10 Off

I have learned to live on a pretty skimpy dime in my time. We grew up very lower middle class (maybe poor, if we hadn’t had people like my grandmother to live with now and then) and we knew how to stretch things to begin with. I had privileged friends gawk at my ability to live on a meal a day—“My children would never go hungry! They are too resourceful!” are the words she used that I’ll never forget and always recall with contempt—not understanding that it was simply a way of living that you do when you are broke, that you are already used to it. When there are bills to pay, you know they come first; now that I have a child, it is she that is priority number one. I can sacrifice just like my parents did before me.

But there are other ways to save money besides going hungry. One of my favorite ways to save money is a trick that I learned while living in Spain, where hot water was more costly than cold, where you had to pay for everything. I learned to use a free bathroom every time I came across one!

You have to understand that many restrooms in Europe are off-limits if you do not buy something (food, clothing, whatever), and that many restrooms actually charge you a few cents to use them, though you can learn how to wiggle yourself beneath the door into the stall without popping in the coins, especially with a friendly spotter…!

So you find the ones that are free—like the ones on the campus that I attended—and you use them whenever you can. The one in my dorm was only one floor down, so I used it almost every time I needed to go to the bathroom. Not only did I rarely have to buy toilet paper—I cut the water bill down quite a bit.

Today I still try to use this tactic as much as I can—especially with a family of four. I don’t make sure we use the potty before we leave; I make sure it’s the first thing we do once we are there! Every restaurant, every store—I used to be scared to use them (you can think scary films for that) but now, even though I still get a little creeped out, I never fail to. I don’t know how much we’re saving, but I know that my bill is smaller than my neighbor’s—so maybe it does help!

And if not, well, it’s still less energy and toilet paper that we’re using.