Frugal First Friday

[ecosophia]

We had the discussion, and far and away the majority of commenters said they wanted these posts to continue on a monthly basis. So...

Welcome to Frugal First Friday! This is a monthly 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 on the first Friday of each month, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course. 

There has been talk about releasing these posts in print format.  In case that turns out to be worth pursuing, please note: if you comment on this or any future Frugal First Friday post, you are giving permission for that comment to be included in print or other editions. This means, for those of you into the legalese, that by posting something in the comment thread you are granting me non-exclusive reprint rights to your comment, and permitting me to transfer those to a publisher or other venue. Your contribution will have your name or internet handle attached, your choice. 

I also have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed. One change from the earlier frame is that if you produce goods or services yourself, and would like to let readers know about them, you may post one (1) (yes, just one) comment per month letting people know, with a link to your website or other contact info. The other rules ought to be familiar by now. 

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

Rule #4: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm. 

With that said, have at it!  

Comments

Books (and prophecies) for sale

[ecosophia]

As noted in the post, I've decided to try relaxing the rules a bit and allowing each commenter to post one, count 'em, one comment per month, letting other readers know about any goods or services they provide. That being the case, I figure I might as well start out.

I write books. (Gosh, who'd have thought?) You can get them from a great many sources, but the one that benefits me most is my site on Bookshop.org, which sells books at a nice discount but also kicks a little back to me. Might be worth considering.

Also, I publish my political astrology predictions on Patreon and SubscribeStar. (It's the same predictions on each and I get the same returns from them, so take your pick.)

Thank you for considering these!

Weird of Hali is delightful

[mskrieger]

Dear JMG,

A couple months ago my eldest daughter said she wished there was a fantasy book with a young female protagonist that contained zero love interest. When you casually mentioned the protagonist of "Weird of Hali: Kingsport" fit the bill, I bought it and read it, and passed it on to my daughter. No word yet (teens can be very dubious of adult-recommended novels...) but I've read five of the WOH books so far.

They're great! The characters actually go places and have adventures. I love seeing the New England and New York locations I'm so familiar with portrayed with a Lovecraftian tint. And the various protagonists of each book have appropriate experiences true to their character and station in life.

The books have led to endless jokes from my husband about how I'm sprouting tentacles.

Just one question--I've been buying them on Bookshop, but not directly from your store. Do you get more benefit if I buy them from your page directly, or does Bookshop benefit you no matter what?

--Ms. Krieger

Coupon Clipping Caution

[(Anonymous)]

Use caution when clipping coupons or perusing sales. Yes, its half off, but if you don't normally buy it, are you really coming out ahead? Is 20% off beef really a bargain when pork or chicken regularly costs half or less? Is your family really going to eat the entire 5lb jar of peanut butter or do you barely manage a 12oz?

Especially with Black Friday sales, look at the model numbers on the price reduced products and compare them to regular products. You may notice a slight difference. This indicates the manufacturer is shipping a different (inferior?) model exclusively for the sale -- the real bargain may be paying full price for a full quality product some other time!

Remember: everything on the shelf is always "for sale." When things are "on sale" its a promotion for the store. If you're spending your whole wallet on "saving" with sales, not a dime is going to hit your savings account!

Re: Coupon Clipping Caution

[teresa_from_hershey]

As a serious, dedicated, longtime shopper, I've learned that coupons can be useful but only if you use them correctly.

Would you buy the product anyway, without the coupon? If not, ask yourself why you need the product because you're saving 50 cents.

Sales are more complex. Everything is for sale but the prices will vary. This is where background knowledge and paying attention come in.

As per Barbara Salsbury and "Cut Your Grocery Bills in Half" (1983) and Amy Dacyczyn, make a price book. This is a small notebook where you jot down all your regular purchases and their regular prices; i.e. what you pay when there is no discount tag on the shelf and it's not in the advert.

Read the grocery flier every week. Is the price lower than the usual price? If it is, then the item is actually on sale.

How much is the discount? 10%? 15%? Buy One, Get One Free? Use coupons (assuming the item is worth buying in the first place) only in conjunction with real sales.

Grocery stores run regular sales timed with season of the year, holidays, and manufacturers' promotions. A price book -- and it will take several years of work to get a fully-fleshed out, detailed price book! -- will tell you if the sale price is worth stocking up.

If it is, stock up! Store those products on YOUR shelves in your pantry (cool, dry, airy, and in the dark) and shop YOUR pantry.

If the discount isn't a discount, you will know because of your price book.
Over the years, you may use a price book less because you become very familiar with your regular grocery store. Or not! It all depends.

But if you don't keep track of prices somehow, you won't know if a sale is really a sale.

And, if a product is Buy One, Get One Free (BOGOF) TAKE BOTH ITEMS! BOGOF is NOT a 50% discount. The first item is full price. The second item is free. You'd be shocked at how many customers only take one item of a BOGOF deal. Cashiers tell me this all the time.

rights to content

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, Mary Bennet here. Let me be sure I understand this:

This means, for those of you into the legalese, that by posting something in the comment thread you are granting me non-exclusive reprint rights to your comment, and permitting me to transfer those to a publisher or other venue. Your contribution will have your name or internet handle attached, your choice.

You could at some future time transfer, that is, sell, my, ahem, snippets of deathless prose, to some yet to be named publisher and that publisher could then sell on to some other entity for God only knows what purposes? Do I have that right?

I have found this forum most valuable; thank you for maintaining it. I think in future, I will be posting here as anonymous only.

Re: rights to content

[ecosophia]

Several people have expressed interest in a print edition of these frugality threads. Under current copyright law, the only way to do that is to make sure that I, as forum owner and manager, have the right to use contributions made here. You certainly have the right to refuse to make contributions, or to do them anonymously, or to do them under a pen name -- that's why I made sure to explain up front what was going on.

Sibscriptions

[executedbygandhi]

I don't know if this tip has been given before, but you should avoid subscriptions like the plague.

Every time you want to take out a subscription, consider the following: How much will the subscription cost me over 10 years? An example: You want to watch soccer and are willing to pay €50 for a streaming provider (which is now a realistic price in Germany): In this case, you would have to pay €6,000 over 10 years. For that money, you could buy a small car or who knows how much worth of work materials and tools for a garden. Now think about what is more valuable to you and imagine the financial pain of having to pay that €6,000 all at once. The thing is, the pain is actually there for your account when you sign up for a subscription, but because of your short-term thinking monkey brain, you don't notice it because €50 seems like a small amount to you.

Then, in the next step, think about how you can satisfy your desire for soccer without paying for a subscription. One suggestion would be to go to a bar for the important games. There, you drink 2 or 3 beers, which you would have drunk at home on the couch anyway. They may have additional costs of €10, which means you have saved €40. But instead of sitting alone in your living room, you've had a sociable evening and haven't put any money into a corrupt industry, but into your local pub.

Re: Sibscriptions

[scottyc]

Ages ago I found out the hard way to avoid "lifetime" subscriptions. For a magazine they went broke after couple of years.

Another time was a firewall service and they discontinued the "lifetime" offer. I did some research and it turned out that, legally, the expectation of "lifetime" was a few years

More of a way to think about it

[degringolade]

One of the fantasy books that I loved in the early seventies was "Europe on $5.00 a day".

I think that maybe this blog might be the beginnings of "America at 32.81 per day". That number, is what $5.00 in 1970 is worth today.

In a way, what we are experiencing here in the USA is somewhat akin to the purpose of the "Europe" book mentioned above. We are going to a strange country and we aren't rich enough to enjoy the "grand tour" that the PMC are straining to keep.

I will mostly be posting on essentials. Food and heat. I think that once a month is plenty.

Yay! Online classes at your local library

[teresa_from_hershey]

Yay! I'm happy you're continuing Frugal Friday on the first Friday of the month.

Feel free to use my posts for a future frugal book. I already published my thrift and sustainability book, Fed, Safe, and Sheltered (https://peschelpress.com/fed-safe-and-sheltered/) and will not be publishing another general topic book.

I feel VERY strongly that more people would be thrifty if they felt more affirmed by someone, somewhere who doesn't call them a cheapskate. Thrift really can save lives.

On to my tip:

Your public library offers MANY services, including ones you may not be aware of.

My library -- for free!!!! -- provides access to Gale Education online courses. The course range is vast beyond imagining. Want to take physics? German instruction? How to use Instagram? Write a short story? Write a grant proposal? Run a small business?

Gale online courses come in an endless variety.

They are expensive if you sign up directly with Gale. BUT, if your library provides them for free, like mine does, you can continue your education at your leisure at home for no money.

Ask at your library if this option is available. If it is, you can take that basic bookkeeping class or business for dummies or whatever strikes your fancy.

As always, you get out of an online class what you put into it. If you don't do the work, you're wasting your time. If you do the assignments and the work, you'll learn new and useful lessons.

My offers: blessings and divinations

[milkyway1]

Thanks for continuing with Frugal Friday, and for keeping the posts open all month, and not just for a week. :-)

Since plugs for one's own services are allowed, I'll go ahead:

I perform a (free) blessing each Wednesday in which I bless everybody who has signed up for the current week - a general blessing, and if requested I include a specific purpose, too.

I also offer (paid) divinations with JMG's Sacred Geometry Oracle, which lends itself exceedingly well to sorting out complex situations.

Both offers can be found on my website The Hidden Things, by clicking on the respective links in the top menu. Blessings and divination are ways to improve one's life and to help with important decisions, respectively, and could thus be considered to be a contribution to living frugally... ;-)

Thanks for considering them, and I hope everybody is having a good week,

Milkyway

Holiday Food Shopping

[michele7]

As we head into the holidays, keep your eyes peeled for items on sale that you can store in your freezer or pantry. Butter tends to go on sale around this time. I stocked up on sugar at a good price for holiday cookie baking today. Turkeys will be hitting stores at good prices. Aldi advertised turkeys for .77 a pound on Wednesday and today they were sold out.

Re: Holiday Food Shopping

[slclaire]

One of the regional chains where I live offered .57 a pound store-brand turkey if you bought at least $25 of other goods. The day the sale started, my husband got there in early afternoon to get one of these turkeys for our freezer. The store was already sold out of them. He asked a worker in the meat department, who told him there was only one pallet-full of turkeys available at that price.

Tip: if you see a sale like this, be there when the store opens or as soon after as possible. The store may not have a large quantity on hand.

Rabbits as Currency

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Everyone,
We live in a densely-populated rural area. We have a small farm and raise meat rabbits. We have started to pay for milling services, some carpentry jobs and wild-caught fish with rabbit.

In the butcher shop in town, rabbit is going for $16 Canadian a pound. We do not charge that much and we have people lining up to buy or trade for our home-slaughtered rabbit meat for pet food only of course. Anything else would be illegal here in the Great White North.

The rabbits cost us very little money and not a great deal of time each day. They are quiet, gentle and easy to work with. We put dampened spoiled hay or wood shavings under their cages to absorb all the urine and feces. This keeps the barn smelling fresh and keeps the rabbits healthy. Ammonia gives animals pneumonia. This manure is great on our gardens.

When we slaughter, the waste goes into the compost and is returned to the soil. We also save treats for our resident ravens and the cats eat a lot of rabbit meat which keeps them healthy and away from the vet. I wonder if the prevalence of kidney failure in cats is due to the unnatural cat food they are given?

I do hope some of you will consider raising a few rabbits as they are a very tasty, wholesome meat and enrich your garden soil, eat up the outer leaves of cabbages, gnaw spent broccoli plants to nothing and love to eat rose prunings. They are also an interesting new form of currency.

Re: Rabbits as Currency

[(Anonymous)]

This is inspiring. Well within the reach of anybody with a small yard.

When I was raising a small herd of grass-fed beef, the single largest cost (and the greatest stress for the animals) was the requirement that they be trucked to and be slaughtered in a USDA-approved slaughterhouse, rather than on site.

I never acted on this, but my curmudgeonly marketing idea was a brand of farm-processed beef called "Not Legal for Human Consumption." The video ad campaign would feature me, the farmer, enjoying a juicy steak and explaining why I and my family were the only humans legally permitted to eat it. (And anyone's pets, of course.) Wink, wink.

I wish I'd done it. If only as a nod to Joel Salatin, who wrote the book titled "Everything I Want To Do is Illegal."

*Ochre Harebrained Curmudgeon*

thrift stores vs dollar stores

[(Anonymous)]

Of late, the thrift stores here have mostly disappeared and those remaining no longer have fitting rooms. There's second hand stores, but they're more expensive. I find myself shopping sales at normal stores for clothes most of the time, and buying odds and ends at dollar stores. Dollar stores are surprisingly useful for things like craft and office supplies. The supplies aren't the greatest, so if you need top quality go elsewhere, but often they're decent enough for my purposes and vastly cheaper. Buyer beware, and check any potential purchase over before you buy, but I have gotten so much stuff for my wargaming habit, and a few things for my art stuff. Found watercolor paper for $3.25 for 20 A5 sheets, and it turned out to be as good as the student quality stuff from the art store. Wow. Knock me over with a feather. I went back and bought out the rest of their stock. (There was only two pads. I'm nearly finished the first one. It is so nice not to worry about scrimping on paper while I'm learning. If I start doing that, I remind myself it's 16 cents a sheet and 8 cents a page).


I know dollar stores aren't the best when it comes to conditions of labor environment etc, but so often the things I'd buy elsewhere are made in china anyway and for all I know could be made in the same factory. Not always true, and that is an issue. I try to avoid buying things I won't need for a while and might not use.

cabbage is useful

[(Anonymous)]

The cabbage is an under-rated vegetable. It's cheap, available locally grown all winter, and it keeps for months in the fridge. You get a choice of colors and curly or normal leaves. There are some dishes it tastes really good in - though I don't recommend putting large amounts of cabbage in a soup - the taste and smell often seem off. Been there, done that.

I like it just steamed a little in the microwave. Fast and easy to add to whatever else you've cooked. I also like it cut into long strips stirfried with carrots, onions, egg soy sauce and ginger, and served with rice. Generally,I'm still figuring out what to do with cabbage so that it is actively good instead of meh in taste more often.

Does anyone have favorite cabbage dishes to share?

Re: cabbage is useful

[(Anonymous)]

I've made a recipe I got from a Polish neighbor for years.

Thin strips of cabbage and onion fried in butter (with a touch of some oil to avoid burning) until nice and a little golden brown and then mixed in with cooked egg noodles. Salt, Pepper, if you like - caraway seeds or poppy seeds to taste. Very good comfort food.

Night Lite

[(Anonymous)]

Living in Florid we have power outages during storm season 1-7 days. Having a light at night is handy when getting up a 3 in the morning I am old. If you have some type of battery power hand tool with a voltage between 12-24 volts you are half way to a night light. Trip to the local auto parts store for a LED dome light bulb and a pig tail socket. make sure the bulb is rated 12-24 volts. Take the wires from the socket and hook to small pieces of metal ie paper clips or strips cut from the top of a tin can. I have a 20 volt battery rated at 5 amps the LED bulb draws app 1/4 watt will run for 7 nights 8-10 hours per night. the output is like a standard wall night light. Blueberry

Frugal

[(Anonymous)]

Like this term "Americans are going full blown frugal." Blueberry

First freeze preparations

[slclaire]

Much of the southern US will be experiencing their first freeze this weekend. If you haven't already disconnected hoses from outdoor faucets and drained the hoses or drained irrigation lines, do it now!

If you have a basement or garage to store the hoses in, do so. They will last longer if you keep them out of the sun when you aren't using them.

If you have enough space with the right amount of light, you can dig up and divide ornamental flowers like geraniums and impatiens that are perennial in warm climates and plant them into pots to over-winter in your house. I kept a geranium plant going for years this way. If you have excellent light in a large-enough space, you can pot-up a pepper plant and over-winter it indoors as well. However, it takes a lot of light, more than I had, and you'll need to watch out for aphids, which can multiply rapidly on pepper plants indoors (they did on mine).

Re: First freeze preparations

[(Anonymous)]

Just finished preps for the coming ice age in Florida. Have a fire going 6.28PM EST the outside temp is 47F. The morning low will be 28F Nov 11 2025 in North Florida. Blueberry

Dental cleanings at teh dental hygienist school

[atmosphericriver]

The community college in this county has a dental hygienist program, alot of community colleges do also. All of them have to have community clinics for teeth cleaning. Some areas of the country, they will do it all for free, cleaning, xrays. The one in my county has a small fee.

A few years ago, the charges were higher and you had to go there multiple times, and they were having trouble getting patients for the students to work on because of their policies, so I was happy to hear that they had made changes. Now, a new patient or someone who has not had a cleaning in years would still need to go twice, once for a treatment plan and xrays, then back, but I was able to just make one visit there this time.

I paid $35 as I was able to forward xrays from a dentist that were recent enough. And the student did a great job. This was a savings of $115 or more. They would have done a flouride treatment, but I opted out.

I would recommend checking out this option in your area, they need the patients to work on, and it is a cost savings to go there.

Re: Dental cleanings at teh dental hygienist school

[randomactsofkarmasc]

My daughter attended a local college to get certified as a massage therapist. They did a similar thing... inexpensive massages by the students. I bought a pack of gift certificates to use as Christmas gifts. I believe our local hair-stylist school does a similar thing, but I've not gone there.

In the Steps of the Fool: Course on Magic and Divination for Sale

[open_space]

Thank you for keeping up this space JMG, I have enjoyed much both reading it and typing contributions. My life is actually better because of it, as well as my appetite.

For the past few months I have been giving a course were we walk through the philosophy and the basic methodologies of practice of magic and divination and then we hit the ground running by putting that to practice in group readings with a focus on intuition training rather than memorization. We also start to flex and explore this area of human experience that Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki termed "The Highways of the Mind" and others have called the astral plane. That is, the larger space entered through the hidden powers of the mind with the aid of magic. In particular we will explore an ancient variant of a place called The Observatory, were we will interact with the elemental forces and link it with the intelligences of the Tarot to have a deep understanding and integration of the elements as well of the cards as living and intelligent points of consciousness. By the end of the course we will discuss practical magic to put the tools to use for personal transformation, both internal and external and to the service of others under the guidance of the Divine. The course covers my interpretation of the work of John Gilbert, in particular The Doors of Tarot, The Tree of Spirit, and others, as well as the topics that Dolores discusses in her books on magic and the art of pathworking. All this with a side of the material I have received from a Dion Fortune descended school called La Fraternidad del Círculo Dorado, established by Dolores as a sister school of hers. The class includes monthly written lessons by me, we will meet weekly and it will last about 6 months. You can expect to put 30 minutes to an hour of daily work that includes ritual, meditation, divination, journaling and healing. There is also a forum where you can ask questions and interact with other participants. An english based version of the class will start in late February. If you are interested, here is an interest form with more information. If you have been interested in a flavor of the magic discussed here, or would like to benefit from going through the material under supervision and a group setting, this might be of your liking. People coming from here have a discount, of course.

I also give Tarot readings followed by simple magical advice regarding the topics discussed in it, for which you could send me a personal message through here, or sending an email to gustella.adrienne@gmail.com

Thank you and may you have a blessed day,
--Augusto

Ceiling Fans Heat Too!

[(Anonymous)]

If you live in a house with high ceilings, heat can gather high up by the ceiling and leave the main living area colder. To prevent this in a house with a ceiling fan, look on the body of the fan for a switch that reverses the direction the fan blows. You want it blowing towards the ceiling to sweep all that warm air down the walls and back to the living space. Then turn your fan on low and let it mix the warm upper air into the cold lower air and keep you that much warmer!

Re: Ceiling Fans Heat Too!

[atmosphericriver]

I realy need to do this, around here, my problem is finding someone who can install it ( or can install it for anything like a reasonable amount, if I am lucky, I might be able to get someone for $1000, if they will take on a small job at all). I have a fan, I know where the electricity can come from -- maybe this year will be the year

Since I have had alot of free wood for the last few years, it has not made it up the priority list.

But, I totally agree, especially in a house like mine with a realy high ceiling, it would keep more heat down where I sit on the couch, one of my offspring has such a ceiling fan and swears by it. Says it also makes air currents thru the entire house to some degree as the air is all connected. That household also heats exclusively with wood, like my house, but has a hallway to get heat down, unlike mine, and buys firewood each year. That house has a normal height ceiling, but still swears by the ceiling fan ( and this also means they can get to the ceiling fan with a normal sized ladder, unlike mine which would need a 12 or 14 foot ladder

[(Anonymous)]

I went to Publix today and instead of buying my usual 4-pack of toilet paper for $7.99, found a 9-pack on sale for $10.49 Whether or not that's truly on sale, I at least saved a fair amount of money. It did fill the bag I set aside for it (our shuttle bus has a new policy of only 3 big bags or 4 small ones, in order to keep them from taking up a seat a rider could use.) I wasn't buying too many other bulky items, which made this possible, but think I did well.

And I noted that in a pocket notebook with notes on the cost of the rest of the items - not changed from the last time, so far.

So, thanks for the suggestion.

The Grey Badger

expensive

[atmosphericriver]

I agree, if you normally pay $2per roll that does sound expensive ! Yes, it is better to get larger packs if you can. Also check how many sheets are on a roll. I am getting 500 sheet rolls for not much more than $1 per roll for septic safe, recycled but I buy it once a year in a case. YOur 9 pack seems about the same price if it also has a large sheet count, so then I would say you found a good deal !

Plastic Film on Windows

[betwixttheworlds]

As winter approaches, I'm trying to seal off my windows. Does anyone know if the plastic film they sell in the hardware stores work? The windows are quite old.

I've looked into weather stripping, too and I can't believe how expensive it is.

Thanks.

Re: Plastic Film on Windows

[(Anonymous)]

My family used film like that in the winter and it definitely seemed to help. We used it every winter, and on windows that didn't get opened it would just stay on all year unless it had an accident.

Pennies

[(Anonymous)]

The last pennies have been minted. There will be no more. Dare we hope stores will begin advertising the true prices of their goods and services? $5.00 instead of #4.99?

That aside, what ideas does anyone have for using accumulated pennies? I put mine in small and medium glass jars to use for pattern weights. No need to buy the expensive fancy ones from sewing supply stores or even make a special trip to the hardware store for washers.

Pennies in large jars might make good book ends.

Any other ideas?

Re: Pennies

[atmosphericriver]

Why not just go spend them ? They still take pennies at the stores and some have signs up soecifically looking for them

Coins

[(Anonymous)]

Watch your dimes! American dimes before 1964 are 90 percent silver. 14 silver dimes amounts to more than 1 ounce of silver. Canadian dimes are 80 percent silver to 1967. A number of U.S. are allowing gold and silver as legal tender now. The price of silver has been artificially low for decades but is now rising. Silver (unlike gold) has widespread use in industry.

Like land, coins are tangible assets. We may see a time when it costs one silver dime to pay for a haircut.

frugal sources of gemstones for magical work

[kallianeira]

Discussion has been held several times on Magic Mondays as to sourcing gemstones for natural magic, most recently https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/349237.html?thread=58080053&style=mine#cmt58080053

Lab-made aka "synthetic" gems are available for less than precious natural stone.

Further, it may not be well known that the great majority of minerals of which precious stones are a rarified subset are not of gemstone quality. Be they opaque, or cracked, or lacking the colour or clarity desired for jewellery purposes, they are still considered emeralds, diamonds or whatever.
These can be bought very cheaply on ordinary auction type sites as well as from mineral dealers; searches for "rough" or "specimen" and the name of the stone will yield a huge number of results.
And they can be very attractive, especially natural sapphire crystals.
For example, this week I found a seller of beads made of low grade precious stones where a necklace-length strand of rubies cost only $14.

Re: frugal sources of gemstones for magical work

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this! I'll keep it in mind.

free daily/weekly/monthly planner PDFs

[randomactsofkarmasc]

In exploring Lulu's website, I found that they have PDFs of several different styles of planner pages (calendars, task lists, etc) available for free. I'm sure they are hoping that you'll have them bind it in one of their notebooks, but they let you download them for free. Go to this page and scroll down to "Planner Interior Pages": https://www.lulu.com/create/notebooks

Re: free daily/weekly/monthly planner PDFs

[slclaire]

Thanks for passing this on! I was wondering if they had something like this available.

An up-to-date Chromium-based web browser compatible with Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8.x

[fringewood]

This is probably an odd post for frugal Friday, but if it keeps me from "upgrading" to win 10 or 11 it will save me a lot of frustration and it has!

Recently, I was unable to access my banking site as well as a music site where I sell an old-time album for a band I used to manage. The reason? My browser was "not supported" anymore on those sites because it needs ẃin 10 or 11 to be updated. I use win8.1 and am quite comfortable with it. Anyway, I searched for a free modern browser that was compatible with my older operating system, and found Supermium mentioned on a reddit post. Voila, it works and works well. Info from my old browser was exported and imported in very little time and I got on both sites with no problem. Put in an adblocker extension and I am good to go. I can use whatever search engine I want as well.

No more nags from sites that want me to upgrade, etc to be able to interact. Supermium is a drop-in replacement for Google Chrome with privacy and usability enhancements, optimized for legacy and modern Windows systems alike. No, I don't get money for recommending Supermium. Hope someone else will find it useful. https://win32subsystem.live/supermium/

Re: An up-to-date Chromium-based web browser compatible with Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8.x

[(Anonymous)]

I am running win 7 on a old Dell have 2 of the same model. The day when I have to buy a new computer the latest an most up to date will no longer be on line. Thanks for the info. Blueberry

[fringewood]

I know nothing about Mac OS but here's what I got after search for browser for old mac operating systems.
https://windowsreport.com/best-browser-for-yosemite/
https://www.palemoon.org/download.shtml
https://www.maxthon.com/en
https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy
Good luck!