Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

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!

Comments

Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[teresa_from_hershey]

This is thrifty but not for you. It's for a stranger.

Bill and I walk a lot and when we do -- Thanks dad for teaching me this! -- we ALWAYS pick up nails, screws, scrap metal, tools, and other pointy bits from the road. They go into the nearest recycling bin.

The rationale is to save someone from a bad day via a punctured tire.

The universe having its own agenda, this does not mean that you won't find a screw as we just did and have to get, after much travail, two new tires.

On the other hand, how many punctured tires did I avoid, as well as saving someone else?

We will never know.

Pick up those pointy bits from the road and save someone's day.

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[(Anonymous)]

Everyone in my family automatically scans the ground as we walk. My mom always looked for change that went into the coin jar, but my husband (and now my son) are always on the lookout for random hardware that comes home to be added to their "stash" in the garage. Many a project has been completed using a screw or washer found in a parking lot.

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[escorcher]

Like this.

Thank you stranger:)

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[(Anonymous)]

Having had a tire punctured by a stray screw, I thank you!!

My thing is to pick up shards of glass where I walk my dogs— I don't want want mine or anyone else's dogs to step on them. It's easy to do, the shards just go in the "poopy bag" and fortunately, we have a lot of trash cans in the park, so I'm never carrying that bag for long. We get a lot of picnickers and beer drinkers.

Vet bills are not much fun.

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[ritaer]

I used to pick up broken glass as well. Especially bottle glass as, being curved it is more likely to stick up and get a child's bare foot. Not so much of it these days as more drinks are in plastic and there is more recycling of glass bottles.

Rita

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[(Anonymous)]

Yup - that's an automatic for me, as well as picking up dead batteries for *proper* disposal ... I see random batteries discarded like cigarette butts, but also the occasional huge lump - am guessing some "urban vandal" decided that dumping a batch of toxic waste in the street would be a fun thing to do.

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[dr_coyote]

Teresa, it's these small everyday courtesies that keep an area a nice place to live. Thank you and your family for doing this.

I've found that this habit rubs off on other people, especially kids. It's good to see my now-adult children casually picking sharp bits out of roads whenever we walk together, as naturally as breathing.

Re: Saving other people from trouble and, one hopes!, helping oneself

[claire_58]

Whereas my obsession is plastic. We live near a beach and any plastic I can see is not yet micro-plastic. Fortunately my family fully supports my eccentricity. When we go for a walk with my young grandchildren they bring me bits of plastic as if they were treasures.

I don't pick up glass on the beach. I bury it in the sand deep enough that it's not going to hurt anyone and let the ocean turn it into future collectables.