Favorite Tips for Saving Time and Money

I thought it would be fun, and possibly helpful, to put together a list of some of my favorite time- and money-saving tips for kitchen and household tasks. Some of these are from early in the history of this blog--when I had many days with no visitors at all--so you probably haven't read them!
 
Household and laundry tips:

• Homemade powdered laundry detergent  (I now use Yardley soaps, because I like the Lemon Verbena and Baby Gentle fragrances.  Evidently these soaps are available at some dollar stores, but I stock up when they're on sale at the supermarket.  I've also tried saving slivers of bar soaps, but I am not sure that the added effort to grate them--not to mention the occasional blood loss--is worth saving an extra few pennies.)
• Vinegar as a laundry additive (It's cheap and has many benefits in the laundry.)
• A cheaper sweeper (flannel cloths, and reusing "disposable" cloths, for Swiffer-type sweepers) 

Kitchen tips:

• Kitchen Efficiency:  Work in parallel
• What's in the Freezer?  Keeping a freezer inventory list is even more important now that we do have a standalone freezer.
• Make-Ahead Meatballs:  Using the slow cooker to save prep time on busy afternoons
• Restaurant Savings:  Bring it home and freeze it
• Saving on Spices:  Why not to buy garlic salt and onion salt
• How to Make Vanilla Sugar:  Okay, this doesn't directly save money, because I wouldn't purchase vanilla sugar.  But it's a way to have this indulgence without spending extra for it.

Hope you've found a useful tip or two in this list!

Disclosure:  Some of these older posts contain affiliate links, which may not be disclosed in the individual posts.