So…you think you’re frugal? See if you can top this one. 😉
It’s off to choir tonight, there to rehearse various songs of praise to the deity. While we’re inside the choir room singing, it is pouring in the parking lot.
Conveniently, just as practice breaks up the rain stops, after having chased most of the traffic off the streets. Cruise home, detouring through the neighborhood to gaze at the Christmas decorations. Our little corner of the city is so beautiful at this time of year. Everybody goes all out with the lights, and the rich folks leave their living room drapes open to display not only their spectacular Christmas trees but also their elegant interiors. I was going to walk with Cassie tonight, but she hates water, so decided to take advantage of being out in the dark in the car.
This tour completed, it’s time to tool into the garage, grab a dry microfiber rag from its table-top basket near the dryer, and wipe all the clear, fresh, soft-water rain off the windows and then off the top, doors, hood, and bumpers. Voilà! A clean car—free! As we scribble, it’s glowing in the dark.
How many people wait until it rains to let God run the carwash?
Unfortunately, She’s planning to leave the faucet running tomorrow, so I expect between here and Scottsdale, whence I have to hie myself for breakfast, the Dog Chariot will get its share of road mud. Oh well. At least for the time being it’s clean and dry.
I made a little discovery some weeks ago: a microfiber rag is ideal for cleaning the inside of the Chariot. If you use just plain microfiber cloths—either dry or very slightly moistened—to dust your house, the next most logical thing is to amble out to the garage after you’ve finished cleaning the furniture, dampen the cloth if it’s not already that way, and use it to wipe down the dashboard and door panels. If the outside of the car is free of gritty dirt, you can then get your dustrag good and wet, grab a second microfiber cloth, and use the wet one to wipe off the paint and the other one to dry behind it. Clean house once a week, and you can spin off a quickie weekly carwash, too, without ever moving your bucket of bolts out of the garage.
The car ends up looking nice and clean—to finish the job, all you’d need is to vacuum it, but that’s usually beyond my ken.
Don’t try this impromptu wipe-down on a new car, or on any car with a brand-new finish. But when your vehicle arrives at the grand old age of 100,000 (miles, that is), its finish is already a little scratchy, and so any light grit you might have picked up by dusting—or coarser grit from the road—just adds to the patina.
So, have you got a cheaper frugalism?
Images:
Trees and Snowman, by Mike Spasoff, Granada Hills, California. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Wollongong Miner’s Cottage Decorated for Christmas, Wollongong, NSW, Australia. GNU Free Documentation License.
When I read the title, I thought it was going to be what my dad used to do: wait until it was raining and then run outside and soap up the car really good and then let the rain wash it off – VOILA! — yours works well too 😉 And at least you’re not running into the house soaking wet! Great post, thanks for the read!
@ N.W.Journey: LOL! That’s priceless! I hope you got some photos of him doing that.
Actually, when we went sailing in the Caribbean and a squall would come up, people would rub shampoo in their hair and all over the bodies and let the rain rinse it off. Otherwise we had to wash in salt water, which was more or less counterproductive.
Here the rain rarely falls reliably enough for one to get the soap onto the car before water stops falling out of the sky. {sigh} I guess that’s why we call it a “desert.”
how about this one? I don’t wash it at all, rain or not 🙂
My car is so old, it as scratches, rust.. I CAN’T wash it in fear of it rusting apart and falling on me .. lol
Therefore, I just don’t bother.
My husband does a few things even more frugal–or just as frugal–but I hesitate to say what they are–in case someone who knows me sees this.
This post was absolutely priceless! (As were the comments that followed it–at least up to mine.) Ha-ha! I’m beyond frugal, I am self-admittedly cheap, and I still have the first car I ever bought. I refuse to buy a new one until this one goes caput, but so far, the only money I’ve had to put into it is the occasional wash (twice a year), and changing the oil. Now, I can omit another expense. I can’t believe I never thought of this! 🙂
I try to wash my car at least twice a year. But, it is white, so a carwash will not get it clean. When it rains and it is carwash time, I grab a bucket with 4 inches of water and carwash soap. I drive to the police station if it is dark and soap the car, letting the rain do the rinse. Next time I see city sprinklers overwatering onto concrete, I may get another free carwash. Using excess water instead of my own metered water, sure helps the utility bill. Plus, rain and sprinkler water is frugal to use.