This is the fourth and final post in a four-part weekly series on Ways to be Healthy Without Breaking your Budget. This series is written by Victoria Carlson. If you missed them be sure to check out week 1 Ways to Eat Healthy on a Budget and week 2 Ways to Stay Fit on a Budget and week 3 Ways to Buy Safe Cleaning Products on a Budget
If you have enjoyed this series, please let Victoria Carlson know on Twitter and encourage her to write more posts in the future ;)
There are tons of things that you use throughout your house and in your daily routine every single day. When thinking about these products, you might realize that there are some items that seem to be breaking your budget month after month. Here are four specific things you use every day and ways you can save on these items.
1) Bed Sheets
There is no way to get around it; you need bed sheets. The problem is that inexpensive sheets don’t last that long because they are often low quality. Before you know it, you are back at the store purchasing new ones because the last set got worn after only a year or so.
Investing in high-quality bedding is one of the best things you can do for your budget, simply because you will not have to keep buying them and your health will benefit. Because of both our allergies and my husband’s asthma, 100% cotton sheets are a must. Cotton is hypoallergenic, dust-mite resistant, and is not prohibitively expensive. Cotton withstands years of washing and does not break down over time as easily as other fabrics. Organic sheets do tend to cost more, but they also reduce the amount of harmful chemicals in the air.
The Company Store has a variety of really great options to choose from and most of their bed sheets are 100% cotton. You can also buy 100% cotton sheets at most stores that sell bed sheets, or online
2) Laundry Detergent
In a previous Young Adult Money post, laundry detergent could definitely have been included. Even if you do not do laundry every single day, I am certain that the average person spends a decent amount of money on it each year.
Laundry detergent is crazy expensive and it is important to invest in a quality detergent in order to save money on your health and the clothes you purchase. The two top-rated detergents on goodguide.com (good guide is an online resource that helps consumers find Find safe, healthy, green & ethical products based on scientific ratings) are Seventh Generation
3) Make-up
One word: Coupons. I personally do not like wearing a lot of makeup so it is hard to get motivated enough to invest in high quality makeup; there are so many other things to save for right now. But because I do wear it, I try to do everything I can to make sure that I save as much as possible when I buy it. There are always coupons for the major brands of makeup product lines (i.e. Covergirl, Maybeline, etc).
Make sure you are always looking online and in the newspaper for coupons on products you are already purchasing because you can really save a lot over time if you utilize them.
4) Water
My husband and I used to buy bottled water all the time before we were married. However, now that we have invested in some great water bottles, we have cut that part out of our budget entirely. David purchased a Brita water pitcher
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From eating, being active, cleaning safely and using various safe/smart products every day, you can easily spend thousands of dollars a year. The good news is that you absolutely don’t have to. You never have to break your budget to eat healthy, stay physically fit, clean without chemicals, or to use daily products.
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Photo by Rachel Titiriga
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These are some more good tips Victoria. Water bottles are a great thing. Why buy water when you can get perfectly good water for free. Most bottled water comes from a tap anyway.
@GregatClubThrifty She wasn’t lying – we used to consume lots of bottled water.
I always try and use coupons on makeup, there always seems to be one out there for the items that I buy!
These are good tips! I agree about using coupons for makeup! You can get it almost half off if you time it right!
Good tips, especially on the water. My wife and I love our Nalgene bottles. We bought a Brita filter for our sink a few years ago and just have to replace it every couple of months, definitely a cost saver.
@FrugalRules Brita Filter + Water Bottle = $ Saved!
I see you have been checking out the good guide as per my reference :) I have been saving a ton of money by not buying water at all. We simply boil our water, let it cool at room temperature and use a large pitcher to cool it off in the fridge. The same goes for tea turned Iced Tea. Any time we’re thirsty there’s iced tea and nice clean water in the fridge. Voila!
@Veronica @ Pelican on Money Yes we have! I have heard of people boiling water, but I’m a bit too lazy for that :0
We switched to a brita filter as well. I didn’t know that about organic cotton sheets, and I should because I also have asthma and allergies. I know that carpeting is BAD news for allergies and asthma, but we unfortunately can’t afford to replace ours upstairs yet…and that’s where we sleep!
@seedebtrun The apartment we are in has the worst carpeting ever, it’s actually a big reason we left. I asked a long time ago if they would replace it and that other comparable apartment complexes replaced theirs at least once every five years. Our manager said “the carpet actually isn’t THAT old, but we do keep it for AT LEAST five years….” ridiculous…
@DC @ Young Adult Money That’s pretty gross…
I have enjoyed all of your tips. When you guys have a child, you’ll use even more laundry detergent. When our daughter was a baby, she was sensitive to every detergent, so we washed clothes in Borax, which is like a less powdery baking soda. It was hilarious because the box said “20 Mule Team Borax” and had a picture of a mule on it, and it was pretty cheap.
@Eyesonthedollar Haha wow!
Great tips Victoria! I didn’t care about bed sheets until I bought some really nice ones, you do spend a third of your life sleeping after all!
I don’t know much about bed sheets.. I’ve just got mine at target. i believe the higher the thread count the higher the quality right? I could use a new bed though and my sheets after about 2 years are starting to fade and not look as nice as they once did.
As a single man laundry detergent last me a long time. So that really isn’t an issue for me.
Makeup isn’t an issue for me so not much to say about that.
For water I got a brita container and just have to replace the filter once every 3 months The filters are a bit pricey but I dont ever buy bottled water I use that water and my thermos
@ryanparedez Our bed sheets are starting to get pretty faded but we are holding off on buying new ones for a few weeks. Don’t feel bad about getting your sheets at Target, I used to get mine there and they lasted years!
@DC @ Young Adult Money i’m not worried about snagging my sheets from target. I haven’t heard any complaints from anyone that sleeps over. They aren’t bad looking at all. This grey set i got is started to look worn out but the black set still looks really nice.