By Natasha Khan

Saddled with ever-ballooning grocery bills, Julie Simpson decided to take matters into her own hands.

She started to dilute.

Simpson, a software marketer in Mississippi, added water to her Dawn dish liquid and her Clorox floor cleaner. She stopped buying aerosol glass cleaner and replaced it with a bottle of Windex so that she could add water to make the solution last longer. She even thought about diluting her treasured Sensodyne toothpaste, but drew the line there. She squeezes out every last bit instead.

Americans are increasingly experimenting with frugality. In addition to stretching household staples, some are shopping at less expensive grocers and buying pantry products on Facebook Marketplace. One consumer sought to save on beef by buying half a cow.

Consumer companies are getting hit by the frugality. As families like Simpson's get more creative in pinching their pennies, the companies are seeing dimmer sales compared with the steady growth they have enjoyed in recent years.

Procter & Gamble reported volume declined 2% in the latest quarter in its home and fabric-care division, which includes brands like Tide detergent, Dawn dish liquid and Swiffer dusters. Meantime, private-label brands that make cheaper generics haven't seen a corresponding increase, the company said last week, suggesting consumers are using up their inventory and making their existing stock last longer, rather than trading down.

"Consumers are a little bit more cautious," said Andre Schulten, P&G's chief financial officer. "They are trying to be more thoughtful on usage."

The behavior reflects the financial pressure gripping some consumers, Schulten said. Consumers who want to make it to the next paycheck tend to squeeze a bit more out of the bottle, or skimp a little bit on dosing, he added.

Ricardo Flowers, a U.S. Navy veteran who works as a property manager and a financial coach, has been stretching his household spending. Gone are the days of laundry pods, liberal dosing on the dish sponge or covering all the bristles on his toothbrush with toothpaste, he said.

Now, he buys a generic brand laundry powder, forgoing Tide pods and using half the recommended amount. He then adds vinegar to save on additives like softener. He no longer douses his sponge with dish liquid. Instead, he puts a small amount of Dawn, which he buys in bulk to save, into the left side of his sink, adds water and rinses through dirty dishes. He only puts his Colgate toothpaste on the head of his toothbrush.

"I've realized you don't need as much as you think," said 31-year-old Flowers, who lives in Virginia Beach. "There are so many ways to make the suds stretch further."

Flowers has taken other steps to save. On Facebook Marketplace, he tries to buy more overstock, such as cans of P&G's Febreze room spray that he purchases at bargain-basement prices. He scours the internet for good deals on other items -- usually checking out at BJ's or Aldi. Breaking with his habit of buying packaged beef at supermarkets like Whole Foods, he recently connected with a farmer in North Carolina and bought half a cow.

The $2,500 he spent yielded about 300 pounds or an entire deep freezer of meat, which he hopes can get him through the next two years.

Atlanta-based entrepreneur Tamara Lucas recently started her own garden in her backyard to keep a lid on rising costs, growing okra, kale and broccoli to help feed her two teenage boys. Lucas also isn't replenishing staples as frequently, waiting until the last drops of detergent are used before restocking.

Lucas, 55, who founded personal-assistant startup My Panda, now frequently shops at Aldi, trading down from Kroger and Publix. Her dog Zane eats Aldi brand dog food instead of Iams. When she tries to delay spending another $23 for a new bag of food for him, she might mix in some cat food from her cat Oro. (She also paused Zane's monthly toy subscription.)

"I keep hoping that this is going to be temporary," Lucas said. "Like, we have to deal with this for a little while, and it will get easier."

Consumer companies are counting on consumers' thriftiness to go away eventually.

"I'm convinced this is temporary," P&G's Schulten told analysts and investors Friday, talking about the overall market growth for consumer companies.

After higher spending during the pandemic, changes in the broader economy have prompted a lot of uncertainty for consumers, he said, but he expects sales to return to the typical 3% to 4% growth level from the current 2% because people will need to keep doing laundry, clean their hair and put diapers on babies.

Simpson, the software marketing professional at Ronin Consulting who is diluting her cleaners, said she plans to keep playing the saving game indefinitely.

Her daughters aren't allowed to go on grocery runs anymore, because they often ask for too many random items. She has relieved the girls from laundry duty, because they used too much detergent. She bought a jar in which to put her Tide powder to better monitor usage, and she uses one scoop of powder for each load, rather than the two cups she had poured without thinking. She also started buying paper towels that have more perforations, and splits each sheet before packing them with her daughters' lunches.

The penny pinching is working. She has been able to slash her monthly grocery bill for her family of four to $1,265 last month, down from an all-time high of $1,696 in July.

"Saying no to more spending has been easier because I see the difference in our bill," Simpson said.

Write to Natasha Khan at natasha.khan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 27, 2025 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)

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