ecosophia | Frugal Friday

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1: this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2: this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3: please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about. Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My tip this week reflects a recent experience of ours. My husband (and to a lesser degree myself) are pretty handy, and we have built structures before, but we found ourselves frustrated and a little intimidated by the prospect of replacing a rotten beam under our house. We called around and found that it would be both expensive and a long wait to have a contractor do it. So we decided to just take it step by step and think it through at every stage, and it only took about a day and a half, went smoothly, and saved us a bunch of money. In retrospect, it’s unclear why we thought it would be any more challenging than other things we’ve done. Of course, without a certain level of baseline skill we could have broken the house, but this tip applies to all skill levels. There was a time I wouldn’t have hung my own curtain rods for fear of messing up the walls. Spend enough time doing things that are a slight stretch for you—and doing them thoughtfully and carefully!—and you can gain a lot of skill without costing yourself a bunch of money to fix your mistakes.

A floor joist is a difficult and heavy item to replace ! But, you are right, if you can move the heavy item and force it in to its spot while supporting around it -- the concept is not too hard. Congrats !

Atmospheric River

Thank you! This was actually a beam under the joists (our house is pier and beam)—and it was a bear! But finally, an opportunity to use all the jacks my husband has accumulated all at the same time! 😂

Congratulations! That's very inspiring.

Thank you!

Different story, but same theme:

I became a car owner for the first time three years ago, which has been a learning curve after enjoying the bike/bus/walk lifestyle for years up until that point. Needless to say, there's a lot to learn and know about cars, but I found a good mom-and-pop mechanic shop through a personal recommendation, and they've been good to me and to all my rookie questions.

Early on I decided to stretch myself and save money by swapping my own seasonal tires. In my part of the world this is a thing you have to do twice a year, otherwise you take your chances skidding on snow all winter. Mechanics are typically booked solid with tire appointments every November and April (or thereabouts) and so doing it myself also saved the scheduling hassle.

I learned from a young lady on the farm I worked for at the time how to do this in my own driveway with a simple scissor jack and a cross wrench, which I keep in my trunk with the spare tire so that I can do it in an emergency flat situation as well. When I haul the alternate set of tires out of the basement I make sure to put them in the trunk and take them to the nearest gas station to confirm they're all adequately pressurized *before* installing them on the car.

I will echo the original poster that it is important to approach these 'stretch goals' with lots of time to think it through and pay attention to what you're doing in an unhurried, unstressed way. This week while putting on the snow tires I mistakenly applied the jack to the wrong part of the car's underside and then panicked when I saw the resulting dent, thinking I had damaged the gas tank or something. I asked my friendly and knowledgeable neighbour, who came over and confirmed that all I had done was create a bump in the floor near the back left seat, which in my immense relief I found kind of funny.

Live and learn! One day I may work up toward doing my own oil changes too.

Dylan

Dylan,
Thanks for that story. I am way too cautious about the car. So is my husband. We are taking the ferry and driving in to town to have the tires changed at a garage. This is expensive and wasteful. I will work on this.
Maxine

Yes! You'd be surprised how easy it is to learn to change the oil and air filters on your own vehicle-- and since that's a thing you typically have to do a few times a year, the savings is substantial.

There are a surprising number of things after that, you might watch the YT tutorial on and decide... you know, I could probably do that...

For me, that has included, replacing the distributor cap and spark plug cables, replacing the fuel filter, replacing a clutch cable. Have stopped short of trying to replace a starter or a belt tensioner by myself. I called in help for those, but still managed to avoid taking it to a mechanic -- it's also good to have friends who know about cars ;)

This week, will be troubleshooting noisy power steering... wish me luck!

Dylan,

Thanks for this! It’s one I need to work on. Luckily my husband is good with cars so it’s not a matter of money, but I’d rather walk a hundred miles (which I have done, so I know of what I speak!) than touch the [redacted] car other anywhere other than the key and steering wheel—and barely that. It’s not practical for us to go without a vehicle these days, so I should probably suck it up and learn…but I just don’t want to!

My husband and I don't want to do car maintenance either. We'd rather the expert mechanics less than a mile away do all the work on our car. As old as old as our car is, they earn good money from us, and they repay us with their careful work. My husband does do the routine, and some of the less routine, maintenance on his motorcycle.

Since each of us only has so much time, it seems to me that each of us picks and chooses from a menu of frugal choices.

20 years ago, I did the exact opposite and went car-free. I had replaced the "computer in my van to the tune of $500, only to have the head gasket blow 2 months later.

It took about 2 months to get my schedule and lifestyle to fit. I was already a cyclist and took the bus when my car was being worked on all the time. It was mainly a matter of scheduling.

Biking, bussing and walking were the way I commuted the last 10 years before retirement. My bike and walking route were along an old canal towpath trail and abandoned railroad track. I would tell my coworkers about the traffic jams with the deer and the ducks!

I could never go back to the costs, hassles and headaches of the "open road!

Frugal Friday

Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you

Re: Have the guts to try things that intimidate you