Monday’s Money-Saving Tips

Friday’s Knock-Off Party was a good start to what will be a monthly event.  If you missed it, be sure to check it out for some pretty cool handmade Pottery Barn, Ballard Designs, and Restoration Hardware knock-offs.  I was originally going to do it the last Friday of every month, but I’m going to change that to the last Thursday of the month, so I have Friday to highlight some of the participants.  That means that the next Knock-Off Party will be Thursday, Nov. 18, which is actually the third Thurs since the fourth Thurs is Thanksgiving.  Clear as mud?  The November party will be a Christmas edition; hopefully your entry will have something to do with Christmas, but I won’t make a hard and fast rule of it.

And now, today is the first weekly Money-Saving Tips party.  Share your frugal tips that may help someone else save money. 

So, you know the foaming soap pumps that are popular now?  You can get them pretty much anywhere, from Bath and Body Works to Walmart’s own brand.  I like them a lot (especially when the kids were smaller and tended to pump way too much soap and not rinse very well).  But did you know that you’re paying for about one inch of soap and the rest is water?

Here’s how I make mine go even further.  Once the bottle is about half empty, I fill it back up with water.  It still foams up and cleans just fine.  In fact, I do this three or four times with the same bottle, until I can tell that the soap/water ratio is getting thin.

Then I use the whole thing up.  If the pump is still working well (they seem to eventually wear out), then I put about 3/4 to one inch of non-foaming liquid hand soap in the bottom, fill it up with water, give it a light shake to combine, and proceed.  You can do this as many times as you want as long as the foaming pump is still working well. When it seems that the pump has expired and the soap is just kind of squirting out and not foaming anymore, then I buy a new bottle and start the whole process over again.

The trick is using just a little soap and mostly water when you refill it.  It will not work to refill the foaming pump with pure liquid soap.  Don’t get fooled into buying the foaming soap refills; just buy a bottle of regular liquid hand soap and that will last you through a good number of foaming pump refills.

Now it’s your turn.  Party rules:

• share a money-saving tip that will help others
• you must link back to me in your post, preferably using my button code, which you can get in my right side column
• link to your specific party post, and not your general home page
• please be polite and visit several other participants and leave a nice comment
• I will delete entries that don’t link back to me or do not fit the party theme; I’m not mean, just a rule-keeper 
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