The Top Five Places to Spot Wasteful Spending In Your Home

Money/Finances - Personal Finance

By: ElaineChastain 20-Feb-2012

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Introduction:

If you want to stop wasteful spending in your home you are going to have to look at your habits with fresh eyes. Money's tight but we throw it away at an alarming rate.

In the Refrigerator

If you often find yourself throwing out food, whether it's uneaten leftovers or jars of untouched condiments you are overspending on your food budget.

One trend many have is to buy in bulk and cook in bulk under the assumption that they are saving money. While this may work if you have hungry teenagers in the house it may be a huge waste otherwise.

You can save yourself far more money if you buy only as much for each meal as you know will get eaten. So if the above sounds like you try buying smaller portions and stop buying those condiments and such that rarely if ever get used.

In the Laundry Room

Do you have tons of laundry products taking up space on your shelves? Did you know that the active ingredient list on many of those laundry products are identical? This means most of your spending for the next miracle laundry stain remover is a big waste of your time and your money. If one doesn't do the trick ten others aren't likely to either.

Cut down on this useless spending and look for smarter ways to use a few basics. Pour some liquid detergent into a squeeze bottle and use that on your stains to pre-treat. If you use powder detergent then mix up a bottle for the same purpose and shake before each use.

Ever notice how after you use a certain shampoo for a long time it seems to stop working as well. The same thing holds for laundry detergent so switch up every now and again by using a different brand. You may just get back that clean you have been craving.

In the Bath

I know I'm going to get a lot of flack on this one, good thing you control your own household budget.

I won't even begin to name all the bath and hair products that adorn some peoples bathrooms like lost relics of time and exercises in failure. Try to find a simple shampoo that cleans everyone's hair and buy a big bottle.

Believe it or not shampoo is only meant for one purpose, to clean your hair regardless of what all those television ads tell us. You can control the amount of dryness or oiliness simply by controlling how much you use, how often you wash and whether or not you rinse and repeat or stop after one washing.

Surely you will only need one or two other hair products to handle individual needs.

Did you know that if one or more people in your home needs a dandruff shampoo that everyone can use it? Just get the classic clean, Mr. oily can wash twice.

In the Cleaning Closet

Here we go again with the cleanliness! But as I said or think I said, we are obsessed with being clean. Gather all your cleaning supplies and look for duplicates. I don't mean duplicates of the exact same product but duplicates of the exact same ingredients or ingredients that do the exact same thing.

Now pick your favorites and make a list and from now on only purchase those products and forget all the hype surrounding the next miracle cleaner, it does not exist.

You will need something all purpose with bleach or an equivalent.

You will need something all purpose without bleach but with a germicide.

You will need a degreaser.

That's it!

In the Kitchen

Do you really need a new kitchen gadget? Isn't it crazy how we will go out an buy a new gadget that does a job that we are perfectly content to do the old fashioned way. Take choppers, while a food processor can come in very handy a simple chopper really has no saving grace over just chopping with a knife since you are going to have to peel and chop your food into acceptable pieces anyway to fit the chopper.

If you are a gadget junky go gather up all those gadgets you have tucked away. How many do you really use? Keep those and get polishing up those you haven't used in the last year or ten and have a yard sell.

Once you do this the next time your senses are bedazzled by that food expert just remind yourself that you already had one of those but never even took it out of the box or how it didn't work as promised or whatever will help you maintain control.

Final Thoughts

Here's a good motto for out of control spending.

Simply your life, simplify you spending!

Give this list a high five!

Comments

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BonnieDossKnight 3/2/2012
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It hurts my heart to waste. Thank you for all the timely tips! HI5
TigerStripes 2/21/2012
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Great list!
hummingbirdee 2/21/2012
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We can all be a little too wasteful around the house. These are some good reminders on how to prevent wasteful spending.
dashboardc33 2/20/2012
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Nice list! Our leftovers usually dont get wasted as they go to the dog :)