer, which really does give me the giggles every time I think about it. They've raised my credit limit so high trying to get me to actually finance something that I could probably build a car from parts purchased entirely on my CarCare1 card. :D

Rich
 
I really don't use cash all that often just so I can avoid accumulating change.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I really don't use cash all that often just so I can avoid accumulating change.
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I don't like using plastic for small purchases at local mom-and-pop stores because the banks' vig eats up their profits. At large chains, I couldn't care less. Last week I used a cash-back credit card at WalMart to pay for a $4.99 item.

Rich
 
My grandmother - who came here from Italy during the Depression - would microwave the ketchup bottle to get the last bit out.
 
Just pouring the remaining soap from one oldcontainer to the new one, just seems logical to me.
 
RJM62 said:
My credit union branch doesn't have a coin-counting machine. I think maybe the main branch does, but I rarely have any reason to go there.
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Interesting that they haven't figured out what my CU has... They welcomed the Coinstar folks and their machines right into most of their CU lobbies and then they pay the fee if you're *depositing* it. If you want cash back, you pay the fee.

(Technically there's nothing from stopping you depositing it and then going to the ATM in the lobby on the way out the door either. Ha. But I just put it in the savings account.)

Keeps them out of the coin machine maintenance business completely, all they have to do is notify CS if the thing is broken, and it costs them assumably 5-10% (whatever they pay coinstar) and their average daily deposits goes up by whatever continual small fraction of folks counting coins is across their entire brick and mortar presence.

I suspect they get a way better deal than 10% to Coinstar too.

The Conistar boxes still have all the other options like the Amazon card thing, too. They just add a "deposit at this CU" button which prints you a receipt and the CU accepts that as cash and Coinstar and the CU settle up somehow.
 
My dad grew up through the depression.

In 1969 old he tore down a barn to get the lumber. He had me pulling nails. He taught me how to straighten the nails and sort by size.

Fast forward many years. I am cleaning out the garage after my dad passed away. I found those nails, still waiting to be used.

Those nails are now in my garage.

I think I turned out like my dad.
 
denverpilot said:
Interesting that they haven't figured out what my CU has... They welcomed the Coinstar folks and their machines right into most of their CU lobbies and then they pay the fee if you're *depositing* it. If you want cash back, you pay the fee.

(Technically there's nothing from stopping you depositing it and then going to the ATM in the lobby on the way out the door either. Ha. But I just put it in the savings account.)

Keeps them out of the coin machine maintenance business completely, all they have to do is notify CS if the thing is broken, and it costs them assumably 5-10% (whatever they pay coinstar) and their average daily deposits goes up by whatever continual small fraction of folks counting coins is across their entire brick and mortar presence.

I suspect they get a way better deal than 10% to Coinstar too.

The Conistar boxes still have all the other options like the Amazon card thing, too. They just add a "deposit at this CU" button which prints you a receipt and the CU accepts that as cash and Coinstar and the CU settle up somehow.
Click to expand...

In my branch's case, the problem apparently is location. It's within spitting distance of a Price Chopper that already has a Coinstar machine. I guess the company limits how close they can be to each other.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
In my branch's case, the problem apparently is location. It's within spitting distance of a Price Chopper that already has a Coinstar machine. I guess the company limits how close they can be to each other.
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Huh. Interesting. My CU seems to have gotten them to break that rule but saying they want them in all lobbies, I think. I rarely go physically to a bank anymore of any sort, even the CU, but I haven't seen one yet without one sitting inside the locked area after hours. (The ATM foyers are openable after hours with any mag stripe card, the Coinstar is in the interior of the lobby unavailable outside of business hours. Which does make your Amazon card or other "free" method at a Coinstar elsewhere more convenient if you can't get to the branch during banker's hours.)
 
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