What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

The buckets are full price here, $6-$7 plus lid is another $2-$3. Nope.

Yep. That's why I posted the free bucket weekend sale at Harbor Freight. That's a pretty good deal if you have a Harbor Freight store locally. I picked up three free 5-gallon buckets this weekend just for buying things on my list. If you missed this weekend free bucket sale, chances are it will come around in another 2-3 months.

FYI, I really don't believe in buying store memberships just for the privilege of shopping there. However, I did buy into the Insider Track Club membership for Harbor Freight, mainly because I know I will buy a number of consumables from them when they go on sale. For me, I have saved easily 3X the price of my membership just on sale items for members only, and all the free stuff members get on special holiday and weekend sales just for stopping by the store.

I have no problem going into the store just to collect my free items. I might add a few things to my list for purchase later when you get a free bucket with any purchase.

Also, sometimes it pays just to go into the store to see their unadvertised clearance shelves. I have purchased some clearance items as much as 70% off normal prices.

Today, for example, they had their pneumatic spark plug cleaner on clearance for $6.97. They are no longer listed on the Harbor Freight website, so I cannot say what the original price at Harbor Freight was, but I found this online listing of the exact same item elsewhere...

This is an item that I looked into buying a few years ago but was unwilling to pay full price at the time. At this clearance price, more than 80% off that other online listing, I picked up that unit. If it works at all, I will have gotten my money's worth after only cleaning 2 or 3 spark plugs.

Well, $6.97 plus I got another free 5-gallon bucket on the purchase.

 

[gtaus]

YouTube "university" saved me another $200 today!

Well, I bought another "new to me" riding mower at what I thought was a really good price. It started and ran well, but I was not too impressed with the mowing quality. The cut was uneven. So, I was messing around with the height of cut trying to dial it in just right. Unfortunately, during this period, I ran over an unknown tree root and bent the mower blade and broke the spindle.

Less than an hour on the new mower!

I checked on the parts and labor locally to fix the mower and it priced out to over $200.00. Lots of labor costs in that repair. So, I found the parts on Amazon for less than half the price locally and decided that I would check into doing the repair myself.

I found a number of YouTube videos related to my repair job and watched them. Not one of them had my specific mower, but close enough for me to understand what I needed to do. Also, I downloaded a .pdf owner's manual from the internet and read up on removing the mower deck, etc...

I spent maybe an hour watching different spindle repair videos on YouTube until I felt I had a good idea of how to do it myself. Today, I put the broken mower in the garage and did the repair myself. Took me almost 2 hours to complete that 30 minute repair job, but I got it done. If I ever have to do that repair again, maybe cut my time down to an hour or less. Experience is a great teacher.

Bottom line, I purchased a new mower spindle and blades for less than $50.00 from Amazon and did that $200+ repair job myself. Even better than all the money saved, it's knowing that I can do that repair, or something like it, again much faster and without fear.

Happy to post that I also learned how to fix the uneven cutting of the mower blades and fixed that as well. Upon reflection after the repair, I suspect that the mower may have had a bent blade when I bought it. That would explain the uneven cut and why it scalped the ground and hit that tree root - breaking the spindle. With a new set of mower blades installed, I checked them for level, and it was spot on. The mower deck itself was not bent. I get a nice, even cut now with the new blades.

Of course, the skills I learned today will apply to my other riding mowers as well. Thank you, YouTube!

 

[AGeese]

For feed bags I use them as trash bags outside, usually for dog poop, but we don’t buy extra bags for that can.

Feed bags and grocery bags, who needs all these frilly gimmicks like scented trash sacks or "extra strength", just double or triple them up

 

[igorsMistress]

Feed bags and grocery bags, who needs all these frilly gimmicks like scented trash sacks or "extra strength", just double or triple them up

For sure. I have yet to have a feed bag break when full!

 

[gtaus]

Feed bags and grocery bags, who needs all these frilly gimmicks like scented trash sacks or "extra strength", just double or triple them up

About a year or so ago, I discovered that a large Menards plastic shopping bag was big enough to fit in our kitchen trash can. Since then, whenever I shop I Menards, I bag my stuff in the larger bags underneath the counter at the checkouts. They are very strong, and we don't have to double or triple bag those large Menards bags.

All our plastics, metals, and glass that we cannot reuse or repurpose at home get tossed into a recycle bin. That takes a lot of the bulk out of our trash. Our recycle bin is on the way to town, so we don't have to go out of our way to drop off bags of recycle goods.

Almost all our waste food, kitchen scraps, and leftovers get tossed into the chicken run for the chickens to recycle. They love it.

Almost all our paper products, like junk mail, newspapers, office paper, food boxes, and even heavy shipping cardboard boxes are processed through my paper shredders and used as coop litter first, then tossed into the chicken run to turn into compost.

Dear Wife and I now only put other burnable stuff that cannot be shredded in our kitchen trash can and I burn that stuff about once or twice a month. I will reuse the plastic bag and just burn the contents. If the bag gets really messy, or has any rips or tears, then I burn the bag, too. Our trash processing center is on the other side of town, about a 40 mile round trip for us, so being able to burn our trash at home has reduced those trips. I have not made a trip to the processing center for over a year.

I have a burn ring that I put over stumps that I need to burn out. So, burning our trash also serves another purpose in (slowly) getting rid of those stumps.

Occasionally, we might have something that is non-burnable and non-recyclable, like dead batteries. We just bag up that little stuff in a small bag and deposit it in one of the large garbage cans at the front of our local big box stores or maybe at the gas station when we fill up with gas.

There was a time when we used to have 2 or 3 large garbage bags full of trash that we had to haul across town every week to dump at the processing center. Thanks to recycling, reusing and repurposing, and burning some trash at home, it has been over one year that we have sent any trash to processing center.

 

[fuzzi]

I have a tip for those who order online. I frequently check sales and promo codes to save money. When I got an email about Fiskars tools on sale I checked it out. My long handled pruning shears are damaged, so a new pair for $35 sounded good. For orders less than $50 the shipping was $12, so I looked over the other items on sale to bump it up for free shipping. I found a 13" pruning saw for $18, and got free shipping. It was like getting the saw for $6!

I'd rather spend my money for something useful than waste it on shipping fees.

 

[gtaus]

I'd rather spend my money for something useful than waste it on shipping fees.

It can really pay to consolidate your orders to get over that minimum purchase for free shipping. I used to do that with my Amazon orders for years - until I became an Amazon Prime member.

I am not really a big fan of the Amazon Prime membership at $149.00 per year now. That's a lot of money to spend to get "free" shipping! Well, you get access to Amazon Prime movies and shows, but Dear Wife and I don't take advantage of that very much. Not enough to justify $149.00 per year. However, we buy lots of stuff from Amazon that we cannot get locally and, according to Amazon, we are saving on shipping costs compared to non-member shipping costs.

I have a tip for those who order online. I frequently check sales and promo codes to save money.

Yes. There are addon's to websites that are helpful. I use the Honey app and that has saved me some money on some purchases. Mainly, I like to view the price history because some products are seasonal, and I don't want to buy at high season if I can wait.

Which leads me to my best tip for online ordering, at least at Amazon, which is to put something in your wish list and let it sit there. I automatically get notified if an item on my wish list goes on sale. That's when I buy it. I have saved a lot of money that way on goods that I don't need immediately.

Another tip for Amazon is that sometimes you can get a much better deal if you buy a "used" item instead of ordering "new." I got a Dutch Oven at half price that way and saved myself about $50.00. The "used" Dutch Oven I received had never actually been used, but maybe it had been unboxed or returned for some reason. It was a great deal for me. And, as a Prime Member, if I was unsatisfied with the "used" item, I still had 30 days to return it with free return shipping. No way I could lose on that deal!

Today I received a package from Amazon and the box was broken, some small parts had fallen out, and after I picked up everything, I was one lock nut short. But nothing was damaged. I tried to contact Amazon to see if they could send me out a lock nut for the missing part. Unfortunately, all the auto chatbot would allow me to do was to return the entire order for a replacement. That would have been a complete waste of money for Amazon to pay for the shipping back to the warehouse and shipping back to me for a new order - all for one lock nut worth about 25 cents. After some effort, I finally got to chat with a live representative, asked them for credit so I could buy a lock nut at a local hardware store in town, and save myself a week of shipping time and save Amazon the shipping costs of returning a perfectly good unit. The live rep agreed and credited my account $5.00 to be used on a future order. That was perfect for me, and I was able to complete my install of that unit this afternoon.

I still value good live customer service and her ability to understand that a little credit to my account was saving me a lot of shipping time and saving Amazon a ton of shipping expenses. I gave the live rep high ratings on the feedback for solving the problem, but gave Amazon a low score on the category of how hard they make it before you actually get to chat with a live rep. I bet lots of people would ship the order back to Amazon and have them ship out a new order for one small missing part because the auto chatbot gives you no other options. I my case, the part was a common item I could pick up at any hardware store, so it made no sense to return anything.

 

[fuzzi]

It can really pay to consolidate your orders to get over that minimum purchase for free shipping. I used to do that with my Amazon orders for years - until I became an Amazon Prime member.

I am not really a big fan of the Amazon Prime membership at $149.00 per year now. That's a lot of money to spend to get "free" shipping! Well, you get access to Amazon Prime movies and shows, but Dear Wife and I don't take advantage of that very much. Not enough to justify $149.00 per year. However, we buy lots of stuff from Amazon that we cannot get locally and, according to Amazon, we are saving on shipping costs compared to non-member shipping costs.



Yes. There are addon's to websites that are helpful. I use the Honey app and that has saved me some money on some purchases. Mainly, I like to view the price history because some products are seasonal, and I don't want to buy at high season if I can wait.

Which leads me to my best tip for online ordering, at least at Amazon, which is to put something in your wish list and let it sit there. I automatically get notified if an item on my wish list goes on sale. That's when I buy it. I have saved a lot of money that way on goods that I don't need immediately.

Another tip for Amazon is that sometimes you can get a much better deal if you buy a "used" item instead of ordering "new." I got a Dutch Oven at half price that way and saved myself about $50.00. The "used" Dutch Oven I received had never actually been used, but maybe it had been unboxed or returned for some reason. It was a great deal for me. And, as a Prime Member, if I was unsatisfied with the "used" item, I still had 30 days to return it with free return shipping. No way I could lose on that deal!

Today I received a package from Amazon and the box was broken, some small parts had fallen out, and after I picked up everything, I was one lock nut short. But nothing was damaged. I tried to contact Amazon to see if they could send me out a lock nut for the missing part. Unfortunately, all the auto chatbot would allow me to do was to return the entire order for a replacement. That would have been a complete waste of money for Amazon to pay for the shipping back to the warehouse and shipping back to me for a new order - all for one lock nut worth about 25 cents. After some effort, I finally got to chat with a live representative, asked them for credit so I could buy a lock nut at a local hardware store in town, and save myself a week of shipping time and save Amazon the shipping costs of returning a perfectly good unit. The live rep agreed and credited my account $5.00 to be used on a future order. That was perfect for me, and I was able to complete my install of that unit this afternoon.

I still value good live customer service and her ability to understand that a little credit to my account was saving me a lot of shipping time and saving Amazon a ton of shipping expenses. I gave the live rep high ratings on the feedback for solving the problem, but gave Amazon a low score on the category of how hard they make it before you actually get to chat with a live rep. I bet lots of people would ship the order back to Amazon and have them ship out a new order for one small missing part because the auto chatbot gives you no other options. I my case, the part was a common item I could pick up at any hardware store, so it made no sense to return anything.

Good advice.

I use eBay a lot as I like their guarantee policies. If I see an item and "watch" it, often the seller will send an offer of 10% off, or even more. I make counter offers, too, and have gotten some great deals.

 

[gtaus]

Concerning the Honey app to price watch your Wishlist items, here is an example of an email I just received this evening...

The app is not perfect, because I purchased that item last winter, so I don't know why it shows up again. But many times, I get a notification of a lower price of an item currently on my Wishlist and then I can choose to jump on the sale, or not.

This particular item was $1.00 off - 13% reduction - from normal price. Maybe not such a big deal. But a few months ago, I got a notice that the bench vise I had on my Wishlist was reduced from about $90 to $60 on a temporary overstock situation. I checked the price history, and it was at its lowest point on the chart. I jumped on that when I got the email notification and saved myself $30. The price went back to normal a few weeks later. So, I am glad I jumped on the deal when I got the notification.

Again, all those email deals and notifications are possible because I had that stuff sitting in my Amazon Wishlist.

 

[gtaus]

Today I received a package [mower trailer hitch] from Amazon and the box was broken, some small parts had fallen out, and after I picked up everything, I was one lock nut short. But nothing was damaged. ...The live rep agreed and credited my account $5.00 to be used on a future order. That was perfect for me, and I was able to complete my install of that unit this afternoon.

Update: I got that $5.00 credit and used it on another Amazon order I just placed this evening. I also submitted feedback directly to the seller about the shipping box being damaged and that parts were falling out of the box, one part missing, when I received it. I gave the item a 5-stars rating on Amazon because I really liked it, but I was just giving them some constructive feedback on their shipping boxes and how it arrived at my house. I did not ask them for anything.

To my great surprise, they thanked me for my feedback and offered to give me a full $30.00 refund on the order to cover my time and effort required to get the missing parts locally! Of course, I accepted their kind offer. Unless I misunderstood them, I can keep the trailer hitch that is already installed on my mower. I might have got really lucky on this order! A full refund plus I get to keep the item!

But they are a Chinese company, and it is possible that they meant I could get a full refund if I returned the item. Some things get lost in translation. In that case, I'll just keep the hitch that is already installed on my mower. I thought I made it clear that I got my missing parts in town and already installed the hitch. I intended to keep it.

FWIW, I did give the hitch a 5-star review because I really like it. I put this item on my Wishlist about 2 years ago, but at the time, they were selling for about $60.00. The price, as you can see, has come down a lot and that is why I bought it now...

In fact, I think this was one of the items that popped up in my email notifications of a price drop of an item on my Amazon Wishlist. I was not actively shopping for a hitch at the time. But that's the advantage to using your Wishlist to put things you don't need now, but maybe later if the price comes down.

Now I can hitch up and move my empty boat, snowmobile and utility trailers with my riding mower instead of having to use the old pickup. I find it a whole lot easier to hitch up the empty trailers and move them by myself with the mower. I don't think this hitch on my small riding mower could move those trailers with a load on them, but for moving the empty trailers to their parking spots this afternoon, it was really easy.