When you’re broke, there is an awareness of every resource that you use.
You’re not going to dirty two plates, just for SANDWICHES, and then have to clean them! Think of the hot water! The soap! Oh no. You’re going to make your sandwich and set it on a paper towel (or, a napkin left over from when you used to eat fast food). Then after you eat YOUR sandwich you will make another, put it on the same paper towel and deliver THAT to your partner. Nickels and dimes add up!
When you’re broke, you are seeing how little shampoo you can use and still feel like you have clean hair. You’re putting extra laundry in the washer and using a bit less detergent. No bottle of ANYTHING ~ food, cleanser or chemical, is considered EMPTY until it’s remained upside down for at least a day, and possibly been rinsed out. Or cut open and scrapped.
Overtime, though, that level of commitment to saving every resource goes away. You throw away the “empty” dish soap bottle without bothering to put it in a sink full of hot water and dirty dishes just to “see” if the water suds up.
Last year, I made a crazy (for me) splurge. I purchased hair conditioner at the hair salon. At the NICE hair salon. I purchased a $25 bottle of hair conditioner that was half the size of my $1.06 Suave conditioner. Clearly, it was a moment of clouded judgment that only freshly cut hair and a scalp massage can create!
However, that bottle of conditioner led me to an amazing discovery. The amount of conditioner I need to use is roughly the size of a pea. A small, undernourished, shriveled-up pea. That bottle of conditioner lasted me 10 months.
This could, legitimately, lead me to the belief that the $24 conditioner is actually better than the $1.06 conditioner. However, that is not the conclusion I chose to reach. Instead, I chose to believe that every so often it’s important to be kicked back into consciousness about the little things we use all the time, every day, and probably use too much of.
I am proposing February to be Home Audit Month for the Unbroke!
Don’t groan, consider: It’s a short month. You’re all caught up from the hoopla of the winter holidays and summer is a long way off. You really have nothing better to do this month.
Every time you use . . . anything . . . take a glance at the instructions for recommended amount. The quarter sized amount of shampoo. The single tablespoon of salad dressing and the single pump of hand soap.
I use dry laundry detergent, and it comes with a handy dandy scoop. In thinking about this home audit thing, and how people try to trick us into using more then we should, I brought that scoop to the kitchen and I took some measurements. The provided scoop holds exactly 1 CUP of detergent. On the scoop there are a series of ¼” wide stripes, and the instructions for use are to fill the scoop to the bottom of the lowest line. According to my measurements, that is roughly 1/6th of a cup, or 8 teaspoons of detergent. No wonder when he does laundry he mentions there are undissolved clumps of detergent still.
Think about it, just for the next four weeks. Maybe you’re fine, but maybe you’ll find yourself going an extra week or two on the many household items that add up over time.
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