S-S-S-Savings.

A few days ago I was choring around the house (made-up verb meaning "to do chores," not to be confused with whoring) and I discovered that the soap dispenser in the bathroom needed refilling.

So, I opened the linen closet and pulled out the GIANT Softsoap refill. Much to my surprise, the bottle was nearly empty. In fact, this particular refill used up my entire stash.

This might not seem like anything out of the ordinary until you know the backstory...

Elevently billion years ago (read: five), I was trying to court the pants (literally and figuratively) off of one Joe Van Wormer by impressing him with my cash savviness. You know, something along the lines of, "I'm great wife material because I know how to shop and save!" Or something.

For instance, I persuaded him for the first time ever to buy an article of clothing from any store other than Macy's at retail. He proudly sported some new Old Navy digs, shoes from DSW and a few name brand pieces from Marshall's and TJ Maxx.

Homie quickly caught on that sales, couponing and being a savvy shopper was clearly the way to go. You could say I changed him.

He drew the line at Wal*Mart, though.

Save one night when I convinced him to just "pop in" to get some odds-n-ends health and beauty stuff.

He needed soap for his bathroom, so as I perused the mascara selection he jolted a few aisles over and brought back a small refill bottle. Retail cost: $3.89.

"Why don't you just get the giant refill bottle to save money?"

"Because it's giant and I like this one."

I convinced him (albeit begrudgingly) to buy the refill bottle for less than $1 more, which also had about 17x more soap and was stored nicely in the linen closet until just a few days ago.

So it is with a saver's heart and a little smugness that I report that over the course of the last five years I have saved this man roughly $50 (assuming he would have needed 1 small refill bottle each month). Not to mention the plastic waste impact on the environment!

I think I just threw my back out patting myself on the back.