What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

Yes
If I see 5 years warranty I expect the place I bought it from to take care of it. Otherwise why not buy something cheaper elsewhere.

Exactly the way I feel. I guess Home Depot was losing money on their tool warranty service. That's too bad.

We recently got a new Harbor Freight in town, and from what I understand, they will take in and exchange tools if still under warranty. Some tools you have to buy an extended warranty, but other tools have lifetime warranties. Depends on the brand.

 

[Molpet]

Exactly the way I feel. I guess Home Depot was losing money on their tool warranty service. That's too bad.

We recently got a new Harbor Freight in town, and from what I understand, they will take in and exchange tools if still under warranty. Some tools you have to buy an extended warranty, but other tools have lifetime warranties. Depends on the brand.

From what I see on FB, people have been very happy with harbor freight stuff.

 

[gtaus]

Bucket Sales at Farm Stores

Every once in a while, our local Fleet store has a bucket sale where you buy a 5-gallon bucket and get 20% off everything you can fit into the bucket.

I was in town today and our local Fleet store had a bucket sale, charging $3.99 for the bucket sale price, but you can fill it with stuff at 20% of (with a few exceptions). I usually have a list of consumables that I restock on those bucket sales. But today, I was just in the store to buy some chicken feed.

Much to my surprise, I talked to a manager about getting an "Oops" bag of chicken feed at a discount and he told me that I could buy a bucket and get as many bags of chicken feed I wanted at 20% off! They never told me that before, and I had assumed since a bag of feed would not fit in a bucket, that I could not get the 20% sale price.

Long story short, I ended up getting a 5-gallon bucket, a couple bags of chicken feed, and misc items on my restock list. All things that I will use in the next few months. Everything at 20% off. Even better, at the checkout, I learned that since I bought more than $50.00 in merchandise and feed, that I got the bucket for free!

You can never have too many 5-gallon buckets around the homestead...

If your local farm store has a bucket sale, you might want to ask them if that includes feed. But ask a manager because the checkout people and floor reps might not know that bags of feed are included. I never knew until the manager told me. Now, I will make it a point to restock my feed at the bucket day sales as much as possible.

 

[gtaus]

From what I see on FB, people have been very happy with harbor freight stuff.

I have been very happy with my purchases. HF used to be only throw away tools and supplies, but they now also carry higher quality lines if you want to pay for it. I like options.

 

[igorsMistress]

I recently learned about cooking in a haybox. You can spend quite a few bucks on a thermal cooker, or you can use what you have on hand.

I purchased a styrofoam cooler some ages ago and we never ended up needing it, so I’m converting it to a haybox cooker. No hay in it, we are all allergic to it, but I have some extra blankets and towels I’ve been hanging on to in case we needed them. I love free! My goal with this is to get away from heating up my house or using electricity to cook during the summer. We need to help our a/c not work so hard by finding alternative cooking methods. Also, we built a rocket stove out of concrete blocks to use some of the yard debris for our cooking during the summer. This would be a great way to heat a pot of something outside while it’s still cool, then pop it in the haybox to finish off.

The idea is that you cook your food on the stove about 1/3 the usual time, then transfer to the haybox and let it finish in there. It works like a slow cooker and was a popular way of cooking during WWII when coal and gas were rationed for the war effort.

I’ve seen several videos that say just warm up your food to a boil for a couple minutes and pop it in. Please check out this video for some really good info if you’re interested. Also, vegetables and vegetarian dishes need to be at 140-145 and beef should be 160 and poultry at 165 so take the temp of you food and then bring it to a boil on the stove before serving if necessary.

Here is an excellent video about it (I love this YouTube channel)

 

[Molpet]

get away from heating up my house

I use the electric pressure cooker outside so I don't heat up the house.

 

[Molpet]

Here is an excellent video about it

I want that stove with the fold down cover for the burners.

 

[igorsMistress]

I want that stove with the fold down cover for the burners.

Me too!!!

 

[Smokerbill]

The stove my mom used originally had a big steel plate in the bottom that was used in a similar way to the straw box. Once the plate was fully heated the oven was shut off and it would slowly release heat and continue cooking the food. I think it was a 50s model Maytag.

 

[igorsMistress]

I use the electric pressure cooker outside so I don't heat up the house.

Excellent idea! I am wanting to cut our electricity usage too. Everything here is electric and our summers are extremely hot so the a/c is on 24/7. Our electric company took a 15% rate hike last year; there are people having to decide whether to eat or pay their electric bill.

The company isn’t allowed to disconnect service during summer due to unpaid bills because people have died, but then the bill is still high in winter; with only six months to pay the past due balance off people go right back into debt the next summer.