January 9, 2010

Tip of the day: put a pair of scissors in your bathroom.

As I prepared for bed last night, I realized two needs: toothpaste and facial cream. Since it’s going to be a long month, I broke out the scissors. When I cut open the facial cream tube, I saw I had enough for two more uses. A lot of stuff gets stuck on the sides and in the nozzle! As far as toothpaste is concerned, when you slice open the tube, you can find about two to three more days of use if you scrape the side remnants with your toothbrush.

Great idea, right? The dark side is that it only lasts you a few days. And that is what your $5 can get you.

Luckily, we did not have to spend money on these two items. I spent the morning organizing bathroom cabinets, as did Jeff. We cleaned up the drawers and found a treasure trove of savings: floss, three tubes of toothpaste, two bottles of moisturizer, countless hotel bottles of hand cream, shampoo, and lots of loose change. Normally, I would have picked up the needs without looking around for back-up. Amazingly, we ended up with more than our share of toiletries, and we spend January emptying the vessel.

The loose change is an interesting dilemma. We all have that coffee mug somewhere in the house. My sister keeps hers in the laundry room. With five kids, she rakes in the commission. We keep ours in the bathrooms, where we disrobe from the day, empty pockets, and never think about loose change piling up. But it does.

We followed this same pattern, and promptly called Gaelen, who provides Five Dollar Days sagacity. We were divided on the whole loose change issue. She is of the opinion that it is found money and does not count toward your $5. Therefore, you can have yourself a field day at the Coin Star machine (or if you are living in the 70s, roll it yourself) and load up on groceries, movie rentals, or take yourself out for some barbecue.

We disagree.

It’s money. We earned it. It made it into this non-interest bearing coffee mug, and if we use it, it counts. With all the spare time from not going out this month, the least I can do is cash it in when the fridge starts to have an echo. So, that is the plan. We will gather the money and use it for food later in the month when it is really needed. Also, if we use the cash right away at the grocery store, we are not dipping into the checking account for food (more money to put on the crazy credit card bill), or – heaven forbid – charging groceries.

So, I provided two sides to this loose change argument for you to decide which fits best for your thinking.