It all adds up

I have a confession...I am a baggie washer.  I have been for years.  My children laugh at me for it, but I keep on doing it anyway.  I added up once, several years ago, how many baggies we use in a year.  It was a lot. Then, I added up how much I save by washing and reusing baggies (except those that had meat in them) for 7-10 times each.  Each lunch uses an average of 4 baggies, then ttake that times 5 daily lunches....I am saving $157 a year.  (And, the price of baggies has gone up since I figured that out, so it could very well be double that now, plus we only packed 4 lunches a day at the time I figured it out)  I also use sandwich keepers, the hard plastic kind, so that is further savings.  But, some things like chips, grapes, cookies, just don't go into hard square containers without breaking or smashing.  They go best into baggies.  We don't all pack lunches daily, but one daughter and the hubby does.  For the rest of us, we do if it is co-op or field trip day, or if I am out with daycare kiddos.

$157 isn't going to make or break the world piggy bank.  But, combine that with other things that save $50 here, and $300 here and by the end of the year, it all adds up to a much bigger sum.

I think I paid $7 for my baggie dryer at Dollar General.  By the way, officially it is a laundry dryer. I originally bought it to hang in the shower of our RV to hand laundry from to dry.  When we go on a trip, it gets moved back to the RV.  The rest of its life, it is hanging in my kitchen, over my sink from an upper cabinet and dubbed "the baggie dryer".  I earned the $7 back within the first 2 weeks I had it.

On a lighter note, the husband out of the blue, shaved off his moustache today.  We grew up together, and I have not seen him without one since we were 14 years old.  That was many many moons ago, as 50 is now in our rearview mirrors.   I don't think the girls have ever seen him without it.   But, I think, just as cute as he was at 14...