A 10-Day Supply of Moisturizer

I'm in mind of tiny tips these days, during the season of cold weather. All sorts of small economies that I didn't employ over the summer are coming back to me. But today's tiny tip can be used year round. It will seem like old hat to the veteran frugal folk. I offer it as a hint for those new to this path.

Use up every drop of your toiletries and cosmetics. These products are, almost without exception, wildly expensive. The high end cosmetics lines frequently tempt customers with tiny samples of their products sized to last for ten days or less. And yet, how often does a similar amount simply get tossed away because it's not easy to get it out of the package? If it's enough to bribe you into making an expensive purchase, surely it's enough to use up.

I use a mid-priced moisturizer that comes with a pump dispenser. When I get near the end of the bottle, the pump no longer works so well. Yet there's still quite a lot of moisturizer in the bottle. I counted this time, and I got enough moisturizer out of the bottle after the pump no longer worked to last me ten more days.

Consider the price of any cosmetic or toiletry you use. Go ahead and actually crunch the numbers, using the unit price of the product. I spend about $10 for a bottle of my moisturizer, which contains only 70 ml. You know what that works out to? Almost $34 per cup! Now granted, a little of this particular stuff goes a long way. One bottle lasts me about three months. So let's estimate that I use only 11 cents' worth of this stuff every day($10 bottle/90 days). (The application cost of your cosmetics is another number worth crunching.) If I throw the bottle out when it will no longer easily dispense the product to me, I'm throwing away $1.10.

Visualize this: would you throw a dollar and a dime into your garbage can? Didn't think so.

So what to do? Well, in this case it's pretty easy. I take a knife to the plastic bottle and scoop out the rest of the product, as needed, with my fingers. I coax the little bit of moisturizer stuck in the pump tube out by smacking the bottom end into my palm. The cut open bottle stays in a ziploc bag for the few days it takes for me to use it up. I know women can be very particular about what skin care and cosmetic products they'll use. I settled on this moisturizer mostly for how it performed on my skin, but also partly based on its plastic bottle. I knew that I could cut it open and use up every last bit of it.

In the past I've tried and liked moisturizers from department store cosmetic lines. It always infuriated me that I couldn't get every bit of the product out of glass bottles. So I gave up on those. If you're still shopping around for your preferred toiletry items, consider the packaging as one factor in your decision. I hope it will go without saying that a $10 bottle of moisturizer is not necessarily inferior to a $35 bottle that will last you the same amount of time. Put aside the marketing, the hype, and the image, and select something that will work for your skin without breaking the bank.

If you are stuck on a product sold in a glass bottle, at least you can recycle the glass. Use a cotton swab to retrieve the last bits of product before you do so. It's not perfect, but it's better than not making any attempt to use up the product completely. If you're really stuck on using high-end skin care products that come in glass bottles, you might try being a squeaky wheel about it the next time you visit the cosmetics counter. Given the state of the economy, companies selling luxury goods just might be in the mood to listen.

Rethinking the Non-Negotiable

I've written before on frugality creep, and the incremental changes that happen when saving money becomes a mindset, a way of life. It's very difficult - and very uncomfortable - to shift too quickly from an average endebted, consumeristic lifestyle to severe pennypinching. In our lives the shift from spending to saving has been gradual and is ongoing.

For me there were certain big changes that happened early on, mostly the obvious ones: keeping and using a price comparison book, switching to CF light bulbs, hanging all my laundry up to dry, eating out less and less, learning to bake bread, selling off extra vehicles. But even as I enthusiastically set aside old habits and took up new ones, there were certain exemptions to my spending habits that I wasn't even willing to consider giving up. I think that's normal, and if you're new to frugality I think it's okay to devote your energies to learning new habits and skills for the time being. But when the new habits and skills have become routine, and the frugality bug has still got you bad, there comes a time when those exemptions start looking more and more profligate. Then it's time to reconsider them.

Confession time: I'm vain about my appearance in one particular way. I always wear foundation makeup when I'm out in public. I don't wear lipstick or eye makeup more than a few times per year, and most of the time I couldn't care less what clothes I'm wearing (so long as they're clean and warm enough). But for many long years I've spent good money on a cosmetics counter brand of foundation. I go through about two and a half bottles per year. That probably adds up to about $100 per year.

This was something I just wasn't willing to consider cutting out of my budget for quite a while. It quietly held non-negotiable status, and was paid for out of my mad money budget. Now you may argue that $100 per year isn't very much money, and that's the exact argument I made to myself. But $100 is $100, and there are lots of efforts I make to save us even smaller amounts per year. Why turn around and blow that much on a non-necessity? So recently I decided that I needed to at least consider some alternatives. If I couldn't simply give it up and let the world see my splotchy skin and the occasional zit, then I would at least try a cheaper brand. Off I went to visit the drugstore cosmetics aisle, a trip I hadn't made since high school.

You know what? On my very first try I found a product that matches my skin tone, has a good SPF rating, and works just about as well as the high end stuff I've been buying for years. It's a little bit thinner than my usual brand, so I may use a little more each day. But it costs less than a third as much for the same size bottle of the expensive stuff I've used for so long. I feel pretty foolish for having let a mental prejudice get in the way of saving money for all these years. And I feel silly for still refusing to be seen without foundation. But I do feel good about finding a cheaper alternative that works. Now I have no reason to go to the mall, ever.

We still have some non-negotiables in our budget. I'm not thrilled about these, but unless and until the feces really hits the rotating oscillator, my husband isn't giving up his beer, and my dirty little canned soda habit will continue.

What are your non-negotiables? Have you managed to overcome any? Please share in the comments!

Frugal Menstruation - the Diva Cup

The High Price of Menstruation in America
A recent frugal practice in my life is the use of the Diva Cup instead of tampons. I had long resented the high cost of tampons and other "feminine hygiene products." As with many toiletries and grocery items, when making the switch to a frugal lifestyle I initially looked for the cheapest price on the items I was accustomed to using. Unfortunately, I came up empty when looking for good deals on my preferred brand, OB tampons. The best unit price I could find was about 15 cents per tampon. I never actually counted the number I used each month, but I know that I bought the large boxes (40 count) and used at least half a box per month. Estimating conservatively then, I was obligated to spend $3 for a disposable, non-environmentally friendly product each month.

I didn't want to switch to the cheaper Tampex tampons because they introduce even more waste into the landfills. Finally, I got annoyed enough by the high prices that I looked into menstrual cups as a radical alternative. I ended up buying the Diva Cup based on the consumer comments on the product website. I was especially interested by the reports from some women that using the cup instead of tampons reduced cramping. But I bought the Diva Cup from an online retailer that offered a better price than buying directly from the manufacturer. Go figure. I paid about $26 out of pocket for one cup delivered to my door.

About the Diva Cup
The Diva Cup is made of silicone, which is a well-tested material used in many medical implants. It looks a little like a diaphragm, and it comes in two sizes: one for women under 30 who have not had children, and a slightly larger cup for women over 30 and any woman who has had a child. It also comes with a small draw-string bag for storage. It sits snugly in the vaginal canal and collects blood, rather than absorbing it as a tampon does. It might seem like a small cup would fill up quickly and need to be changed regularly. But the average woman only loses a moderate amount of blood over several days of bleeding. According to the manufacturer, the risk of toxic shock syndrome is significantly less when using a silicone cup than when using tampons. Still, the company recommends that anyone with a history of TSS not use the Diva Cup.

Using the Diva Cup
A childless woman in my mid-30's, I found the larger size Diva Cup easy to use. It's definitely a more hands-on way of dealing with menstruation. I came into a lot more contact with my own blood. I'm not a particularly squeamish person, and after all, it is my own blood. But I can imagine that some people would just not feel comfortable dealing with this. There was a learning curve to removing the cup when it was full. I had a few small messes to clean up, but I quickly got the hang of it and had no further problems. In my use of the Diva Cup, I found that even on my heaviest flow days, the cup did not need to be emptied anywhere near as often as I would need to change tampons. This made it seem feasible to use a Diva Cup even in a public restroom. If I was forced to use a public restroom while using the cup, I simply wouldn't empty it until I got back home. I'm confident that even on my heaviest days, I could go at least eight hours without dealing with the cup at all. At home, I empty the Diva Cup into the toilet, rinse it out, wash it well under hot running water, rinse it again, and then re-insert it. When my period is over, I wash it well, let it dry and then store it in the drawstring bag until next month.

The Diva Cup was extremely comfortable when in place. Most of the time I couldn't tell it was there at all. Inserting it comfortably took a little bit of practice, but I never had any pain associated with its use. I don't know if I would recommend this product to younger menstruating teens or those who have never been sexually active. I might be wrong here; it's just something that I would leave up to women in that category to decide for themselves. I think that anyone else would be able to use a menstrual cup without discomfort.

Results
I was curious to see how the Diva Cup would perform overnight during the heaviest days of my period. I have had overnight leaks with tampons in the past. Unfortunately, I did have some leakage during the heaviest part of my period the first time I used the Diva Cup. Since then I have learned to make sure the cup is emptied last thing before I go to bed, and emptied first thing when I wake up. I've had no further problems. Women with especially heavy flows might see different results. I would consider using a water douche along with the cup during my heaviest days if I experienced more overnight leakage. Still, I can say that the Diva Cup performs no worse than tampons for me in this regard.

I have noticed some apparent reduction in cramping when using the Diva Cup, which frankly surprises me. I wasn't expecting to see this benefit. But I can't be 100% certain of this yet because the amount of cramping I experience varies quite a lot from month to month. I haven't been using the Diva Cup long enough to know whether these have just been easy months or whether the cup is making a difference. One other possible benefit is that the Diva Cup also eliminates the increased risk of yeast infections associated with tampons. I have had a few yeast infections now and then, and I had never heard that tampons contributed to this problem. Apparently, tampons dry out the vaginal canal too much, thus making it harder for the body to maintain the population of healthy bacteria in that environment. So two possible points there for the Diva Cup.

To sum up, I'm glad I've started using the Diva Cup. According to my calculations, my financial break-even point for the purchase of the Diva Cup is about nine months. ($26 divided by $3 per month in tampons.) With at least another ten years of menstruation ahead of me, I should see a net savings of $335. And I don't have to worry about running out of tampons in the middle of my period, thus eliminating one possible reason for an emergency run to the store. Additionally, there's the benefit of introducing less waste into the environment. Now I wish that I'd started using the cup ten years ago. I can recommend this product or others like it to any adult menstruating woman who wants to save money and/or be environmentally responsible.