Practically Proverbs 31: Determined to Save more money

She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.

Proverbs 31:16-18

Okay, this lady makes some money for her family. The way I see it that gives me two choices find a way family friendly job (I do work for the preschool completely around and with my families schedule). The second thing is to figure ways to and save lots of money and actively purse them. I believe that this has to be a priority during my life. I may not always have a job, in fact I have not always had a job, but I must always look for ways to save money and to only spend what is necessary to get the job done.

It's like when I make the choice between buying Tide or Arm&Hammer laundry soap, of course I want to use Tide, who doesn't it's Tide it gets things so clean they use it to clean Porto potties and it smells like heaven! But Arm& Hammer does the job at 1/3 the cost! So my choice (though not always) is Arm&Hammer because I want to live that Proverb 31 life and save my family $9-13.(right now I use homemade laundry detergent but you get the idea!)


Anyways, recently I've been looking at everything I do and trying to figure ways to save more money in our home. My recent exploits into saving money:

Dishwasher-

1. I am making my own dishwasher soap. Kim is going to run the figures and let me know if there is savings here.
2. I turned off the heat dry & hot start options! The first thing I noticed is that when the dishes go into the dishwasher when the extra hot water is turned off you have to make sure those dishes have been well rinsed. Otherwise food debris remains stuck to the utensils and things. Other than that the dishes are still a little wet but If I see a savings in my utility bill I will continue to do this.

House -

I am asking Wayne to turn our water heater down. Now if you've ever been to my house and used hot water your thinking its about time you decided against 3rd degree burns! But I love HOT water, I have a high pain tolerance and well ...its costing me money so I'm turning it down.

1. We are getting a water heater "cozies" & insulate the pipes which is suppose to make your water heater much more efficient. Water heater represents 14% of your cooling cost!


2. We are slowly changing all of the bulbs in our house from regular bulbs to the spiral bulbs. In my house this should represent a savings of $42.38 per month according to MidSouth Synergy!

I'll let you know if I see a savings on my Electric Bill! Last month we did decrease our bill considerably.

This is what we do now:

1. I avoid turning on lights during the day. Except in the school room, it's a little dark. Once my kids cheered when they asked if they could turn on the lights and I said "yes". Parker said "Yeah!!! We get to turn on the lights" ...that's just sad, but true!


2. I turn off all lights I find left on! Basically, I've become my Dad and I am eternally aware of any light left on in the house!


3. We keep the thermostat set to 69* for heating and 78-9* for cooling. Right now we have it turned off completely if it gets to 80* I will turn on the ceiling fans!


4. Turn my computer off during the day and at night! I try to have it on for less than 6 hours per day (this one kills me sometimes, but it also prevents me from wasting time...looking something up real quick!)


5. We unplugged the extra fridge in the Shed because we were not using it for anything but extra drinks. We have ice on our fridge for that!


6. Major appliances (dishwasher, washing machine, dryer) get to rest on Sundays!

What do you do?