What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

There's usually a half off deal on [Walmart Plus] membership around Christmas, so it's $50 instead of $100 for a year. I think if you get the membership through AARP it's also $50.

I'll have to look into that Walmart Plus membership. Thanks for the head's up ways to save.

Home Depot also ships a lot of items for free too, no membership needed.

Yes, we have both Home Depot and Menards in our town. If I have to place a special order for an item, Home Depot is usually a bit more expensive for the item, but they often win the purchase because of their free shipping to store. The items I looked into ordering at Menards had really high shipping costs to store.

A couple years ago I had to order a set of 4 new tires for one of my dump wagons. I wrote a suggestion to Menards that their tires were $10.00 less than Home Depot, but Home Depot did not charge $25.00 for shipping to store! So, Home Depot got my order. Menards sent me a nice standard response letter thanking me for my suggestion and that they would consider it (nothing mentioned as to my suggestion). Pretty much wasted my time filling out a suggestion form, I guess.

I've saved a ton of money on gasoline by not driving and having things delivered or shipped. I've driven only 15 miles in the last two weeks.

Yeah, being retired, I usually only go into town maybe once a week. I keep a list of everything I want to do and/or pick up on the trip. This time of year, however, I might only get into town every other week. But I'm at an age/state where we have pretty much everything we need at home.

 

[gtaus]

Trying something new tonight, will see how it goes. Fingers crossed. A friend showed me this. Instead of dishwasher pods, she put what looked like a couple Tbsp of baking soda in the little soap cup along with a small squirt of Dawn dish soap. Then she dumped maybe half a cup or so of white vinegar in the bottom of the washer.

I have never tried the baking soda recipe. Sounds interesting.

As to dumping a half a cup or white vinegar in the bottom of the washer, I want to mention that some/many dishwashers go through a drain cycle before they fill up with water for washing. In that case, your vinegar would be drained before it could do any good in the actual wash cycle. Both my old dishwasher and my new dishwasher go through a drain cycle before filling with fresh washing water. In that case, you would have to let the dishwasher fill with the washer cycle water, open the door, and then dump the vinegar into the washing water at that time.

Another thing I do is when I have a pan with stuck-on crusty food and nobody wants to scrub it clean - I fill it with water and throw in a couple of 3-minute denture cleaning tablets.

We wash our pans by hand. If we cook something that sticks to the pan, after we remove the food, we just put a little water back into the pan and put it back on the warm burner. That usually is enough to soften up and loosen any food stuck to the pan. We wash the pans last, and by that time, they usually don't require much scrubbing after soaking on the warm stove top.

As for items in the dishwasher, we only run a wash cycle maybe once every 7 to 10 days. However, on my new dishwasher, I will run the 20-minute rinse cycle after every supper when we put dishes in the dishwasher. You don't need to run the sink water until hot, either. The manual says it's the action of getting the dishes wet that is all that is needed for those rinse cycles. It works for us. Nothing really gets dried out and stuck on the dishes that way. Our dishes come out cleaner when we do wash them.

 

[Smokerbill]

I ran my dishwasher after the Thanksgiving meal. Last time it was used was several months ago. Handwashing is much quicker and uses less water.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

wash our pans by hand. If we cook something that sticks to the pan, after we remove the food, we just put a little water back into the pan and put it back on the warm burner. That usually is enough to soften up and loosen any food stuck to the pan. We wash the pans last, and by that time, they usually don't require much scrubbing after soaking on the warm stove top.

I only recently learned of a cooking technique called "deglazing," in which exactly this is done: a little liquid is added to the hot pan and stirred or scraped with a spatula to loosen the solids on the bottom of the pan. In cooking, however, this liquid would not be cast away, but would be used as the foundation for a lovely sauce or gravy.

I ran my dishwasher after the Thanksgiving meal. Last time it was used was several months ago. Handwashing is much quicker and uses less water.

 

[Sally PB]

Deglazing... yummmmm gravyyyyyyyy....

 

[saysfaa]

...Last time it was used was several months ago. Handwashing is much quicker and uses less water.

I think so too, and gets them cleaner. And Corel dishes don't get that wear on the edges that dishwashers do. I would rather have the space as a cupboard.

But dishwashers that are not used have the seals dry out. That ruins them. It happened to dh's aunt. I don't know how often they need to be run, though, or how much things like the temperatures and humidity of the climate matter. I wash things in ours every two to four weeks because of this.

My son sent this and I found it helpful. Various people in our family have been contentious about the best way to load a dishwasher.

 

[Sally PB]

Our dishwasher was installed when the house was built, in 1980. It still runs, but the pump, or whatever pumps the water into the unit, died about 8 years ago. So I run a gallon of hot water out of the tap into a milk jug and pour it in for each of 4 cycles. Thus, I know how much water it takes to run the dishwasher. We run it about 4-5 times a week, for the two of us.

That may seem wasteful. But I know how either hubby or I would react to having the dishes pile up in the sink, on the counter, on the stove. For him, washing dishes by hand when he was a kid (they didn't have a dishwasher) was punishment, meted out by his mother. I'm not crazy about handwashing dishes either.

I also know that it takes 1/2 - 3/4 of a gallon of water to get hot water up to the sink. I usually use this water to rinse things and pre-wash them.

Since we're on a well/septic system, the waste water goes back down into our property, not out to a sewer.

Hubby wanted to get me a new dishwasher. At first, when I had to manually fill it 4 times, I said heck yes! Then I realized that I use that time to clean up the pans that might be dirty, hand wash what can't go in the dishwasher, and ever better, read a book! So I hope this dishwasher lasts another 35 years.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

There are times we run our DW twice a day! I'd be lost without it. And even with it, we still have a lot of hand washing. Fortunately for me, I have two young adult grandchildren living with us, and keeping the kitchen under control is their responsibility. I have some health issues and they know I can cook or I can clean, but not both, and they enjoy my cooking!

 

[fuzzi]

I am the dishwasher, though adult son cleans up after big meals. I usually wash my dishes and pans immediately after I eat, as it keeps things less messy.

We had a dishwasher once, in a duplex rental. Hardly ever used it.