Good to the Very Last Drop
Clinique skin care and makeup has become a recent luxury item in my life, since my sister became a counter manager for the company at a local department store. In an effort to help her business, myself, along with a steady stream of relatives (even my father-in-law) have become loyal customers, ponying up a lot of cash for really wonderful cleansers, moisturizers and potions that promise to keep me looking young and youthful well into my golden years. It's not that this stuff is super expensive in the grand scheme of makeup and skincare (it's actually one of the most reasonable brands), it's just so much more than the Neutrogena bar and Oil of Olay I used to get at CVS. Now I'm doing a three step program every night and using a separate creme on my eyelids, buffing every seven days, you get the picture: I have become a little bit high maintenence.
But I'm not willing to give up my frugal ways. I am going to get every last bit of that cleanser and lotion out of the bottle before I break down and order more. And I do that by cutting the bottle in half once I can not get a single bit out of the tube by squeezing it. Then I can cover the end with some plastic wrap and get at least 6 more applications out of it. Granted, cut open lotion bottles do not make for a very attractive bathroom countertop, but it is getting my money's worth out of my Clinique. And since it's the miracle elixir that's going to keep me from looking like Bea Arthur at 32 years old, I'm gonna do whatever I can!
Another thing I have found useful is using up all these tiny little bottles of travel toothpaste that seem to be lying around my house. We have had yearly dentist checkups this month, and each of us adults came home with 2 sample sized tubes. Then the dentist visited the preschool and all three kids came home with a tube. So instead of buying toothpaste when the large tube is gone, we use up all the tiny travel sizes. I guess this might all be postponing the inevitable purchase of all these items. But I like to think that it cuts down on our yearly expenses overall. Would love to hear what you think. Do you have another trick for using every last drop?
