A MUM-of-three has claimed she’s the ‘ultimate cheapskate housewife’ after revealing she rations loo roll and asks her neighbours for free food.
Jordan Page lives with her three kids and husband, Brandt, in Utah, and will stop at nothing to reduce her family’s spending.
The 27-year-old spends less than $1,500 per month on the total outgoings for her family-of-five, and says she achieves incredible savings by “making everything count”.
Jordan told TLC: “My kids are total cheapskates, they know we don’t waste anything.
“You eat every bite of food on your plate, pick up every penny you see.”
When it comes to food her kids only get to enjoy bacon once a year at Christmas, while Jordan revealed she loves waffles because they’re easy to stretch as you can cut them up.
She even counts out cereal for her kids, giving her son 14 Cheerios – telling him he’d get 12 next time if he didn’t finish them all.
Jordan continued: “This is breastmilk here, and we love it because it’s free.
“While they’re young and they don’t eat very much, I freeze as much breastmilk as possible so when they’re done I still have a few months’ worth to stretch it that much farther.”
Her thrifty ways are something of a sore point for husband Brandt, who on a scale of one to ten of being a cheapskate, said his wife was 11 or 12.
Brandt revealed his wife even rations the toilet paper, after slashing the number of rolls her family uses a year from 300 to just 40.
He said: “Jordan always harps on at me for using too much toilet paper. It’s a sensitive subject.”
But it’s not the only way she keeps sending low – as she also asks neighbours for free food, admitting: “I’m willing to pretty much do anything to save a buck.
“People think some of my methods are a little extreme. They think I’m a little crazy, but I don’t know if I care.”
Armed with a basket, she knocks on doors asking: “I was just wondering if you guys had any food you’re not using like leftovers?”
One neighbour offers her lettuce, while another says: “Sometimes I’ll give her eggs, and sometimes I’ll give her some stuff from our garden.
“I know she’s very frugal so I know she’s going to put it to good use somehow.”
Her penny-pinching ways has seen Jordan slash her monthly food bill to $180.
But she doesn’t just save money on buying food – but cooking it too.
Jordan reveals she even bakes inside her scorching hot car, instead of the oven.
She pops a tray of cookies – which she made from nearly out-of-date cookie dough a neighbour gave her – onto her dashboard and they’re done in two hours.
Brandt revealed while his wife would always hunt down a deal, she wasn’t always so extreme with saving money.
He explains they lost their ‘forever’ home – which they’d already built – due to a quick downturn in the economy, which Brandt reckons triggered Jordan being an ‘extreme cheapskate’.
But they soon got back on track, and now live in a ‘million dollar home’ – with Jordan’s parents in the basement of their “huge, huge house”.
Jordan continues to look for ways to save money, as she ropes Brandt into getting farm animals in their back garden to try and reduce their food bill even further.
Despite acknowledging “our neighbours might think we’re crazy”, the parents buy two goats and a few chickens, with Jordan reaching her savings goal, after food, shelter and vet bills, after two months.
Jordan, who only spends 3.5% of the family’s income on food, says: “Are we cut out to be backyard farmers, I don’t know, but the numbers add up and there’s something to be said saving that much money.”
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