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What are your life hacks?
So much of thrifty/frugal/DIY living is labor intensive. Labor-intensive can also mean time intensive.
One of my favorite references (I know that this dates me) is from Amy Dacyczyn's "Tightwad Gazette" compilations. She wrote about the fatigue factor in frugal living as a realistic but mostly manageable by product of so much DIY. She said that she knew she was tired when an entire, intact piece of homemade pizza floated to the top of the dish water while she was washing dinner dishes.
Yeah, we are all familiar with that tired. I call it "stupid tired" when I'm walking into walls and undoing half the work I just did.
Part of making the frugal DIY lifestyle work, part of coping with the deferred gratification, the deliberate avoidance of impulse purchases, the eschewing of convenience foods and items in order to save money, is finding and developing your own life hacks.
These hacks can save money, or their primary mission may be to save time, or to save trips to the store, to save footsteps so you aren't running yourself ragged all day long, or to simply make life a little easier such that some of the DIY/frugal pressure is relieved, and thrift as a lifestyle is easier to maintain.
These tips and tricks are ALL OVER THE INTERNET and we've all probably participated in these threads and read these hacks over and over again. I never get tired of reading them though- even the ones I know and use. Seeing them again through another person's eyes, reading how another person incorporates them, reinforces their usefulness and often adds a dimension or information of which I was unaware. I always learn something new, even from the same old tricks!
I humbly request that you share your life hacks- frugal/thrifty DIY is great, but it doesn't have to be a purely thrifty tip. Anything that makes your life easier, that clears your daily path, that makes being thrifty and DIY a little easier to attain and maintain, or simply something awesome that you've discovered.
Please share!