Beverage problem

Recently I have been cutting sugar out of my diet. Walk into any local gas station and try and find a Beverage that does not contain sugar. The only options remaining are coffee, tea and water. The amounts of caffeine in coffee tend to make me highly agitated and paying for a bottle of water not something I am prepared to stomach. This leaves unsweetened tea as my only viable option.

A bottle of my favorite Gold Peak Unsweetened Ice Tea is about $1.79 per bottle for the 12 ounce. I have been known to drink two or three a day even though it makes my urine smell strange. At that rate I could spend anywhere from $25 and $40 per week. Utter insanity.

Instead of continuing to waste good money on such decadence I came up with a simple solution. I drove over to the thrift store and spent $0.50 on a used water pitcher. Then I bought some tea bags from the Dollar store for $1.06 with tax. That night I boiled up a gallon of water and threw in the tea to steep. I let it cool and then pored it in the pitcher which I stored in the Fridge. Total cost $1.56.

Now everyday before I leave the house I fill up my bottle with delicious tea. Now I get all the sugar I need in the form of sweet, sweet savings. Nothing tastes quite like it. 

Drying Rack.

I graduated from college right into the recession of 2008. The job market was not looking great so I decided to spend the winter out west in Utah working as a lift operator at Deer Valley Ski Resort in Park City. The life of a lift operator is about as glamorous as it gets but I was feeling depressed and Skiing all winter sounded like fun.

Our housing expenses were taken directly out of our pay checks. This meant that anything left over was basically money for food and Beer. All of the lift operators were always trying to cut all other expenses to the absolute minimum, so more cash would be available for shots of Absolut.

One thrifty lifty who we will refer to as Shaad B.* decided that he was spending entirely too much money doing his laundry each week. For the weekly laundry, we were spending about $3.75 for a wash and $1.50-$2 for a dry per load. That is almost $12 per week. Doesn't sound like much but that could buy a thirsty lift operator 12 Delicious PBR's. Something had to be done.

Shaad headed down to the local Walmart and bought a drying rack for around $5. Now he would wash his clothing as before and bring all the clothes home to place on the drying rack. In one fell swoop he cut his laundry expenses down by at least 1/3. It was the greatest innovation in saving I had seen in weeks and we all cracked open a beer to celebrate.

Ultimately I ended up saving the most money because when Shaad returned to Alaska he gave me the drying rack, thus I saved the innital $5 investment.

It begins....

Those of us who take pride in saving money are a special breed. Not only do we endure the hardships of constantly delaying gratification but also a stream of never ending jabs from our peers. Our friends and loved ones do not truly understand what they consider an affliction or character flaw.

You are not alone.

That is why I have decided to write this blog. To uplift the virtues of the thrifty and provide moral support. To those suffering under the yoke of living in a society where reckless spending is encouraged remember this: What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.