With term fully underway, it’s quickly become clear that despite my best efforts, my outgoings are outstripping my incomings at a rate of knots, and so this week I’m bringing you a serious guide to my favourite money saving method, based on a philosophy I like to call: ‘Washing – it’s optional, right?’
With term fully underway, it’s quickly become clear that despite my best efforts, my outgoings are outstripping my incomings at a rate of knots. So this week I’m bringing you a serious guide to my favourite money saving method, based on a philosophy I like to call: ‘Washing – it’s optional, right?’
As anyone who lives in college can attest, washing machines and dryers are horrendously overpriced, and that’s assuming that they’re not broken. Having to wait over a week for them to be repaired, trekking to the laundry at 2am in an attempt to find a free machine, only to return an hour later to find someone’s already dumped your finished load on the dusty, washing-powder-streaked side starts to get a little old after a year or two. Well, it’s easier to avoid this whole debacle than you might think.
Bed sheets are, unless you’re regularly sharing your bed, a very personal aspect of one’s life, and as such I find that building up a solid relationship with them is essential. Now everyone knows a relationship can’t blossom overnight, so despite the protests of your friends and colleagues (and possibly even lovers), I urge you to at least try the ‘one-change term’ – bring two sets of sheets, and change them in 4th week – job done. If this seems a little extreme for you, with three sets of sheets (and who doesn’t have three sets of sheets lying around), the three-change-term is a little more work, but just as effective in avoiding those pesky machines.
If the topic of saving on washing ever pops up in conversation (and let’s face it, it’s a winner in the Park End lounge room), girls in particular seem to love telling guys that our underwear can be worn ‘inside-out, back-to-front, and inside-out-back-to-front’ – the 4-shot pants. Well let’s debunk this myth once and for all; underwear is cut a certain way – it’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Oh, you know how you can reduce the wear on the seat of your jeans? Put them on backwards every other day’ – try floating this the next time some weirdo starts chatting you up with money saving chat over a VK Orange and see how it goes down. Honestly, there’s enough going on down there that an ill-fitting, scratchy and uncomfortable (the buttons? And stitching? They’re on the outer side for a reason) pair would ruin anyone’s day.
People, and by people I mean girls, also go on about dry shampoo as if it gives you a previously unattainable level of attractiveness, solves your recurring pimple problem and does your tute sheets for you. I can assure you that, as it’s just glorified talcum powder in a bottle, with the added ‘benefit’ of coming in a variety of revolting fragrances, it’s about as pleasant as filling your hair with a fine chemical dust can ever be. Dont forget to factor in the added features that most of said dust won’t comb out, and will, if you sensibly opted for the fragrance-free version, make you smell like you work in a talc factory. This is not attractive to anyone.So while I’m all in favour of saving some dollar here and there on sheets, clothes (do t-shirts ever need washing?) and sports kit (both cost-effective and a legit tactic to ward off a closely marking opposition player), I’m certainly not going to extol the virtues of, say rubbing your face with sand to reduce oily-build up between showers, or chewing parsley between brushes to keep fresh and ready for action. Because that’s literally mental.
