Choosing to be More Thrifty

As I was checking out blogs the other day- I came across a very interesting blog -it is called Budgeting with the Bushman's. This blog gives a lot of cool ideas of how to save money. As I was reading over some older posts - one of the post was talking about the top 5 energy users in the home - and the dishwasher was in that list. As I was thinking about my usage of my dishwasher, I realized that I had not been being thrifty. Too many times, I would run it before it was even full- just to get it done. Well I decided that day to stop using it so much - that was on February 9th. And since then I have not used it at all.

I did not like using a dish drainer so many year ago I got rid of ours. It actually seemed like it just added one more thing to clean and more clutter. So what I started doing was just to lay a towel in that area to lay the wet dishes on. This works great. And for clean up all you have to do it throw it into the washer and get another towel.

As I began on my journey of using the dishwasher less, I realized that my towel would not always give me enough room. Sometimes I just lay another towel out for more room. Then I realized that since my dishwasher is right next to the sink -all I really have to do is open my dishwasher and set the dishes in it to dry. What a great set up! And I have plenty of room. I still have my towel on the counter - that way I can put things on it that are not as easily put in the dishwasher.

I look forward to seeing our next electric bill.

And speaking of electric bills. This months electric bill was $100.00 less than this month last year. That tells you how much more mild of a winter we have had. Oh I am praying that our summer is much more milder than last year - last year summer was a tough one. Toughest one in a long, long time. I lost my favorite oak tree in my back yard. The one that I have several bird feeders on. And during the summer we lost so much grass. Well once we started getting some rain - guess what came up in the place of the grass - weeds - the big, ugly, prickly weeds.

Anyway - now I am trying to be more thrifty in other things as well. Waiting till I have a full load of laundry instead of just washing stuff just to get it done. Another great idea that I got from the link above is electrical outlet foam insulation. I am hoping to get some of these and install them. Every little bit helps.

What good ideas do you have for helping save money for your family? :o)