100 Ways to Save a $1 without paying for anything

There are many, many money saving ideas on the web. And we are in need of saving money. (Really?) But what I find myself becoming frustrated with, is that most of these ideas COST something!

Now when you are truly living on a shoestring budget, you can't pay for money saving ideas. Like buying a new energy efficient dishwasher. Sure, that would help the electric bill, but how is shelling out $800 plus going to help my bottom line? Not saying it's not a good idea, just saying this is not my focus.

So what is my focus? My focus is to finish Dave Ramsey's baby Step 2 by applying every available cent to pay off debt. This requires living on an extremely tight budget for a while. Every penny counts. So I started looking for ways to save $1 a day, without spending any money. I'm not talking about "cut your morning latte and save $4" kind of advice (c'mon, really? If I had $4 to blow a day on a latte, would I need these ideas?) I'm talking about serious STRETCHING here.

So I'm starting the list. Real things that real people with no extra money can do to save $1/day. Sometimes, it might be more. But $1 a day, combined with the CrashCrate, Associated Content and Secret Shopping Dollars, hopefully will make a $10/day difference, and that starts to add up.

Today's $1 tip: Stop your dishwasher before the "dry" cycle. If you have an older dishwasher, you have to do this manually by opening the door to the dishwasher. If you have a newer dishwasher, do not choose the "heat dry" setting. Almost all of the cost associated with running your dishwasher has to do with heating the water, and the dry cycle. Now this little tip is probably only going to save you 50 cents for today. This of course doesn't take into consideration how much it heats up your kitchen, requiring extra A/C in the summer. Here's our way to get the other 50 cents. We have started using 1 cup and 1 plate per day, per person. Each person has a cup they use throughout the day, that gets washed at night. And one plate. After breakfast, they use their napkin to clean their plate. (We are still using paper napkins for now, I wouldn't recommend this if you are using cloth napkins.) I usually have to wipe my kiddos down after waffles with a baby wipe in the morning, so I use this wipe to wipe their plate at the end. Not impressed? Well in the summer, this move is allowing me to do only 1 load of dishes a day, instead of two. We occasionally have to get out a second plate or fork, but not often.


Bonus tip: You can stretch your dish washing detergent by adding regular baking soda in a 50/50 ratio. Baking soda is in most households, and so is dishwashing detergent- so hopefully that one won't cost you anything.