Money Fix: Scrimping and saving on LI

Last week's "Money Fix" offered tips from the Consumer Reports Money Adviser newsletter and from local experts on frugality on how consumers can make products go further and cut down on waste.

Here are more penny-pinching  ideas from members of Newsday's Money Panel, a group of Long Islanders who are willing to talk with reporters about a variety of subjects. While the savings may seem small, they are cumulative, and as Mark Ulrich of Hicksville says, it all "adds up over time."

Stretch: That instruction to "lather, rinse and repeat" on shampoo bottles is "just a moneymaker for the corporations. You really don't need to repeat, thereby doubling the life of your shampoo purchase," says Jeanne Browne of Long Beach. Jerry LaForgia of Lynbrook says that when a bar of his wife's expensive bath soap gets too small to use, "we simply squeeze it to the next new bar. When small and wet, it's easy." And, how about when ketchup runs low? "I turn the bottle upside down into a baby food jar," which usually fills halfway, says Linda Schneider from Miller Place.

Repurpose: Chris DiFalco of Nesconset, who says she's "the original 'conserver'," tells of reprocessing stale bread and crackers into bread crumbs: "Who, in Passover season, can say they do not have at least two large boxes of leftover matzo crackers in their pantry? Grind, baby, grind." As for Ulrich, he tells of using a "special garbage pail that takes plastic grocery store bags, so I don't have to buy garbage bags at all."

Money Panel: To learn more about volunteering for our database of consumers, whom we query on a variety of consumer and business issues, visit newsday .com/moneypanel.