Time value
I’m wasteful. It’s true. If a household product gets to the point where it’s a pain in the ass for me to get any more of it out of the container, I’m done with it. For example, if the toothpaste tube requires more than a gentle squeeze to get some toothpaste out, it’s not worth the time and I open a new one.
Not my wife. She will fight the household products in an epic battle to extract as much product as possible. To me, that’s just not worth it. I got better things to do than fight a bottle of lotion. Not her. She’ll take the cap off, turn it upside down and beat the bottle like it owes her money.
When I last saw her, she had a razor blade and was cutting the toothpaste open.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 am
Is she from around here? Thrift to the point of excess is a pretty common trait for them as come from the hills 🙂
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:16 am
Wow, I didn’t realize that you’re also married to my wife.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 am
I wouldn’t go so far as the razor blade, but I’m kind of like that 🙂
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I’m a bit like that myself. Not because I’m cheap, but because I’m too lazy to run out and buy more toothpaste.
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Buy three at a time 😉
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I get every molecule out of the ketchup bottle.
February 23rd, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Kind of like the difference between ordering a fixed quantity of buffalo wings and going to all-you-can eat wing night. If I’m limited to just the wings in front of me, I’ll pick every strip of flesh from the bone like a starved vulture pulling carcass duty on the Serengetti.
All-you-can eat Wing Night? Complete opposite. What ever doesn’t come off in three bites isn’t worth my trouble. I just move on to the next one.
Also, save the Grey Poupon jar when you’re down to the “scrapings”. Pour in soe red wine vinegar and shake, cleaning the sides of the bottle. Then add some olive oil, salt, pepper, and crushed garlic or minced shallots.
Instant salad dressing. And you save $0.017 by not tossing that last bit of mustard. Do that 530 times and you’ve saved enough for a bulk-pack of .22 at Wal-mart.
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I’m in your wife’s camp, although I don’t go quite so far as the razor blade thing.
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Bruce:
I love the salad dressing idea!
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I’m on your wife’s side on this too.
I’ve even bought devices to squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, and store liquid washing machine soap upside down so I can get one more load out of them in a day or two.
Probably my most uselessly obsessive behavior is the fact that I am aggravated to no end with the wasted solid deodorant in the stick I use…as it gets impossible to use there is still usable deodorant in the crevasses in the push up base. Pisses me off.
Oh, and I save brass too. Even tho I don’t reload.
February 24th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
I don’t get one more load by turning the detergent bottles over, exactly. I collect detergent bottles out of the laundromat dumpster, and get one or even two loads total from a bottle.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:09 am
I can remember when we had an icebox and couldn’t afford ice for it. But God in his wisdom worked it out for us. We couldn’t afford anything to put in it any damn way. I can remember setting a quart of milk on the roof of the apartment below us to try to keep it cool. Didn’t matter, the last three days of a quart of milk we had to eat with a spoon and it was sour and solid, almost, except for the sickening liquid that oozed out of it. It’s a thin yellow, by the way.
When I turned 7 I went to work. There were three of us, my sister and my mother. We could eat our milk twice a week then. So it wasn’t so bad. I’m with your wife. Not really, go look, she’s still there with you, I just meant I support her position. I have gotten a little better in my old age, but I still can’t throw food away. If I can’t eat it, I find someone or something that can.
In the last few years I have finally got to where I can throw out a sliver of bath soap and open a new one without the old one being completely gone, but I feel guilty about it. I think of how hard my mother worked and how hard I worked to not have enough and the kids I started out with who weren’t strong enough to survive the same type of life and turned bad or died and I feel lucky. But I don’t forget what it was like.
I know you were trying to be humorous and I truly hope that your humor is based in the love I’m sure you feel for your wife. But, just in case she has similar memories, I wouldn’t let her see it, until I knew for sure it wouldn’t hurt.
I apologize for my forwardness. As you can see, this isn’t all that funny to some of us. Though we can appreciate why it might be to those that haven’t been there.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I have a related observation, and that is no one wants to use the “final ten percent” of anything. Not because of inaccessibility. Certainly not out of some misguided generosity to other family members. Possibly to avoid having to deal with the empty container.
Take peanut butter. As the jar gets used up, usage diminishes proportionally. When it’s half gone, usage starts to lag noticeably. By the time only ten percent remains? No one will touch the stuff for days, even weeks on end. I throw it out, open a new one, and BLAM! the new jar starts emptying right out.