Portioning

Have you ever thought about how much of something you're using and if you're using too much or going through something too quickly? Maybe you need to portion things so you are only using what you need. Portioning saves you money because you have to buy it less often and none of it goes to waste.

Take this dishwasher detergent for example. Its package design causes you too accidentally use too much and waste some of it because of the pour spout feature. Do you even know how much your dishwasher needs? I used to just fill up the soap cup and close the door with no thought of whether or not it actually needed that much. When we moved to this apartment, our dishwasher always left a lot of residue on the dishes. We decided it may help if we used less. We filled them according to the fill lines and it solved our residue problem.  But... we still had the problem with the dishwasher detergent package...oops! I spilled! We decided to put it in a container and figure out the amount we were to use in order to just reach the fill line. It ended up being only 1 Tablespoon. That's it! One stinkin Tablespoon! Now we keep a tablespoon scoop in the container and none gets spilled and none goes to waste.

Here are some other examples of portioning:

Ovaltine, we figured out that we use 2 Tablespoons in our cup, so we keep a 2 Tablespoon scoop in it now.

Laundry detergent. We decided one day that we're probably using too much in every load and should portion it too. If you look at the fill lines for Tide. It says for Medium loads, fill to the line 1, for Large loads, fill to line 2. We usually only need to wash Large loads. It turned out to measure out to be 1/3 cup.

                                                           

My two year old and I use the same body wash, shampoo and conditioner. Of course, I just bought them and used them in their original containers. The original containers had lids that you had to use all your strength to open and you tipped it upside down to get some in your hand to use. Of course, when you dump liquid into your hand, sometimes it pours out too quickly and you end up with too much. Then you waste time trying to get the excess liquid back into the opening and of course... that doesn't work.  So today, I went to Walmart and got these little beauties. They cost me $1.88 each. I like that they are clear so I can tell how low they are getting without hopping into the shower and discovering that and having-to hop out and hunt down a new one from the closet. I never end up with too much in my hand and I don't have to hurt my hand and waste all my strength on a lid. Genius!

What other ways do you portion?