Beyond cheap

But this is what Bounty would have us do!

We discovered this one guy was polishing off a whole loaf of bread the day it was bought. He tried to justify it with "I pay the tea club! I'm just broke at the moment". He earned the same as everyone else in the room... weird guy he was.

UGHUGHUGHUGHUGHGUGHGUGHGGHHHH!!!

My skin crawls at the memories.

(I would like to point out to any of my friends who have seen a bowl of used tea bags sitting on the side in my kitchen that I put them on the garden - tea leaves are good for the roses)

Yeah, not buying CDs. Or books, or DVDs etc. I do that.

Unless it has been used to store raw meat or cheese or has been in contact with any food item with mayonnaise in it, I will wash out and reuse plastic storage bags.
I also hang onto used dryer sheets and place them in the drawers, in place of using pouches of potpourri or similar, until the dryer sheets lose their scent.
Half of the books, cassettes, and CDs, all the vinyl, and some of the magazines I own were procured second-hand.
I hang onto the plastic cups that come along with fast food drink orders, take them home, wash them, and reuse them as regular cups until they become too flimsy to use.
I still reuse my water bottles, even though I've found out that that practice is highly unsanitary.
I prefer $7 bottles of body spray to $35 bottles of perfume. I buy discount shampoo and conditioner.
My favorite brand of canned corn and green beans is Wal-Mart's own "generic" brand, and my favorite brand of chorizo is H-E-B's own "generic" brand.
I rewash plastic cups.
I squeeze out every tiny bit of toothpaste I can get.
When a bottle of shampoo is almost finished, I shake loose the last bits from the bottom of the container by getting water into the bottle and shaking it, then I pour the soapy liquidiness on top of my head.
I save the gift bags from gifts I have received and use them to give gifts to others.
Sometimes I will even save the tissue paper stuffed inside and reuse THAT.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

That rhyme is pretty awful, but when young I was influenced while visiting prairie relatives (water shortages argh!) plus I get the guilts about wasting water with my half-hour shower habit, so if it's only a pee I usually just leave it there till next time. But not if there are visitors. Also, you really have to remember to flush that one last time before you leave for a week's vacation.

I suppose Australians are fairly water concious, so things like half flush loos or putting a large brick into the cistern are good approaches. Or flushing by pouring a bucket of rain or grey water down the loo manually, which we used to do on my cousins farm when the drought meant the river was too dry to pump in any water for the plumbing.

Actually, what I just realized it's not that I'm not cheap, I'm just too lazy.

A few years ago, the US government slapped some very strict water conservation regulations on toilets sold in the US. These toilets SUCK. Now instead of flushing once, you have to flush two or three times, saving NO water.

If they had been smart, they would have put those half-flush buttons on there. Our home toilets don't have buttons, so that's why maybe they didn't.

Australia's plumbing, by comparison, is amazingly good. I don't think I've ever even heard of somebody blocking their toilet without doing something truly extraordinary.

What a delightful image.

Actually our loo flush doesnt "swirl" at all (yes, I know you were being silly ;P)

http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.htm

Also, UK loos are half flush by default I think - if you hold down the handle, you get a super-long flush to get rid of anything too stubborn.

Yeah, as Trayce points out, our toilets don't swirl in any direction. This is because the pipes in our superior plumbing system are big and fat, so the water doesn't hit a bottleneck and drain slowly, causing a whirlpool (like in a bathtub). Instead it just sorta flushes down, "like a waterfall".

What kind of cheap bog roll would you be using that would require using more than 2 sheets per wipe???

*what's the bandana thing? doesn't it soak up the oils from the beans or is it pretty great?

And the bandanna thing is no good. The coffee would taste like laundry detergent, it would get clogged -- it was just when we ran out of filters and she had already rinsed and reused the paper filters to the point of breakage. Sometimes we had no money for filters, I guess.

There must be some kind of sound effect accompanying this action.

However, I long ago stopped using coupons in restaurants. If I'm that cheap, maybe I shouldn't be eating in such a first-class establishment like Denny's in the first place.

If I were really hardcore, I'd keep onion, carrot and celery trimmings in the freezer for making vegetable stock, but I never think of this at the time I'm working in the kitchen. Something to work on.

These I do as well, jocelyn. :)

I also clip coupons regularly, though most of the coupons I encounter are rip-offs designed to get you to buy more of a product than you'll ever need. I do love restaurant coupons, though. Mom and I have had two good meals at Denny's (well, as good as Denny's can be -- mind, the burgers are pretty damn good) because of coupons they've sent our way. And I do confess to getting excited when I find KFC or Pizza Hut coupons.

Though I will NEVER EVER EVER get that Keeper thing. Ugh.

<TMITMITMITMI>

I end up with enough blood on my hands handling regular pads. Yeah. I'm one of these people who goes out and gets the pads specially made for women who wear sizes 14 and up, the ultra, heavy-flow ones, the ones that a lot of people would consider good enough for overnight use, and double them up, and even then I have to change them every time I go to the bathroom, i.e. four times a day. But I do have terrible problems with clotting during that time of the month and my flow's really, really heavy, so I don't stop pulling out pads that are soaked until the last day of my cycle.

</TMITMITMITMI>

And I don't do the "hold off on flushing" thing, either, because my easy ability to freak out over such things trumps the need for water conservation. My dad had a friend who was a plumber and this friend helps us out with plumbing, so we've got good plumbing in the house, but I just don't like it staying there. Plus, I don't care how sweet you think it smells, but in reality it always stinks.

My way of saving on water -- taking showers that are as short in duration as possible and turning off the faucet while I'm brushing my teeth.

(For next time: TMI = "too much information".)

Dude, that's nothing to do with saving money, that's to do with not ending up with a meal fulla germs innit!

This whole post makes me really sad.

it was in a list of Energy Efficiency things alongside boiling single cups of water for tea and newspaper over the letterbox.

here, f'rinstance:
http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/yourbusiness/smallmediumbusinesses/energy+and+cost+savings/default.htm