Household Savings Hacks To Reduce Expenses

You never wanted to be that frugal person, but it’s time to take household savings seriously with rising costs on everything in Canada.

If mortgage interest rates go up, do you have a plan in place to afford the mortgage? If the answer is no, start with household savings.

Yesterday I asked my readers on Facebook during our What’s For DInner nightly chat about their household savings.

Join the chat nightly on my Facebook group at 5 pm for ways to save frugal and funny questions, memes and dinner photos.

Picture yourself in a room with everyone and start chatting about a topic to share experiences.

Besides using coupons, flyer deals, and savings apps, I wanted to know how others reduce their household savings.

I figured we had some household savings hacks to share, but I wanted to hear from CBB readers.

Today, I’ll share their hacks and a few of our own household savings tips.

In the end, if you can think of anything else, please leave me a comment.

Household Frugality
There are many household savings hacks you can apply to save money.

Household Expenses Have Gone Up

Last week I wrote a blog post about saving money on groceries but let’s take it further.

Last week, I spent $153 on gas to fill my tank and two large red gasoline containers at the Costco gas station.

I’ve been doing this for about a year now, and it occurred to me that I wanted to save money when the gas was cheaper.

Meatless Meals Reduce Household Costs

meatless lentil sloppy joe
Meatless Lentil Sloppy Joe for Meatless Monday and to cut down on household expenses

Whether picking vegetables from our small garden or raiding the reduced vegetable and fruit rack at the grocery store, we consider three possibilities.

Even better is using the Flashfood App because in our area, Loblaws stores, including NO Frills and Zehrs, have huge boxes for $5.00.

Use my code MOCD28ZN4 when you sign up and save $5 on your first order.

  • How long will the vegetables and fruits last
  • Types of reduced fruits and vegetables
  • Meals I can make using reduced fruits and vegetables
  • Will is save us money compared to current regular prices
  • ALWAYS check if the product you are taking from a reduced rack is currently on sale. If it is you need to consider which is the better deal.

If your regular grocery store doesn’t have reduced produce, I’d be shocked, but you can talk to a department employee and ask.

Meatless meals are a great way to cut down on expensive meat costs as they rise in price.

One of my favourites is a Meatless Lentil Sloppy Joe which I created years ago for the blogs recipe index.

Various salads and soups also reduce costs by using leftover or reduced vegetables.

Simple Meatless Monday Meal Plan Tips

Make Vegetable Broth By Freezing Vegetable Peelings

Keep Vegetable Peelings and End Pieces To Make A Vegetable Stock
Keep Vegetable Peelings and End Pieces To Make A Vegetable Stock

Any time we have vegetable peelings, we store them in a container and freeze them.

Not only are the peelings nutritious for making vegetable stock, but so are end pieces.

For example, cut the middle from cauliflower, end of romaine lettuce, celery greens.

Related: 5 Grocery Savings You Should Be Scooping Up

When it’s time to make a soup pot, I boil the cuts and peels from our container to make a vegetable broth.

What’s even better is if you have an Instant Pot to speed up the process.

You can do the same with chicken and beef bones to make chicken stock and beef stock.

If you’ve never done this before, try it, and you’ll see how household savings can add up.

It’s often the small things that we fail to explore possibilities such as eggshells put into the garden.

According to the Los Angeles Times, you can use eggshells to keep pests and insects away.

Broken eggshells read to be thrown inside the compost bin or around your garden.
Broken eggshells read to be thrown inside the compost bin or around your garden.

Shards of eggshell also can be used to keep certain pests out. If your plants suffer from snails or slugs, spread the crumbled shells on top of the soil around the base of the plants, making the barrier about two inches wide all around. Slimy creatures won’t be able to get past the pointy bits.

How To Use Leftover Eggsghells

Squeezing Tubes To Get All Of The Product Out

Nu Skin 24 Whitening Flouride Toothpaste
Nu Skin 24 Whitening Flouride Toothpaste

As you can see, the price is high, but my wife is allergic to limonene and linalool, and this toothpaste is free of these products.

Limonene and Linalool Allergy Increased Expenses

When the unexpected happens, like having to buy toothpaste that is so expensive, we need to reduce household expenses any way we can.

What is Limonene?

Limonene is a chemical found in the peels of citrus fruits and in other plants. It is used to make medicine.

You’ll find limonene In foods, beverages, and chewing gum, limonene is used as a flavoring.

In pharmaceuticals, limonene is added to help medicinal ointments and creams penetrate the skin.

Source
Cutting Open a tube of AP24 Whitening Fluoride Toothpaste
Cutting Open a tube of AP24 Whitening Fluoride Toothpaste

You can scoop products that won’t come out by cutting plastic tubes, whether toothpaste or tomato paste.

As you can see, this toothpaste is VERY expensive compared to pharmacy or shopping center toothpaste.

Her allergy has caused an increase in our health and beauty budget category, but these are the expenses we need to consider.

Turning Bottles Upside Down For Household Savings

We’ve been turning bottles and containers for years now, so we aren’t throwing delicious products away.

Bottles of ketchup, chocolate syrup, maple syrup and even body wash, shampoo, conditioner and so on.

When we finally get to the end, we add water to the container, shake, and use any leftover product.

I’ve done this when making sloppy joe recipes or even pasta sauce, even though my sauce doesn’t call for it.

The amount may be minimal, but you paid for it and should use what you paid for.

Throwing it away is like tossing money out the window.

Those who want to save money by adopting frugal living household savings should get used to this process.

You'd be amazed what you get out of a a bottle, container or carton before recycling it. Cream containers turned upside down to get the last bits out
Cream containers turned upside down to get the last bits out
Bottles of Salad Dressing Turned upside down in the side of the refrigerator door to get to the last drop
Bottles of Salad Dressing Turned upside down in the side of the refrigerator door to get to the last drop

Using Leftovers To Create A New Meal

One of my readers, Christine, makes a roast at least once a month and the next day, the leftovers get transformed into a Cottage Pie.

I appreciate how she does not throw food into the bin and finds new ways to use her leftovers.

At our house, nothing gets thrown out as long as Mrs. CBB is running the kitchen.

She dislikes throwing any food in the bin, but that’s the way her father taught her.

For example, if there is leftover meat, you make a soup or pasta sauce.

Throwing money into the garbage is a no-no, and I know some people won’t touch leftovers.

Pickers can be choosers when money is tight, so you either eat it or go without.

Keeping Containers and Freezer Bags

Our freezer is often stored with pre-made foods, saving us time during the week to cook.

We also portion our meat into smaller portions as only two people eat and put them into freezer bags.

Whenever a freezer bag or container is emptied, I won’t throw them into the recycle bin.

I typically turn the freezer bag inside and clean it with hot water and dish soap, the same as the containers.

Soaps, Laundry Soap, Bar Soaps, Shampoo, Conditioner

Whatever soap we use in our house gets turned over for a few days to get every drop into the lid.

Typically, I’ll get one to two extra uses out of laundry soap and dish soap containers.

We buy large containers of Palmolive Dishsoap from Amazon as it’s cheaper than Costco.

For Mrs. CBB, she buys limonene-free hand soap and Purex laundry soap from Amazon because it’s hard to find.

Almost every product has limonene or linalool used in the ingredient list.

Instead of throwing away the small pieces of soap, she adds them on top of each other overnight.

Shampoo bottles of any kind or other body, skin products are filled with water, swirled around and used.

For example, no shampoo or conditioner gets out alive with any product left in the bottle. She’s pretty savage when it comes to finding hacks for household savings.

Her way of thinking is that we don’t have to waste products and food just because we are debt-free and mortgage-free. She has a good point because you never know what could happen.

The same goes for products that I can fish out more from the bottle or can in the garage.

Household Savings Hacks From CBB Readers

As mentioned above, I wanted feedback from CBB readers on how frugal they are.

It was great because I learned a couple of new hacks from them.

I will share every frugal living hack they presented to me for this post.

Let me share another one before we start. In the summer, any fruit berries that we buy or pick from our mulberry tree or crab apple tree get turned into jam before they go off.

The same goes with bananas; if they don’t get eaten, I peel them and freeze them. Later on, I might make banana bread, banana custard, banana pancakes, chocolate-dipped bananas and so forth.

Check Pinterest for some of the coolest recipes to use what you would throw away.

I’m not sure how many of you know that Pinterest is NOT social media; it’s a search engine like Google or Yahoo.

Question For CBB Friends

Discussion: How do you make sure you use all of a product or food before recycling the box, bag, can, container, tube, bottle etc.?

Your hacks will be a list for tomorrow’s blog post about Household Savings, so I need your help.

I’ve taken a photo of Mrs. CBB’s $54 toothpaste (update: two tubes) that she wanted to cut open, and there was enough for two brushes.

We need to think frugal, especially when we sew butter at $8.27lb as we did at Zehrs.

Throwing out butter wrappers is a no-no if there is still butter on it. We put the butter wrapper in a freezer bag to grease a cake pan, frying pan etc.

Let’s see what else we can come up with.

(I edited the question to shorten it)

Mr.CBB

Christine Is A Master At Creating New Recipes

Tonight was leftovers from last night’s roast beef meal.

There is a tiny bit of meat, gravy, and a few carrot slices I will freeze to add to something down the line, and I’ll make potato patties with the leftover mashed potatoes. – Christine repurposes her leftovers

Tracey Is Another Tube Squeezer With A Hack

For tubes, I cut the top off (about halfway up the tube), squeeze the rest of the product down into the bottom half, then place the top back over the bottom.

When I need some, all I have to do is remove the top and dip it in with my finger or a q-tip – Tracey I love the idea of cutting it in half. I’ll do that, thanks.

Marjolaine Turns Meat Into Magic To Save Money

A roast chicken at $5.98 makes my husband and me three meals.

Drumsticks and thighs with mashed potatoes, chicken fried rice with breasts, 2nd meal.

Lastly, the carcass and jelly make a fine chicken noodle soup! – Marjolaine uses leftover meat and bones from a fully cooked chicken to make soup.

Laurie Keeps The Heels And Peelings

Saving bread heels in the freezer allows me to make bread crumbs.

I also save most veggie peelings in the freezer to make stock with. – Laurie L I loved this idea about the bread heels

Pam Is On Track Stretching Her Dollars

A toothpaste tube squeezer thingy can get the most out of the tube, but I’m sure there would still be more in there if I cut it open.

I’m sure there’s more in thereby turning the salad dressing bottles upside down.

I need to find ways to stretch the dollars and get the most out of my purchases. – Pam, Where can I find these toothpaste tube squeezers, such a cool idea.

Cathlyne Has A Trick To Share

Squeeze tubes until they “scream.” Liquid soaps get some water added to them to get the last bit used.

A trick I use for tubes is my thumbs to push the contents out of the “shoulders.”

When I’m in the bathroom, I use shampoo and conditioner bars.

The last bit can be dissolved in water and used. – Cathlyne has some fantastic hacks for household savings.

Amanda Is A Salad Cream Saver

I add water to all bottles to get the last bits, and we keep the salad cream upside down in the fridge, so the end bits get used. (Why is it so expensive!?) – Amanda

I don’t know why it’s pricey. I bought it once years ago as I ate it daily when I lived in the UK. – Mr.CBB

Christine Has More Household Savings Hacks

I also add water to something like sweet and sour sauce, plum sauce or ketchup and use the flavoured water to oven poach chicken or add to the slow cooker for something in there.

I’ve rinsed out the salsa jar and dumped it in with my chilli recipe.

I also cut open lotion bottles and hubby’s pain cream to scoop out the stuff you can’t get out otherwise.

It’s crazy how much is left in those when you can get any more out of them. – Christine is the Queen of savings and repurposing, which increases her household savings.

Ed Has A Household Savings Hack

Stacking Bars Of Soap After They Become Small Instead Of Throwing Them Out. Household Savings Hack many people should consider.
Stacking Bars Of Soap After They Become Small Instead Of Throwing Them Out. Household Savings Hack many people should consider.

My own personal pet peeve waste is the sliver from the bar of soap.

Typically I get it wet at the end of my shower and the “glue” it onto the new bar.

The next day’s shower has been set in place, getting used rather than discarded. – Ed has a cool idea.

Tara Is The Queen Of Household Savings

I use a funnel when old shampoo/conditioner/liquid soap/body wash/mustard/ whatever run down into another container within a day or two.

If all the toothpaste wouldn’t come out, I cut the tube open and put it into a container, same with hair products in tubes.

I don’t use bar soap, but my spouse does, and it is quite wasteful. I save the less-than-done bars and provide them for travel minis.

To save money in our house, I do many things to penny-pinch despite my spouse noticing.

He’s finally okay with freezing bread and bagels, which saves us even more money.

Keep the butter wrappers as well for the same reason. Wash out all the containers, tubes, etc. and put them into recycling.

Have a container in the freezer for organics.

We live in a condo that luckily has a tri-sorter for appropriate disposal.

For coffee, we use Nespresso and K-Cup machines.

This may be extreme, but I tear open the pods and sort the components, so I know whether to put each part into recycling, garbage or organic.

I wash out freezer bags to reuse them and other zip bags for fridge, freezer and dry storage.

If they want $827lb for butter at the grocery store, I will wait and only buy it if it’s on sale.

I am considering making my own butter to see if it makes a difference in cost.

All containers are recyclable. – Tara is on track and a frugal saver.

Anne Is On A Household Savings Mission

I save margarine wrappers, use a spatula to get the last out of a bottle or tub, mix a little water into some items to sploosh them out.

I’m the one who often ends up eating any leftovers another day, but I try my best only to make exactly what we need.

We went grocery shopping today around suppertime (6 pork chops for more than I used to pay for 8!). Lots of empty shelves. – Anne is a super saver on a mission to save money as well. I like how you cook portions which is a great option for people who don’t care for leftovers.

Discussion: What other household savings hacks do you do that we could add to the list. Comment below for all of us.

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