what happened to postiive #3 with coasing while driving?

@kiki
Good find. I must have been in the middle of writing it, saved it, and then forgot to actually put something there. Poorly formatted HTML resulted in what you saw. Fixed now! (I thought of another positive.)

I actually shower in the middle of my bathroom. No really, dead center. One of the only pleasures I get is running the water for the whole thing. That and watching the water soak the toilet.

I don’t know if it’s a pleasure. I call it a prison shower, it feels like it sometimes.

@SaraDevil
Oh that sounds…different. But at the same time I know what you mean about how interesting it is to wash amidst the toilet and the rest of the bathroom. I never could understand it too much, though. It does keep the rest of the bathroom a little bit cleaner, I would think. Why does it feel like a prison shower?

i used to do #1 a long time ago when there was like a drought or something, haha…but it seriously gets way too cold

i didn’t understand #2!

#3 is something i learned living in my own apt last year, haha =)

btw, hi mr. riddy!

#1 I have to save in other ways I’m afraid. Getting clean is just a by product of hanging around as long as possible in the nice warm water. I save the sour cream and cream cheese containers for packing my kids’ lunches though…

#3 I was so disappointed when I learned about that light thing a couple years ago. It’s not so much that I had been wasting a little extra electricity all my life so much as it was disappointment that my third grade teacher told me a wrong thing!

#1 turning off the water while you scrub makes the suds more thick. while your at it, shower in a large bucket and use the water to flush the toilet.

#2 they have competitions like this, driving somewhere and literally never pressing the break, or doing anything to waste gas. they are getting 100+ mpg on unmodded cars.

#3 yes, lights and also large LCDs when you aren’t using them

@kelly
It gets cold? It’s California! Maybe that’s another bonus, it’ll toughen you up. Haha.

Sorry if #2 was confusing to you. All it means is to let up on the gas, especially when you can see up ahead that cars are stopped. The car already has momentum, so utilize that instead of wasting more gas.

Did you save a lot of money using #3?

@Jill
It’s understandable that one would want some simple pleasures (even just taking a long shower) in the midst of busyness. These are just ideas that people might have not thought of anyways.

I also heard many things that turned out not to be true that “adults” had told me when I was younger. Actually I think that I, along with most kids, are pretty gullible and easy to believe others. It’s a good thing and a bad one at the same time, wouldn’t you say?

@daniel
I did the large bucket method in China while I was there. It was rather refreshing, I must say. However it was not refreshing to do it in a bathroom with a toilet. And the bathroom was actually on the smaller side (the toilet took up ~half the space already). And the bathroom was really dirty. But the cool rush when it was so hot was quite refreshing. Do you do that method yourself?

I do think that would be a fun competition to try to coast as far as possible! Do you participate in said competitions?

There are countless electronics that we should get in the habit of turning of when we’re not using them, I’d have to agree.

I’m still pretty darned gullible unfortunately. I had this loooooooooooooooooong conversation with a waiter the weekend before last about whiskey. I had to interogate him basically, because he sounded so knowledgable but what he was saying was directly in conflict with what my brother and another trusted friend had told me.

I immediately googled whiskey when I got home to see who was right. I was so glad it was my brother & friend bec. I’ve never had to question his info before.

But when I found out I was still bothered that the waiter sounded so convincing! I mean, had his info not directly conflicted with my brother’s, I would have totally believed him and forever after been misinformed about whiskey!

@Jill
Yeah I think that as we grow older, we have to grow more callous and disbelieving. It’s kind of sad really that we are forced to be so. What was the waiter saying about whiskey?

Oh, he was telling me that ***all*** whiskey came from Tennessee and something to do with the distilling process only being available in Tennessee and that if it wasn’t from Tennessee it wasn’t whiskey basically, that it had to be called something else, like feta cheese or those other place named foods. So he said that bourban and scotch were totally different drinks and not types of whiskey at all.

@Jill
Oh well I guess since I know that it’s not true, that might make me more easily think that it sounds false. But at the same time, I could see how I could be convinced (possibly) that it’s just one of those little known things that I don’t know. How did you get around to talking about that? Did you order some and he decided to drop that little tidbit as a little something extra?

I would have had no clue whatsoever if it hadn’t been for the fact that I actually took notes when my brother and his friend taught me about whiskey! And he sounded SO CONVINCING, that’s the thing that gets me. How can someone sound so knowledgeable as he feeds you misinformation?

I’m not sure exactly how we happened upon that topic. My friend and I had both ordered a fancy expensive margarita on his recommendation, but it didn’t really seem all that much better than a regular margarita. We probably got to talking about what was used to mix it and calories in alcohol and stuff…at least, that’s how I usually find myself in conversations about whiskey.

I like my showers too much to do the bucket or shut-off-and-scrub method. I do know someone who does the bucket.

When I lived in a house we would close off doors and only warm up the rooms we needed warm. Ditto when we needed to cool off rooms. So the living room was always too hot or too cold since we barely used it. My place is very insulated so I barely use my heater.

I rarely break hard. I aim for smooth driving. Sometimes I’m jerking back and forth in a car as a passenger because of the way the driver accelerates and then breaks. Coasting makes for smoother stops. The last time I got my breaks checked, I was told, huh, not much wear for the amount of mileage.

I try to plan my driving, too. So I’ll plan to do several errands at once on one trip instead of driving every day. I heard that’s better for the car, too.

Jill: the waiter probably believed what he was saying and perhaps its because HE didn’t question whoever told him. Who knows.

Ms.Q - That’s a good point. He probably did believe himself - that would explain how he sounded so convincing!

@Jill
Well I guess you got your answer from Ms. Q, huh? The best way to be convincing is to be convinced. How interesting!

@Ms. Q
I think that the showers seem hard to do for many people because that’s a somewhat sacred time of their day. You can’t be surfing online or being busy when you’re showering, and I think that people appreciate that. Still, perhaps it’s because I’m thinking of it more pragmatically than emotionally that I can see the energy/money savings in the exercise. I’m surprised that people actually do the bucket method. I can see that it’s exceptionally efficient, but I guess that I still do want some of the showering enjoyment to exist for me.

That’s impressive that you treat your car so well! I definitely notice when other people are accelerating and braking a lot. I guess it’s up to them but it just makes me more resolute to do what I’m already doing with the smooth driving approach. You’re correct that it would seem that combining errands would definitely seem like a more efficient approach (in both gas AND in time).

Here’s a couple of tips to save money, the environment and wear and tear on your wheels…

Screw gas cap tightly - gas evaporates unless that cap is snug.
Don’t fill the tank to the brim - switch the pump off as soon as you hear the click. Any more gas will stay in the top of the reservoir and likely evaporate.
Keep tires properly inflated. Under inflated tires reduce fuel economy.
Keep car out of the sun. Apart from the burning bum effect, the sun will also cause cracks in rubber moldings rounds doors and sun roofs which can lead to water damage.

[...] let alone act out the stereotype. Nevertheless, I do have a frugal side to me. (I mean, I did share 3 Little Tips To Save.) And that frugal Chinese side of me doesn’t like that products are placed into packages that [...]