YAMHILL, Ore. — John and Amber Horne have been married for 25 years. The couple have five children ranging from 24 years old to a pair of 16-year-old twin boys, so they know a thing or two about how expensive feeding their big family can be. At one point, they had five kids under the age of 8.
Amber said money was tight.
"It was very hard rationing it out knowing that we had five mouths to feed, actually seven, and there were some times when there were a lot of ramen noodles or canned food that the kids would eat," she said. "It wasn't very plentiful sometimes but our family never lacked. We always were blessed. Somehow we made it through."
Fast forward many years later and those money-saving ways, which are mainly John's ideas, helped create a series of viral videos posted on TikTok.
Amber starts out each video with the phrase, "My husband is so cheap that," then John talks about how he saves money with his little life hacks.
"We're not like the frugal couple. It' like he's so cheap that's the kind of relationship we have," Amber said. "I think it's funny, but sometimes super annoying depending on what the issue is."
The videos vary in topics from saving used aluminum foil and reusing it, hanging up used paper towels, placing toilet paper on the inside so less waste falls down and cutting the ends of of lotion tubes to get that last little drop out. Every month when the Hornes go grocery shopping, they buy for the month and then buy a gift card to use for the rest of the month.
"When the gift card's empty, we're done buying groceries for the month," John said in one of the videos.
Another video shows John holding up a pair of tennis shoes and saying he buys his kids sneakers two sizes too big because he knows their feet will grow into them.
"The other day he came home and he was like I have more content," Amber said. "I have another idea. I'm like OK what is it? 'We'll film with me going up the stairs and walking on the outside of the stairs and not up the middle and it'll make the wear and tear on the carpet less.'"
That was episode 13.
"We don't make up this content," Amber said. "It's real life stuff. It's crazy!"
Amber has over 250,000 followers and millions of likes on her videos. Every video they post about John's simple life hacks gets thousands of views.
"On TikTok you kind of find your niche, what they call your niche, what you specialize in. The niche finds you." Amber said.
So how much do these ideas save them?
"My guess, it has not saved us a penny. Maybe five pennies!" Amber said laughing.
"You do lots of little things as we know in life, lots of little things make big things," John said.
The videos have a heavy dose of sarcasm to them coming from Amber, but in the end she said, "It's all fun, we've been married 25 years and it's all good."