Need more money in your life? Save time, save resources.

If you think your time is precious, then saving it and your resources should equate to savings in $. Here are some tricks I have discovered and I am not going to waste them.

In the kitchen
1) Not all food need the same degree of heat to cook. So, when you boil your soup or use the rice cooker, always try to heat up or steam another dish at a go. Example, you can stew a dish half way and let it tenderize above your pot of boiling soup.

Come to think of it, why can't the paper and steel recycling industries work together? Work on the basis that steel needs more energy to breakdown compared to paper. Also, oil palm fibre have been used to produce biodegradable packaging. The packaging breakdown with moist and heat to become fertilizer. What the players of these recycling industries should do is work together to share heat resources in their processes.

Instead of letting the biodegradable packaging degrade and fertilise areas where they have landed, such as, landfills, where it is not required; soil (or possibly ashes?) can be added to them and processed into compost through the heat source from the steel or paper recycling industries.

2) Serve dishes that required ingredients to be meshed, example boiled potatoes, on days when you are boiling soup that requires those ingredients.

In the laundry room:
1) Buy a washing machine with capacity to wash more clothes so that you can wash them on alternate days. Do you really need a dryer or steam iron if you can iron your clothes right after taking them out from the washing machine? Leaving clothes in the machine will crease them and need more ironing = more energy. Also, when the clothes are still moist, you need less heat and it is easier to iron. After ironing, hang it up to dry completely.

In the garden:
Use water from washing grains and vegetable and fish to water your plants. The blood from your fish is a very good fertilizer. If you are ambitious and use menstrual cup, you can add the collection to your garden too if you are not into painting with it. Yes, there are people who do that. (Doing Your 3Rs. Can you beat this?)

In the bathroom:
1) Take showers as a family activity cum biology class for the children.
2) Pee as your wash your face under the shower.
3) Try to use only one toilet in the house so that you need not have to wash all toilets more frequently.
4) Do not flush the toilet when anyone in the family gets up to pee at night. Flush only in the morning after all businesses of poos and pees have been performed.

Administrative matters:
1) Discovered this from Bnet. Don't let the annoying automated menus of major corporations spoil your day. gethuman 500 database shows you how to skip. No, you do not have to find a rope to start.

2) Keep all your bills in one clear folder. The one I am using is a bag that was supplied with some herbs I bought. Use cardboard cut out from boxes as dividers to segregate one company bill from another. Save time punching holes and looking for the right file to keep each of them.