Mooch a Book Today!

I have discovered a great new website which will hopefully help me to recycle my books and get others that I want to read. It is called Book Mooch. You can link to it at http://www.bookmooch.com/ . Essentially, other people "mooch" books off of you and you "mooch" books off of others. The way the system is set up to work is explained on the site, so if you are a book lover, check it out!

This is definitely a frugal person/avid reader's dream find!

Until another frugal moment hits -

The Frugal Queen

Ridiculous Money Saving Ideas

Found a website this evening which provide me a few good laughs. Click this link to read about the "Ridiculous Money Saving Ideas": http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/ridiculous-money-saving-ideas.html .

Hope it gives you a few good laughs too. I definitely needed them. I decided to put up some strawberry preserves while the prices for strawberries were super low at the grocery store, but ended up splashing some boiling water on myself while removing the jars from the water bath. Terribly painful. I have a bag of frozen broccoli on the burns right now.

Sometimes frugality can be a very painful process.

Until another frugal moment hits,

The Frugal Queen

Why is the electricity bill so high?

The title of this post is a question I seem to ask in our house at least once a month. I have even gone so far as to check out an online calculator for electricity use, available for free at: http://www.consumerspower.org/home_energy/billestimator.php .

The thing I found was our pump for the well (we are on a well and septic system, not city water) was the most expensive thing as far as our electricity consumption. This was a big surprise! I am now looking at what we can do to reduce water usage (I never really looked at this before, because I always thought - I do not have a water bill per say, so I don't have to worry about how much water I use, right?) Now I am worrying about it quite a bit.

I am going to look into a new clothes washer, a front loader instead of a top loader. The front loaders use less water to clean the clothes and at 15 loads of laundry a week, this could be a big savings over time. I have also asked the kids to consider recycling clothes they have worn if possible (not visibly dirty or no odors). This will hopefully cut back on the number of loads of laundry I have to wash (isn't this every mother's dream? kids who are responsible enough to minimize the amount of laundry which needs washed?)

I will let you know later if I move on the new washer idea and if I am able to cut the electricity bill through less water usage.

Until another frugal moment hits!

The Frugal Queen