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.