Clotheslines are awesome!

I have found that I get a lot of satisfaction from saving money. It is almost a game I play with myself. Is it cheaper to buy a certain item online or to buy it local? Can I make it cheaper than I can buy it? Do I really need 244 rolls of toilet paper just to save 3 cents a roll?

There are a lot of things to buy out there. The newest gadgets to make our lives easier, the shiniest cell phone that will do everything but cook dinner, Eco-friendly...well, just about everything. But do we really need all that stuff?

For me and mine, we are just thinking differently about things like spending money. Granted, we still have bills to pay and sudden expenses, like the school trip to Dallas and Boy Scout camp. But for normal everyday spending, we find other (less expensive) ways to get by.

The clothesline is my favorite. Wow! I was shocked really at just how much you can save with 2 poles and some string. August 2007, I started hanging out my clothes because the dryer was on the fritz. I could not wash clothes fast enough to keep the line full. They dried too fast. When I got the electric bill, I was amazed. We cut 25% off of our bill. The AC didn't have to work as hard and we weren't using the energy from the dryer. I hung out clothes all winter. Granted, it took a lot longer for them to dry when it is cold and when it was below freezing, I had to use the dryer. But here in Arkansas, we only had about 20 days that actually stayed below freezing all winter so it wasn't that bad. We averaged about 25% below last year's usage all winter.

Now for the really cool part. My bill for March/April was half--Yes I said HALF--of what it was last year. Needless to say, I will continue to use the clothesline to dry my clothes.

I will continue to find ways to cut back on our bills. My thinking on this is to think about how things were done 50-75 years ago. Clotheslines are just the beginning. This will be fun!