So this morning I decided to wash the car in the driveway, my $13 having purchased a less-than-perfect job the last time I took the minivan to the car wash. Figured it was time, since I couldn’t see through the windshield.

In particular, I wanted to try to get the old, stale coffee stains out of the carpet, where over the months and years I’ve spilled my favorite potable while driving around town. Toyota’s carpet and upholstery are practically invulnerable. Hence, a rough-sounding strategy: spray plenty of window cleaner on the rug, scrub the stuff around with an old sponge, and then suck it out with the shop vac.

Amazingly, the scheme worked with no ill effect. It not only got out the coffee stains, it also pulled up a number of other spots scattered around the vehicle. Other than the Great Automotive Coffee Extraction Project, the rest of the job was pretty easy: I sprayed the van with a little Windex Outdoor, which doesn’t do much for windows but works great on paving, walls, and your car. This product comes in a container that attaches to the hose and has a spray attachment that turns the water flow off (saves water!) and also switches to “rinse,” making it simple to lather and rinse off the vehicle.

The Coffee Extraction Project got the eight-year-old carpeting almost as clean as new, and a little Murphy’s Oil Soap cleaned and polished up the vinyl interior trim. So, for the price of a quarter-bottle of Windex Outdoor I saved myself $13 on the wash-and-rinse and, if you believe Johnny’s Carousel Car Wash prices, another $80 on the detail job.

Better yet, because I chose to wash the car in the driveway, in the process I did a whole series of small chores I wouldn’t even have thought about had I schlepped to Johnny’s:

1. Cleaned the fireplace ashes out of the shop vac & washed the filter
   

2. Memo: Don’t use the shop vac to clean out the fireplace!
   

3. Filled a spray bottle with a handy solution of diluted Murphy’s Oil Soap
   

4. Cleaned the fingerprints off the garage cabinets
   

5. Refilled the window-cleaner spray bottle
   

6. Cleaned the garage door threshold
   

7. Cleaned the utility sink
   

8. Cleaned the clothes washer
   

9. Took out the garbage
   

10. Cleaned the garbage basket
    

11. Washed the grackle guano off the pavement under the ash tree
    

12. Picked wildflowers and put them in the kitchen
    

Voilà! In the time it would have taken to drive across town to Johnny’s and wait around for a half-baked car wash, twelve household projects got done (counting the car wash). The cost was almost nothing, and no gasoline was consumed.

w00t!

Frugality pays, in more ways than one.

categories: frugality