Someone from Russia told me yesterday an interesting fact, which describes one of the ways Russian elderly people save money to survive. As Russia Blog has noted before, Russian retirees, who worked all their lives in the Soviet Union, can't live on their government pensions. That is why older people are trying to save on anything they can.

Forgive me for the details, but Russian pensioners save money by simply not buying toilet paper, and using a little rag instead. Later in the evening, they hand-wash the rag and put it out to dry for another day of a proud life.

Hardly any retirees can afford a washer and a drier, so all the laundry has to be done manually by people in their late 70s and 80s. Imagine the financial despair, if they choose to save money even on a toilet paper!