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

[(Anonymous)]

The library in my city holds book sales, a few each year.

Last year I went to one arriving a bit early and being one of the first in the door. This year, I came 20 minutes early and the line is wrapped around the halls already. It’s hard to top a deal of $1-2 books!

Apart from garage sales and library sales do others have recommendations for finding book deals?

[teresa_from_hershey]

Thrift shops often have good selections. Thrift shops in better neighborhoods or college towns will offer a surprising range of books.

Ask when people are moving if they want to move all those books.

Search for used bookshops in your area. You may be surprised as many of them are terrible at advertising. What you do is trade in the books you don't want for store credit. Store credit is usually 50% off the penciled-in price, bringing it down considerably from what a new book would have been.

Used bookshops sometimes, depending on their size, run sales such as 50% off your entire used purchase, in order to clear inventory.

Dumpsters, trash cans, and piles of books along the side of the road. Yes, I've gotten books this way. Normally, if they're in good shape, I donate them to the library.

The LAST DAY of a library book sale means huge discounts over their already minimal prices. The staff doesn't want to store those books for another year!

[(Anonymous)]

Our local food coop has bookshelves out in the exit way where people can drop off books they no longer need or want. You can pick up books for free, with a surprisingly good selection. I've scored some excellent finds this way. Since they're free, if the book doesn't turn out to your taste, you can just return it. The local recycling station also has a place where people can bring in books. I got a copy of the old Latin first year textbook from my high school days this way.

JLfromNH/Vermillion Ecstatic Paramecium

[industrialchemy]

Oh boy, a subject dear to my heart!

In addition to library and yard sales, here is where I look for books:

Estate sales

Antique malls

Thrift stores (if you're ever in the vicinity of Canton, Ohio, there is a Goodwill bookstore that is wonderful. Nothing but books, movies, music and a few games)

Used book stores (none of the ones around me offer any payment for books, though)

Other sales. The Catholic church in a nearby town has an annual book and bake sale that I always go to. Other churches have rummage sales that usually have some books.

Little Free Libraries. Keep an eye out for them, and be sure to keep up your karma by putting in good books yourself. Don't use them as a receptacle for out-of-date software manuals, etc.

Recycling center. I haven't done this one myself, but I have a friend who digs through the pile of books at the recycler and then gives them away. I have gotten a few from her.

And then, of course, there's thriftbooks, abebooks, and eBay for the online option if there's something specific you want and can't find locally. Project Gutenberg, archive.org and sometimes Google Books for ebooks and/or scans of out-of-copyright material.

I think that's the bulk of my sources.

(in)voluntary Simplicity

[degringolade]

Like our gracious host, I think that perspectives on ownership need to change. Frugality is just a way to calibrate your expectations to what the world has on offer.

My rant today centers around the equipment used in food preparation. I think that the folks here in 'Murca have a peculiar fetish around their kitchenware. I know that it is a constant battle for me, and I don't think that I am unique in this weird little fetish

So what I am suggesting is that maybe folks should take a hard look at the hardware that they have tucked away in their kitchens and ponder the reason that they have them. I think that if you really take the time, you will find that most of these were bought to make infrequent tasks easier.

If you core down your equipment list, you will probably find that what you make will also simplify your menu and simplification is almost always synonymous with lower cost.

The real hard part is to recognize that you are just buying stuff to make cooking easier and that convenience always comes with a price tag attached.

I might be wrong here, but then again........

Re: (in)voluntary Simplicity

[jenniferkobernik]

I think this is true. But. If I make cooking easier, I do not eat out or buy convenience foods, so I save money. But OTOH if my kitchen gadgets are too cumbersome or specialized, I do not use them and the mental effort of dealing with the kitchen and finding the stuff I need becomes a burden. I have gone through extreme minimalist kitchen phases (I once lived for most of a year with a Jetboil stove, a knife, a titanium plate, and a tiny cutting board) and am now in a maximalist phase—I have two instant pots, a Vitamix, a food processor, an electric hotplate that maintains a constant temperature, and a commercial dehydrator. This once would have caused me to look with great derision at the owner of all this (expensive!) gadgetry, but the time savings in both cooking and processing/preservation time now that we are farming and renovating our house ourselves and have a second child on the way is enormous. I just left a lot of it undone when it was less convenient. The lard and tallow sat unrendered while I bought cooking fats. Excess produce sometimes rotted in the garden to my shame. I think that in the absence of either real hardship, isolation, or a very strong will combined with good organization, it is hard to maintain a very simple kitchen and menu when so much tempting convenience is so accessible. I’ve managed it when single and when living in the wilderness, but so far my attempts to do so in the midst of family and civilization have led to reactionary overspending on tasty conveniences. But food is definitely a weak point for me in terms of will.

Re: (in)voluntary Simplicity

[ecosophia]

Sometimes convenience is worth having. During the last year, one of the things that's made it easier for me to keep eating a decent diet is a handful of simple devices -- a couple of crock pots, a couple of rice cookers, and an odd little Japanese steamer sold as an "electric lunchbox" -- which make it very quick and simple for me to prepare fresh foods.

That said, these don't have to be expensive. The largest of my rice cookers and both my crock pots came from the nearest dollar store and didn't cost much. The rest came from the local thrift store and cost almost nothing. All of them use electricity very efficiently -- it costs much less to run them than it would to heat up a burner on the stove. (Stoves are extremely inefficient.)

That said, it's always valid to consider whether you actually benefit from any given device...

Re: (in)voluntary Simplicity

[(Anonymous)]

I have drastically downsized my kitchen. 2 cast iron pans(small and large),2 pots(small and large), roasting pan for meats or sheet cake and a loaf pan. Pour over coffee funnel, camp stove toaster and GI can opener.
I'm living in an efficiency apartment and seldom entertain here so have plates, bowls, cups and silverware for 4.
I do most of my cooking on Sunday, and just heat stuff up in microwave or air fryer thru the week. I do love that airfryer!

Re: (in)voluntary Simplicity

[(Anonymous)]

Your comment reminds me, sadly, of my expensive pasta maker which I purchased at a fancy store when I was green, very green, in all things household-related. It got used a couple of times. Then it got wedged somewhere into the back of some cupboard. Don't ask me how, but it ended up in the dishwasher, which of course rusted, inside and out. So, it went in the trash.

These many years later, I do have some kitchen equipment that make tasks easier and that I value and use. Prime among them: my Instant Pot (electric slow cooker and pressure cooker), my toaster, and blender, cofefe maker, and an electric tea kettle. I accordingly assign them valuable countertop space.

So my rule of thumb now is, am I willing to assign this item countertop space for daily or near daily use? If yes, OK.

If no: Do I have a place to keep this where I can have easy (really truly easy) access to it, both taking it out and putting it away?

If yes, OK. If the price is right and I feel so moved.

If no: oh heck, it's that pasta maker again, forget it.

Re: (in)voluntary Simplicity

[(Anonymous)]

Estate sales are where I've gotten excellent kitchen equipment at a fraction of retail prices. (Just make sure that it's up to modern safety standards, like a classic pressure cooker with a rotting gasket, which is going to need a new one before you can use it.)

Lathechuck

Improving Winter sunshine access to your house

[teresa_from_hershey]

You can improve -- with elbow grease and thrift shop mirrors -- the winter sunshine streaming into your house.

More sunshine means more solar gain, more warmth for you, more light for your houseplants.

First, mark your calendar for spring. This is when you wash all your windows, vacuum all your screens, and clean the window frames. Now, when you need the extra light most, you can't. So schedule it!

The first time you scrub window glass clean and vacuum the coat of fur off screens is a revelatory moment. You won't know how filthy your windows and opaque your screens were. Now, you do.

You'll need to know how your windows work, do you have storm windows that can be removed, a vacuum, brooms, a bucket of scalding hot wash water, a bucket of rinse water which you will change out frequently, a pile of cleaning rags, and for the storm windows, a bathtub lined with old towels and the aforementioned cleaning buckets and brushes.

Step one: Vacuum and/or sweep up dust, litter, cobwebs, etc from window frames. If you've got fixed screens, you'll need to vacuum on the inside and sweep on the outside. If your screens can be removed, take them outside to do the first, dirtiest sweeping, followed by vacuuming all the small stuff off before you put them back.

Step two: with the worst of the loose dirt removed, scrub your windows as best you can. Some windows will rotate in their frames, some must be cleaned from the outside because you simply can't reach the outside from inside. If you've got storms, you have four separate glass surfaces to wash.

As you clean, rinse out your cleaning rags in the rinse bucket, not the soapy bucket. You want your soapy wash water to stay clean. Change the rinse bucket as needed along with the cleaning rags. Don't stint!

When everything on your windows is as clean as you can make them, reassemble, stand back, and be amazed at how much more free sunlight is streaming in.

You can clean ALL your windows like this, including basement window wells. That's a very nasty job but again, clean glass and clean screens let in free light.

The thrift shop mirrors? Or trash-picked ones? If you've got the wall space, hang mirrors on walls opposite the window. Light coming in will bounce off the mirror and you'll get more. It's a subtle effect but it's there. This is why your candle sconces and hurricane lanterns should always have a mirror back (which is also fireproof) and/or they should sit on mirror tiles. You'll double the light for no additional effort.

Once you've done the first, mammoth, awful job of washing windows, try to wash them annually. It's tedious but subsequent cleanings will never be as awful as the first one.

Your reward is free light.

Re: Improving Winter sunshine access to your house

[(Anonymous)]

Good idea! Cheers!

Re: Improving Winter sunshine access to your house

[(Anonymous)]

When washing windows, I've found that nothing makes the job easier and more rewarding than a good rubber-edge squeegee. I wet the window with slightly soapy, slightly dirty, water, then swipe it dry with the squeegee. A sponge catches the run-off. A rag wipes the squeegee blade mostly dry after each swipe. The rag doesn't need to be completely clean, because it leaves only a trace of water on the squeegee blade. Result: no smears, no drips, no dirt.

I've seen commercial window cleaners working on 5th-story windows while standing on the ground with an amazing telescoping pole, with a wide, thin mop on one side, and a squeegee on the other.

Lathechuck

Re: Improving Winter sunshine access to your house

[(Anonymous)]

This is some strong green wizardry (in the Ecosophian sense).

Red lentil pizza crust for kids (and adults)

[open_space]

Red lentils are classic in Indian cooking, and nutritious.

Here is a way to do a pizza crust with them.

Wash and soak the lentils in tepid water until they soften. These usually come as split lentils. It shouldn't take long, depending on your variety and it is not completely necessary but it comes out better. Overnight is good too so they soften for a few hours.

Now take the lentils out, drain the water and put them in a blender or processor with a splash of clean water and a pinch of salt, oregano and basil. Blend. The consistency should be of a purée.

Preheat your oven to 450F.

In a tray with parchment paper or similar pour the "dough" in the center and gently spread with a spoon. Starting from the center and spiraling towards the edges. Don't thin it out too much since it will cook. Don't brush it outwards, it will create an uneven mess, the spiraling motion does a good job of spreading it outwards and you can leave it a bit thicker on the edges with a little practice.

Put the tray in the bottom rack and cook for 12 minutes.

Add some cheese and toppings and there is a twist on a quick pizza, and works to slip some legumes into a child'd diet.

Disc Golf

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

I've been meaning to post this forever. Disc golf is a really cheap hobby that is arguably more fun than regular golf. All you need are a couple discs and a course. You can get discs on the super cheap at a used sporting goods store, or online if you prefer. Even new discs are pretty cheap. Courses can be found all over the place..mainly in parks. It's a fun way to get outside and in nature. Just look up "disc golf courses near me". A hack to play for zero cost is to walk a wooded course and look for lost discs. But again, you can get 5 quality new discs online for like $20, so this is hardly necessary.

Luke Z

Re: Disc Golf

[(Anonymous)]

My local library has a “library of things” where you can check out puzzles, games, equipment and sporting goods, including some disc golf kits. It’s a good way to try something a few times before deciding to buy.

Passive Solar Heat

[(Anonymous)]

Just giving this another shout out.

I have been having clear skys for the past 7 or 8 days. SO, I havent had to heat at all. Almost all of this heat is just thru 2 sliding doors on the south side of my house into my great room (living/dining room). These 2 are double pane with clear glass. I also have 2 skylights, which I can see the low winter sun streaming thru, but the heat gain is not much as I put in low-E glass in them. I now wish I had put clear glass there too, but in the summer I will be happier with what I did. The great room is wide, but shallow, ( maybe 18x32 feet) so the low winter sunlight reaches all the way to the back wall and walkway. I am opening the back door ( on the east) from the covered deck (converted to greenhouse kind of) which lets in a lot of heat. That area is I dont know, 9x7 feet ? I changed the shingles out for clear corrugated panels, and it has an east window and a sliding door on the south. It is not all greenhouse material, it is a converted porch. And, right now, I had to repair the floor and the sliding door frame was broken in that process, so there is no sliding door. I have plastic sheeting, almost clear but not quite,it is opaque, over the south sliding door opening. And just the subfloor, which is redwood deck boards, so open air spaces between each board. And this gerry-rigged space, plastic sheeting walls over a section of deck with a clear roof, is providing alot of free heat. Just saying to show it doesnt have to be fancy, or purpose built. A porch with a clear roof and plastic sheeting or windows or something on the south will do it the same as this one here.

I get to about 70 degrees and hold there most of the day, and it cools off by the morning to 60 degrees. I dont realy start to get passive heat back in until 9:30 or 10am, due to trees on my east side. But I realy appreciate the heat for most of the day, and I just wear a sweater and hat in the morning with a thermos of hot tea.

Atmospheric River

Re: Passive Solar Heat

[(Anonymous)]

In case that wasnt clear, the heat coming out of the porch is much higher than 70'F, I dont measure it. The entire house is what gets to 70'F with these 2 very moderate heat sources, and then cools to 60'F by morning.

Frugal Solar electric fix

[(Anonymous)]

I am in process of doing a frugal fix to my existing solar electric system. I managed to find a smaller solar company who has 2 of their guys working on their own for this 2 or 3 days to get it done. My existing solar was installed almost 26 years ago.

The issue it has had is that I have been making very, very little power. Part of that is that a storm 18 months ago ripped off a wire to a few of the panels. But the main problem is the 26 year old panels have not been producing.

What they are doing is taking all of the panels off and putting 8 new panels on the roof. They are reusing the wire that is there. They are reusing the clamps to the standing seams on the metal roof. They are putting up new racks and new metal conduit for the roof part of the run. Each panel is 415W, so this will be around 3kW of panels.

All the garage stuff is being reused, so the same fuses, combiner box, wiring down there, all the same. I do have to put new larger fuses in the fuse holders. Same inverter, 26 years old.

Some stuff is excess and I will set it aside for a frugal re-use for my rebuilt barn. Since I had added to the solar electric 15 years ago, I had 2 charge controllers in the garage. I now will have only the one more modern one there. The old C40 charge controller will move over to the barn, we also pulled out some excess realy long 10 gauge wire from the conduit to the roof. a circuit breaker. Then all the old angle iron racking and feet. That is showing rust and I will need to spray paint with rustoleum. And I will need to buy various items of course, I will update when I get to it.


I will absolutely be reusing the 3 panels that are only 15 years old. And I will test for voltage for all the old panels and see if any can be used and which have to be thrown out. It turns out that part of the problem with the old panels was that there was corrosion where the wires connected to the panels, all the 26 year old stuff was copper wire held onto the back of the panel connections with screws. Now, that doesnt mean those panels are good, they could also be broken in addition to the corrosion


Most solar companies will not work on existing systems and will not fix them. They will want to put in a whole new system. I had considered just not fixing this, as solar electric cannot be a long term concern in the world. But, it is a thing we have now, and it is realy nice to be able to power a refrigerator, washing machine and have electric lights. It could be that my 26 year old inverter will die. But ATM I trust it as well as new builds. If it dies in the next 30 years while these new panels are going strong, then I hope myself or whomever is here to be able to get a replacement, new or salvage. If not, then the system will still be producing DC power. There is another neighbor about 8 miles from here who has an inverter of my same vintage, about 30 years old, that is still trucking on in their garage powering a 30 year old California made Sunfrost DC refrigerator. They have a modern Solar electric system to the majority f the houe, but left their vintage one for its back up items to power.

Atmospheric River

Re: Frugal Solar electric fix

[(Anonymous)]

The oldest panels cannot be re-used, so that is 24 small panels. Californias preferred way to deal with them would cost about $1000 plus hauling, so $1500 or more, so that is not going to happen. so, if it is as much as $2000,this would be $80 per panel, so this is somewhere between 30 to 100% of the price to buy, so if that is factored in, think the panels realy costs 30% to %100 more. To take out $3 or $4 of market value material out of the waste stream. Of course, if they are just smashed, the cost is negligible and the metal frames can be easily tossed in the local metal recycling bin, and aluminum is valuable. The California ideal plan to also get back the silicon -- well, silicon is not valuable enough to retake it back out of a solar cell, it is exceedinly energy intensive

3d Printer

[(Anonymous)]

3d printing has finally hit the sweet spot of being affordable and easy enough for the average person, so I asked the oracle and got approved to get one. So far it's been very useful and I mostly make tools and parts that save me a lot of money. My main concern when considering the purchase was that a lot of parts are becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to obtain, as well as the possibility of a trade/hot war and cutting off access to imports altogether.

On one hand I'm helping to create a demand for more plastic that will go in the landfill someday, burning expensive electricity, and spending a lot of time trying to learn cad software. On the other I'm making fewer trips to the store, expanding my range of marketable services, and have access to thousands of customized items that most people don't even know exist. It's definitely made my holiday gifts a lot more unique.

The ethics still bother me so I made two rules. Everything has to be functional (ie no toys) and I have to use it to make money. So far I've just been giving stuff away to let people know that I have one and know how to use it, and then will start charging when they ask me about custom requests. I suppose if everyone got one then the demand would fall through the floor, but most people don't want to be bothered with learning this stuff so it seems like a risk worth taking. Then again I haven't been surfing much lately so the point about true costs definitely hits home.

I know this isn't the kind of thing this forum was made for, but figured that it might help further the discussion. Mahalo to everyone who contributed so far. It's encouraging to see so many people with their head in the right place.

KVD

Re: 3d Printer

[(Anonymous)]

Had a dream last night where I was meeting with a Kahuna and about to attain some knowledge but started vomiting up tools and was unable to proceed with the lesson. I'm taking that to mean that I'm spending too much time on material concerns and not enough in my other practices. How much a technology takes away from other things is definitely something worth considering.

Pillows

[(Anonymous)]

Things to know about polyester pillows:

Wash them on the gentle cycle of the machine, or else they explode. Oops.

Once they have exploded, the filling "polyester fiberfill" can be used to stuff soft toys - it's a similar material to what gets sold at the craft shops.

Re: Pillows

[teresa_from_hershey]

Old pillows stuffed with polyester fiberfill can be repurposed to restuff other pillows that need more stuffing.

Wash the pillow in hot water and then disassemble. Restuff the other pillow that needs more firmness. Or stuffed animals that need more body.

If you're short on bed pillows (they're a very specific size), again, make the cover from scrap from the stash and stuff with whatever salvaged sofa pillows you've got hanging around. As long as its polyester fiberfill, you're okay.

You can ALSO shred bits of leftover quilt batting to stuff toys and pillows, but you've got to shred it well.

Clean air method in Delhi

[baconrolypoly]

A couple living in Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, rigged up a home-made air filtering method so they can breath clean air. The house is entirely covered in plastic sheeting and is filled with 15,000 plants. It's very creative and must take a lot of effort but it works.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/07/couple-escape-delhi-smog-living-in-bubble-plants/

https://archive.ph/R5dsy

Re: Clean air method in Delhi

[athaia]

How do they deal with mold? I don't know what the climate is like in Delhi, but 15 000 plants produse a lot of moisture.

Re: used books

[(Anonymous)]

For a few years I worked at a university print center and would regularly deliver to the library. Next to back entrance was the dumpster they used for the books they discarding. Found some wonderful things in a variety of subjects.

Fire Cider pepper

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG and company!

Quick question: we're making out 2nd batch of your fire cider and I can't find a habanero pepper anywhere. Can I use a different pepper, like a jalpeno?

We are loving the cider: thanks for sharing the recipe!

Ellen in ME

Re: Fire Cider pepper

[ecosophia]

Good heavens, yes. Use any convenient pepper, as hot as you can stand.