Review: Battle of The Dishwashing Soaps

June 24, 2008 · Filed Under · 6 Comments 

A few weeks ago the folks at Cascade sent me a big ol’ bottle of their new liquid Cascade Complete dishwashing soap along with a bottle of their competitor Electrasol soap and asked if I would test them out and do a review on my blog. The fact that they actually sent me big bottles rather than small samples impressed me and encouraged me to give it a try.

Cascade picked the right house as we don’t lack dirty dishes to say the least! We typically wash our dishes off before loading them in the dishwasher, which I always thought was a waste of water but my wife insisted that the dishes would not get clean otherwise. But the folks at Cascade claimed that there was no need to rinse off the dishes or silverware first with their product, so we tested both ways. Here are our results.

Dishes Rinsed First

  • Cascade Complete. Dishes came out squeaky clean.
  • Electrasol. Dishes came out squeaky clean.

Dishes Not Rinsed At All

  • Cascade Complete. We got home from our recent camping trip and we just loaded all our dirty dishes in the dishwasher, including a spatula that I had used on hamburgers. This thing had caked on grease, cheese, and mountain dirt and I thought, “No way, it would take an act of God to clean this bad boy!” My wife and I were amazed when we opened up the dishwasher and everything, including the spatula, was squeaky clean. In case you haven’t noticed, “squeaky clean” is my scientific word of choice for this post.
  • Electrasol. A few days later we had some greasy dinner plates with cheese and oily salad dressing on them and so we thought it was a perfect time for a rebuttal by Mr. Electrasol. He was not up for the challenge and lost his license to serve dirty dishes. The stuff came out with a grease residue on them. Now as a guy, that is just added flavor for the next meal, but my wife was not quite so forgiving of poor Mr. Electrasol.

So there you have it, Cascade Complete won this exciting battle. It of course does cost more, but I am starting to wonder if you would get back that savings in less water usage from not having to pre-rinse the dishes? Any thoughts?

And by the way, any other companies want to send me their products, I would be more than happy to test them out.

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Frugality in Practice (Sorta): 5 Great New Uses For My Truck

June 20, 2008 · Filed Under · 9 Comments 

My Next Car Purchase!My new gas savings plan: I will only drive my truck to places that are downhill from my house! Any flaws in my plan that you can think of? I paid $4.59 a gallon for the cheapest grade of gas the other day here in northern California. I put $75 in my truck and the gas gauge didn’t even reach the 3/4 of a tank mark! From now on, the truck only leaves the garage when my wife’s more fuel efficient vehicle is in use and I need to get somewhere. Fortunately I work from home, but if I had to commute…fogetaboutit!

But anyways, as I was driving my truck home from the fueling station I started thinking of some useful, albeit unconventional, uses for my truck. Here is what I came up with. Feel free to add your own by leaving me a comment!

  1. Storage Baby!- My truck has a shell on it so it will make a great little shed. It can easily hold my lawn mower, weed eater, and various fertilizers. Also, I can just siphon gas out of the fuel tank to fill my lawn mower and weed eater!
  2. Go Cart! – My son has shown interest in converting an old lawn mower into a Go Cart, so maybe I can just pull the engine out of my truck and create the fastest go cart on record. Heck, we can even take it to Bonneville salt flats and race it! Cool.
  3. Ice Cream Truck – Load ‘er up with Otter Pops and Ice Cream sandwiches and start cruising through local parks with that annoying ice cream truck tune playing through my Bose audio system. Potential problem, I would need to sell exactly 1,823 otter pops to pay for a tank of gas.
  4. Kids Play Structure – Who needs bikes or a swing set when you have a truck that has knobs, a steering wheel, and colorful gadgets to play with.
  5. Investment Opportunity – Just fill up the tank and park my truck in the garage for a couple months. Then when gas hits $5.50 a gallon, sell the petrol to my neighbors for a profit!
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Avoid Using Gas with Free Shipping Coupons

June 10, 2008 · Filed Under · 1 Comment 

FreeShipping.org LogoHaving run this coupon site for a few years now, I have seen a ton of coupon sites come and go. Most just throw up a bunch of coupons, hope they actually work, and never update the site again. So when I stumble across a quality site I have no problem passing it along to you. This was the case when I found Luke over at Free Shipping.org. I see a lot of similarities between him and myself. We both run coupon sites and focus on good content and try to make customer service our main goal.

I paid $4.49 a gallon for the cheap stuff here in northern California yesterday, which makes his website, which focuses on free shipping coupons to over 700 stores, even more valuable. Just stay home and shop online and get it sent to your doorstep for free!

Here are a few offers on his website that caught my attention:

  • He has up about 15 Macys Free Shipping offers for free shipping on a bunch of different products and brands like Dockers, Godiva, and Fossil watches.
  • His site also has Bloomingdales Free Shipping coupons that can save you a bundle in delivery charges.
  • Also, JCPenney Free Shipping deals will get your gifts delivered to you by Father’s Day. Better hurry though!

On a side note: GOING CAMPING!!! My wife, the kids, and I, are heading off for a family camping trip tomorrow. Next blog and website update will be next Monday. Have a great Father’s Day weekend!

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Frugality In Practice: Summer Fun @ The Movies

June 9, 2008 · Filed Under · 5 Comments 

Our local Cinemark movie theatre has a really cool (literally) program called the Summer Movie Clubhouse where you can take the kids weekly to see a movie for only $1 per ticket or you can pre-buy all 10 summer movies for only $5. My wife and I are going to take our kids to a few of the shows, especially when the temperature gets over 100 degrees!

Most of the movies are recent family favorites like Charlotte’s Web (my daughter’s favorite) and a few like Doogal and Flushed Away that I am not familiar with yet. If you don’t have a Cinemark in your town check with your local theaters as they may have a similar program!

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