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

Waterproof covers

[mistyfriday]

Pillow and mattress protectors are an affordable way to greatly extend the life of pillows and reduce wear on mattresses. They go on before the fitted sheet or pillowcase. The current versions of these items use laminated fabrics that feel and behave just like cloth. They keep the pillows like new, limit mattress wear to compression damage, and wash up like regular bedding.

I started using these when I had a baby. It's been four years, and I haven't needed to replace any pillows or my mattress.

I am GIVING AWAY a solar food dryer and a 50 gallon rain barrel

[teresa_from_hershey]

Our lives have changed so I no longer need these items and my kids don't want them.

A solar food dryer, with about 10 square feet of drying space. It's built according to the plans in Solar Food Dryer by Eben Fodor. It's about 20 inches by 20 inches, three feet high, built of plywood, with food screens, glass top, handles, bug mesh to keep critters out, and a metal heat sink. The book is included.

This dryer really works. It needs a new gasket and I'd add casters to the legs to make it easier to turn to face the sun and move around. I'd also (another improvement the book didn't include) pain the exterior black and the interior bright white to better accumulate solar heat and dry stuff quicker.

The second item is a 50 gallon rain barrel. I've bermed and swaled my yard so I don't need it anymore.

I live in Hershey, PA, in the center of Pennsylvania, outside of Harrisburg.

You MUST come get them. They can't be shipped.
If you want them, email me at tdbpeschel@gmail.com

Let me know!

Re: I am GIVING AWAY a solar food dryer and a 50 gallon rain barrel

[(Anonymous)]

A solar dryer is a great way to dry bulk medicinal herbs. There's a medicinal herb exchange in CA that has been drying and selling herbs this way for years.

Cheap Towels

[kylec]

Soon I'll be moving into a new place and I don't have any towels or cleaning rags to take with me. I am probably going to get myself a nice bath towel, but I need guest towels, cleaning towels, and rags and want to cheap out if possible. Of course I can go to the thrift store or cut up old t-shirts for cleaning rags, but I wanted to check here to see if there are any other great tricks for getting a bunch of decent usable guest bath towels, or sourcing cleaning rags outside of cutting up old clothing. Thoughts?

Re: Cheap Towels

[(Anonymous)]

For guest towels look to sales, and this is a great time of year. It used to be the online store Sierra Trading post had such, I find them hit or miss since COVID, but worth a look. RIghtnow Coyuchi is having a sale, these are organic grown cotton items, and right now there is a 4 piece set, in the choice of a couple colors, for $60, which is exceedingly frugal for organic cotton towels, I bought a set of their from SIerra Trading post years ago, a yellow color they were discontinuing, and they are holding up well. https://www.coyuchi.com/products/air-weight-organic-towels-set-of-4?variant=50114097414436 $60 is halfoff, no idea how long that price holds,today and this weekend are high sale days.

For rags, so if one of your local thrift stores has abuy by the bag day and get t shirts and horrid patterned sheets to rip up

Atmospheric River

Re: Cheap Towels

[teresa_from_hershey]

I used to -- back in the early '80s -- work at Woolco in the domestics department. I've also been shopping secondhand for decades.

1) Thrift shops, relatives, and yard sales are still your best bet for cheap but usable towels. You'll have to search for bath towels because most people don't donate them until they're threadbare. Hand towels and washcloths are more likely to show up.

2) Estate sales are a better bet for linens (all kinds) because you can get an entire houseful. Good bath towels and bath sheets? There are piles.

3) The best cleaning rags are 100% cotton and the cheapest source is thrift shop T-shirts. If you can sew, double them up, and stitch all over. Similarly, dying towels can be cut to size and hemmed for a new life as a cleaning rag.

4) Ask friends and relatives for bath linens for gifts.

5) If you want good bath linens to last the rest of your life, you'll probably have to buy new. Sales are frequent. Never buy anything that's not on sale or clearance.

6) Whatever bath linens you buy or ask for as gifts or pass-alongs, choose white if you have the option. Every hotel in the world uses white towels because they can be bleached clean. To the untrained eye, all white bath linens match.

7) I mentioned Woolco. I learned that towels come in lines of plushness, price, and quality but that different stores sold the identical lines at different prices. Thus, we sold Cannon Royal Velvet bath towels. So did Penney's at the other end of the mall. Identical towels. The difference was the price: Royal Velvet was Woolco's high-end towel and Penney's mid-range. Yet Penney's charged a buck more per towel than we did. When we ran a sale on Royal Velvet, we were several bucks less than Penney's. If you don't comparison shop, you won't realize this fact.

Re: Cheap Towels

[jenniferkobernik]

Commercial restaurant supply stores will often sell bulk cleaning cloths for much cheaper than you can get them at home goods stores. They are usually only available in white since they are meant to be bleached by the restaurants and hotels, but if you don’t mind that I quite like them. They are usually a more absorbent cotton terry cloth like you would use to wipe up spills rather than a thin t-shirt type material like you would use to say clean a window, and they will produce some white fuzz so careful what you wash them with (not dark colored clothes!). They also usually sell plain cotton hand towels that are not fuzzy, but again only in white.

Re: Cheap Towels

[mistyfriday]

IKEA has a $30 dollar bathrobe and $5 bath towels. They're utilitarian, but they'll get the job done.

As for cleaning rags I suggest getting a bag of shop cloths. I started stocking my z-fold paper towel dispenser with them folded together in an interlocking zig-zag pattern and they're better than paper towels. It takes a couple hot wash/high dry cycles before they reach peak absorbency.

Re: Cheap Towels

[(Anonymous)]

My first suggestion would be the thrift shops, but maybe you can find some empty nesters who are downsizing and don’t need as many towels? They might be glad to have them taken off their hands.

Re: Cheap Towels

[kallianeira]

Hi Kyle,

ways of obtaining these could be:

a) join a freecycle group and ask for what you want

b) seconds or clearance stock from online homeware sellers - I found towels for half retail price this way, limited choice of colours of course

c) thrift shops sometimes designate used towels as pet bedding and sell them very cheaply. I owned a leaky car and used them to mop up water from the floors and boot. Hand towels and face washers do for smaller jobs. I wouldn't cut up towels though as they will shed thread everywhere. Some of those "pet" towels were good enough to be suitable for their original purpose as well. Shops in more affluent areas are likely to provide stock of better quality and in better condition.

- iridescent scintillating elver

Re: Cheap Towels

[linden_matryoshka]

Hi Kyle,
You probably know that, but just in case... Before you buy old t-shirts for rugs go through your own closet and ask yourself, "Do you really need all this clothes or some of them are just rugs in disguise?". Also, you can ask people you know if they have some clothes they don't need.

Re: Cheap Towels

[kylec]

Thanks yall, great tips!

[prayergardens]

Also, Etsy.

If you don't mind a longer shipping time, there are Turkish and Eastern European textile manufacturers selling direct on there. I like that they use 100% cotton. They are often running sales this time of year. Another trick is to favorite something on Etsy or leave it in your cart and then wait 24 hours. Sellers can choose a setting to give you a discount in those cases after 24 hours. Usually 10-20%.

A few years ago I got a set of giant cotton bath sheets that can double as beach towels for maybe ~$30 for a set of 6-8 towels. They are still going strong.

There will also be a lot of red and green towels on clearance everywhere in about 3 weeks. :)

Re: Cheap Towels

[chickadeevt]

Hi, Kyle. I don't know if this is the type of place you shop, but I've gotten really nice towels at Costco for under $10 (bath, hand, washcloths, even kitchen towels). The ones I've gotten were 100% thick cotton in nice colors that wear well but if you go you might want to check the fabric type. They've started replacing a lot of their nice sheets and towels with synthetic blends, which I dislike. YMMV. There are often good deals to be had with all kinds of home goods there.

For cleaning rags I usually use the cheapest washcloths from wal-fart, they were around $1 each when I got them a couple years ago.

Good luck with your new place!

Re: Cheap Towels

[(Anonymous)]

You could try online estate sales and online estate auctions. Back when estate sales were live rather than online, I bought some excellent bath towels and a large number of white washcloths at a nearby estate sale.

Re: Cheap Towels

[(Anonymous)]

If you use Facebook, see if there is a Buy Nothing group in your area. In such a group, you can ask for towels and people will certainly offer some up. I even got flooring this way.

Re: Cheap Towels

[(Anonymous)]

Why do guests need special towels? Just have towels. I guarantee you when they come out of the shower, they're not going to care how fancy they are, as long as they're dry and clean.

Re: Cheap Towels

[randomactsofkarmasc]

Do you have overstock/liquidator stores in your area? We have a place called Ollie's. You never know what they are going to have, but when they have something good, it is usually a very good price. (But they also have some garbage.)

Also, when you are shopping, always make sure to check the clearance section. Tuesday Morning used to be my favorite place to get towels. They are out of business now. Home Goods does not have as good as prices as Tuesday Morning, but ours lets you buy towels and such in sets or by the one-sies.

if you dont need bath towels

[(Anonymous)]

If you dont need bath towels, they have some guest towels ( hand towels) for $10 each today. They have slat rate shipping of $8 for all order sizes

Smashed firm tofu ricotta

[kimberlysteele]

Smashed tofu can make a truly convincing substitute for ricotta. Drain firm tofu and mash it with a fork, then add a touch of lemon juice or vinegar, a sprinkle of onion powder, Italian herbs, salt, and a tiny bit of olive oil. I often make stuffed shells with this mixture instead of ricotta. I boil the pasta shells until they are al dente, drain them and allow them to cool, stuff them with the tofu ricotta, top with a jar of spaghetti sauce and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. It tastes the same with out the grittiness and greasiness of cheese.

Re: Smashed firm tofu ricotta

[(Anonymous)]

I do this for lasagne, and I did not have the recipe with me in Oregon last month, so we faked it to make the ricotta like filling for a dairy free lasagne, one just with this,tomatosauce and veggies and an additional one the same but also with cheese for the rest of us. Both were very good

Atmospheric River

report of chilli plants over winter

[kallianeira]

Hello everyone.

A few months ago we were talking about ways to protect plants from cold. (I cannot find the discussion to link, sorry.)

All our chilli plants died outside where I am in the first winter BUT this year I have saved two I had growing from last summer!

This is inland New South Wales. We have frost and the temperature can get to a few degrees below freezing but always goes back up above in the daytime.

The cayenne was under a larger birds-eye bush in the garden and I wrapped both in a polyester fibre frost blanket which on warmer days I opened on the sunny side. Next to it I placed a large pot of soil as a bit of thermal mass and wind buffer.
Although the birds-eye died it seemed to provide extra shelter for the littler one, the fruit on which also died before ripening. However, it now has buds again.

The other plant was in a pot, only germinated late in summer because I had got the seed as a souvenir from a restaurant in January. I took it inside to the sun room when the nights got cold, moved it about to keep it in sun as much as possible, on calm bright autumn and spring days put it outside to get more light and at night kept it in the shut-up loungeroom which was the warmest room in the house. Even there it went down to about 4 degrees C, supposedly way below tolerance for this species, but the plant lived nonetheless! When the nights stopped being cold I put it in the ground. It had flowered much earlier than the cayenne and has several large fruit ripening. That was a lot of attention and carrying around though. You woudn't want to do it with more than a couple of plants.

I loved the stories on this forum of the lemon trees in the USSR and Nevada. They show how much more may be possible than one thought. Our neighbours' aloe vera plants, in what they thought was a sunny alcove, died yet my one in the exposed front garden is just getting larger. Microclimate!

p_coyle, if you are reading, how are the plants doing in Arizona? At times I think that's where I am...

iridescent scintillating elver

Re: report of chilli plants over winter

[p_coyle]

i had to move into an apartment a few months ago, so the garden has been downsized to some pots on my patio. however, everything is doing well, by far my best attempt at a carolina reaper, several other peppers, a couple tomato plants and a meyer lemon tree. i think there may be a community garden nearby i just found out about today, so making a visit is on the agenda for tomorrow.

i had good luck with putting a bunch of tall, skinny glass encased candles (think tall votives with some space at the top, often with the picture of a saint) around the plants, underneath the frost blanket. the flames never got big enough to catch the blanket on fire and the blanket keeps the heat in to some degree. the candles will last multiple winters, depending on how often you have to use them. this was mostly for citrus trees, so ymmv if using on smaller plants...

Solar Generators

[prayergardens]

Hi All,

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving if you're in the US.

Wondering if anyone has an opinion or experience with solar generators?

We are not looking for a whole house setup. In an power-out situation we realized the one place where we really want electricity is to preserve our chest freezer of bulk meat purchases in the warmer months. Since the chest freezer is in the garage and the garage faces SW, we're thinking, if needed, we could just park the solar generator on the edge of the garage and plug in the chest freezer as needed.

I've done some basic internet research about the watts and some brands. Just wondering if there are any helpful hints out there. Thanks!

Re: Solar Generators

[(Anonymous)]

The only tip I would say is to price out whether it is less expensive to buy their premade item they are calling a solar generator or to put together your own. They sell folding solar panels with a charge controller built in, I have one from after the fire, that puts out 12V, they call them 12V chargers, then you would need a battery, then any 12V to 120V inverter. The advantage of separate components is that they could be used separately. So that the inverter could just clip to your car battery and feed the freezer straight from the car if you have a power outage in the winter when the sun is not shining.

In general, a car is an underutilized way to have that kind of backup power in an outage. A car already is a generator that you own, and a battery. A car sips gas when it is idling, less than a generator. A 12V to 120 V inverter that clips to the car battery is cheap. Less than $100. You do need to get one that can clip to the car battery as a car cigarette lighter cannot pass thru enough amps to run a freezer. You need one at least 800watt with clips to go straight to the car battery I had a duracell one, 800watt, from Steve Harris recommendation list I bought years ago (mine was broken by smoke remediation workers post fire) and you need a good thick extension cord which should be under $100, and you would need that no matter how you back up, and they are good for other uses.

I just looked up one brand of Solar Generator, a yeti. SO the battery capacity on that is 1.5kWh. I think this is the part you should pay close attention to, as the whole cost of the solar generator is the battery. my first question would be if I realy had that full capacity. For example, I have solar and LiFePo battery back up at my house, and I know that my batteries will last 10x as long if I dont discharge below 20%, it is best not to drain fully. So I program my inverter to never take them down that far, so I only realy have 80% of my battery nameplate rating capacity. So first question is if you that is taken into consideration for that 1.5kWh number.

Then, of course, 1.5kW is not alot of power, but enough for a freezer depending on how many days you had to go. Look at your freezer energy use rating, then do know that they use more than that in the summer when it is hot, usual refrigerator ratings are made at room temperature, 70'F, and I know my garage is in the upper 90's on a hot summer day. So if your freezer was rated at 365kWh per year, that would be 1 per day at 70'F, so a 1.5kWh battery would be one day of backup for the freezer in the summer.

The tip is to make sure your capacity is what you think it is and what you want.

The price of these is because of the battery cost. If you only wanted to run the freezer when the sun was out, then you would want the smallest battery possible, as it would realy just be needed to have continuity for the inverter. In that case, you could use an extra 12V lead acid car battery.

Atmospheric River

Tariffs

[prayergardens]

Hi again. :)

My above comment about solar generators was prompted by a discussion at home we're having about tariffs. It looks like we're headed towards some, and American manufacturing may respond by increasing domestic production but we're wondering if there may be an expensive gap between those two events, like the surprise supply chain shortages of 2020.

So we've been brainstorming about things we might buy now to avoid some tariff shock in 2025. What we've come up with are:

-Electronics. At this point, we don't need any except for the solar generator. I replaced my broken weather radio and bought a stock of batteries.

-Contacts/Eye glasses. I don't know where they are manufactured but we're updating our prescriptions and getting those.

-Tools, we're pretty well stocked but after seeing coverage of Helene, we bought a chainsaw and good work gloves for everyone in the family. Bought a bulk box of nails and screws.

-Shoes. We buy these used for littlePG but Mr. PG and I are tall and have big feet so we can't really buy used so we're taking stock.

-Basic Socks and underwear. I don't think I've seen American made ones in a very long time unless they are premium.

-Herbal Medicine. A lot of bulk herbs come from Eastern Europe so I'm thinking through suppliers and sources on these. But maybe Eastern Europe isn't a tariff target.

-A lot of packaging materials come from overseas and we expect to see disruptions. During covid a few products decreased or changed their packaging due to supply chain issues but we're not going to go crazy buying retail consumer products unless we really prioritize them (like herbal medicine).

Our years of collapsing early have us in a pretty good place for this between using less and keeping a deep pantry and DIY supplies but I don't want to get hit with any surprises if we can think ahead a little.

Anyone else thinking about this?

Re: Tariffs

[(Anonymous)]

Socks are one of the things still made in America. Lots of brands of woolsocks and cotton socks, Maggies Organics, Duckworth, Wig Wam. There are USA made underwear, but it is expensive

As to the other, I am not worried about supply disruptions, any back up of items I have are not due to that but are just for in general.

I dont think Tariffs cause supply disruptions, it is a tax, it doesnt make the items go away, it could make it more expensive, but alot of the expense for such is because of the poor structure we have in the way that items are marked up as they go thru the supply chain middle buyers and stores. In general, unless it has changed, each step they just double the price of the item, so if they bought it from china for $5, they move it out of their warehouse at $10, then the store sells it for $20, this type of thing. So a 20% tariff would add $1 more. So it should just then be $21 instead of $20, but they just double the price each step, so then the $20 item goes to $24 and they blame it all on tariffs, but they dont have to just double it though, they could add on actual costs for warehousing and transport. This is one way large stores that do their own can keep prices lower.

This is how it was explained to me as I have interest in local products and products that dont poison the environment, including fabrics, so in that movement this was explained, the actual costs of lets say better wool practices or cotton or non polluting fabric dying only adds the equivalent of lets say $1 per sweater, but due to the way things are priced, this routine doubling, by the time it hits a sweater, the sweater would be on offer for $16 more, 4 doublings ( could be more doublings, this is just an example)

I guess a country could be mad at tariffs and withhold shipping products, but that hurts them just as much, so it would be temporary.

Anyways, I could be wrong, but I am not worried about it.

And, I have long thought that the best way to have panties(underwear) is to make them, since the ones we could feel good about buying, California sewn from organic ( so non-poisoned) cotton cost something like $20 or $24 a pair, it starts to be worth the trouble to make our own. SO far I have made one pair, it was 5 years ago and they are holding up so much better too, some random scrap of cotton and some elastic. I havent needed more as I had some, but they are wearing out so I will be sewing some more after the new year. I have bought some elastic to have on hand. Ask your PMC friends who sew if they have any elastic ( from the frenzy of COVID cotton mask sewing a couple years ago ! ) orlook to any thrift shops to see if that elastic has ended up there

Atmospheric RIver

Repurposing a laptop

[(Anonymous)]

Can anyone recommend a Linux distro that would work on an older computer? I have a 15-year old Macbook Pro that I want to repurpose.

Thanks,
Dave

Re: Repurposing a laptop

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure which distributions work on Macs. I'm currently running Linux Mint -Cinnamon 22 (the current long term support). The laptop its on is a Acer Aspire 6530, 3gb ram, 250gb hard drive.

Cinnamon can cope with as little as 1gb ram, 2 gb is plenty. A 100gb hard drive is recommended as a minimum to store additional programs. We needed a current version of something, anything for Internet access and I hated Windows 8, never mind 10 or 11.

Linux Mint also has an xfe version, which requires even less, but isn't as full featured.

As they're free.....

[(Anonymous)]

Do you want to:
watch youtube videos?
play computer games?
watch a dvd movie?
download a movie?

or do you want to:
move quickly?
check email?
write?
read forums?
skim the news?

I have a laptop from 2008 (not upgraded in anyway) that I run the newest Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon on. It is a bit slow, (for me) but it does all of the above. Everything else will be faster. They are all pretty good.