Too Cheap or not too Cheap

TOO CHEAP OR NOT TOO CHEAP
THAT IS THE QUESTION

Reusing napkins: For those of us who use cloth napkins on a daily basis, napkins are not washed after each use. The napkin at your place setting is yours to use, fold, and use again. When it is soiled, it is replaced with another cloth napkin. We are not tearing off a soiled part of a paper napkin.


Manual garage doors: How can we call this cheap? Electric openers for garages are a newer convenience. Think back far enough and realized people didn't even put their car in a garage because they didn't have a garage to put the car in!


No idle policy: Before car starters, what was the option? Did you have someone in your house that would go out and start the car for you?


Reusing foil or plastic: Although foil may be washed before reuse, I do know a family who reused lunch plastic bags and couldn't figure out why their children got sick. Don't you wonder if it had to do with two weeks worth of germs?


Paying for photo prints: Before digital, email, and 2 for 1 prints, people actually brought the rolls of film to the processor, (or mailed it), and the prints came back. You had one set. Extra copies of pictures were ordered AFTER you got the pictures and the negatives back. In the mid fifties, it took two weeks to get pictures processed at the drug store; negatives took just as long. It was a common practice to ask for a print, which meant the owner sending the negative in. Another common practice was to send pictures by mail to family and ask they be returned OR the picture might say, "You can keep this one."


Cut band aids in half: I do this. A whole band aid is too big.


Reusing water in washing machine: In the day of wringer washers, it was a common practice to start with the white load and keep washing until you got to the real dirty clothes. IF the wash water got too dirty, the machine was drained and the rinse water was replaced and that water was used in the machine. Old Trunks is worn enough to see the logic in this.


No air conditioning in the car: For those of us who lived our youth with 4-60 AC, (Four windows open, 60 miles an hour), we did even know one could have air conditioning in a car! The first one my parents had was in a mid sixties car and they had it put in after factory.


Starting long distance calls: Tom and his son have this policy, it is based on when his son is available to call. Cheap is what we used to do. When we got home from vacation, we would call person to person and ask for ourselves. Parents would say we weren't there. Parents would then know we got home safe.


Take clothes out of the dryer while still damp: This isn't like a sitcom I saw where the guy put his clothes in the oven to dry. We base it on not over drying and having items wrinkle like they would in commerical dryers at laundromats. Tell me this, if and when you used commerical dryers, didn't you pull the lighter stuff out of the dryer as it tumbled around? Isn't this truly a saving on the clothes that require minimal drying?


Being offered a half stick of gum: Now this irritated me. Mother always had Beeman's gum in her purse. She always offered only a half stick. I don't know why. I just know I made up for it when I was a teenager and put a whole pack of bubble gum in my mouth at one time. Now, that is a big chew!


We may have mentioned in the past that my grandparents reused envelopes. They were carefully opened and used to keep score for games of 500 rummy. I suppose my grand parents were frugal in many ways, yet the idea of reusing an envelope for another purpose is endearing.