My mother would have been very proud of me if I could have shown her I was saving 25 cents per year.
She would be proud of me too. I’m another one who uses a binder clip, like @Roderick_Femm . My current tube is down to its last days, so I’m squeezing those last drops right now.
25¢ a year is 25¢. In 40 years I’ll have saved enough for a sandwich. But I’m pretty sure I’d be dead by then, so there you go. And in 40 years a sandwich will cost more than $10.
But that won’t stop me from squeezing the tube. I don’t like waste.
Grandma (her mother) would often send me back home with a small cube of cheese, (for the dog) or ‘a slice of ham for His tea’ (as if He was some sort of ogre who had to be propitiated with slices of ham). All things that she didnt need, but must not be wasted.
I’ve used that too! My current dentist sells Fluoridex, with a flip-top; to me, the material of the tube feels oddly thick, and I really do have trouble squeezing out the last of the toothpaste. Even if I’m super careful about using a tube squeezer or other device, I’ll still find 2 or 3 brushings left, and I feel like the effort to get to it is worth it because of the price.
This morning, I could not squeeze one last glob of toothpaste from the tube that inspired this thread. However, inspired by the great minds of the SDMB, I cut the tube open lengthwise and now I have enough toothpaste for maybe three or four more brushings.
What do you do with a cut open toothpaste tube? Leave it exposed to the fecal mist in the bathroom?
It’s stored inside a closed, tightly sealed cabinet. Plus, the way I cut the tube on the side does not really leave it exposed. You have to pull it apart to access the toothpaste. Also, I really don’t care.
I’m nearing the end of my current tube, when I won’t be able to squeeze any remaining gobs out.
I’m not going to cut open my tube. I’m just going to shitcan it. Just saying.
This.
Personally, I’m more worried that toothpaste might leak out and make a mess. Those germs are already colonizing my gut, and got much grows in toothpaste in a couple of days, anyway?
I like the little tube-squeezer my dentist gave me, but when the toothpaste stops coming out of the front, i toss the tube. My toothpaste is cheap. Anything that’s more work than fetching a new tube and threading it into the plastic squeezer thing just isn’t going to happen.
where do you store your toothbrush?
Anyway, I’ll squeeze the tube but not bother cutting it open.
You probably need to see your doctor about that.
At some point it is no longer about being frugal. It becomes a challenge and an adventure.
Yep… And be careful when bending over
Today is truly a sad day in the Ynnad household. I finally discarded the empty tube this morning.
Count me in as a third to use the binder clip. One thing I do use, though, is good, solid piece of key stock (like this) to really squish up the remaining toothpaste towards the next before I tighten down the roll. Cheapskate? Maybe . . . But I just really hate wasting stuff.
Tripler
I had to find a use for that bar stock somewhere . . .
I hope you gave it a respectful memorial and a 12-toothbrush salute.
Does anyone else do ‘the centrifuge thing’ with a new tube of toothpaste? I opened a new tube of Crest today and there’s a lot of air in it. So I opened the cap and held the tube by the top end (open end), and I shook it hard to push the paste to the bottom and the air to the top. I basically ‘made like a centrifuge’, and then I squeezed out all the air from the tube.
Yes I threw away my old empty tube.
No there wasn’t any memorial for it.
My dentist gave me something like this
That’s the first that came up when i searched, I’m sure you can find them a lot cheaper, as it’s just a small piece of plastic. The one she gave me is a rectangle, and has her info printed on it, but it’s functionally the same thing. It works really well. I just gradually slide that thing up the tube. I bend the tube a bit at the very end to finish it, without losing that bit into the empty part.
And then i slide it off and insert the tail of the new tube into it.