What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[EmmaDonovan]

We sweat a LOT here in the summer so we make our own version of Gatorade/sports drink/recovery drink: Celtic sea salt, Morton lite salt, lemon or lime or orange crystals (or fresh juice), and a dash of sugar. Inexpensive and no preservatives, dyes, or artificial flavors.

 

[igorsMistress]

Solar cooking. Eggs don’t need water, just a carton. I have some chili to warm up in there later.

 

[Molpet]

Solar cooking. Eggs don’t need water, just a carton. I have some chili to warm up in there later.

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How long for hard (boiled) eggs?

 

[igorsMistress]

How long for hard (boiled) eggs?

Kinda depends on the size of eggs. 45 to 60ish minutes. It was convenient because I was outside anyway and otherwise would have forgotten about them on the stove.

 

[gtaus]

Repair of 1/4-inch recoil air hose on compressor

I have a small 6-gallon Durabuilt air compressor in my garage. It's big enough to run all my air tools that I normally use.

Like many compressors, it's pretty loud when it kicks in to recharge the tank. That unit has a small 1/4-inch plastic air hose. It developed a leak at the end that attaches to the compressor. Because of the leak, the compressor was running much more often than it should.

I went to Menards to see how much a new hose kit would cost - about $25.00.

IIRC, I only paid about $60.00 for that air compressor ~25 years ago, but I could be wrong. Anyways, I did not want to buy a new hose kit if I could fix my old air hose. Thankfully, YouTube University came to the rescue once again. In less than 2 minutes, I learned how to repair my old hose and did not have to spend any money on it.

Here is the YouTube video on the repair...

It only took me a few minutes to repair the hose and put it back together again. Plus, now I know how to repair a broken air hose in the future.

It's good to learn new stuff and be more self sufficient!

BTW, when I was looking for pictures for this post, I see my little 6-gallon compressor is probably worth more now than when I bought it. Well, at least it would cost a lot more to replace it today. The closest I could find was a similar 8-gallon compressor at Harbor Freight for $160.00, but you have to buy the air hose separately, so figure another $20.00 for that making the real cost around $180.00. No thank you, I repaired my old compressor for FREE!

 

[gtaus]

Pickled Eggs Using Canned Sliced Pickled Beets

We are getting more eggs than we can eat right now. I guess that's a good problem to have. One way I like to use up excess eggs is to hard-boil them and put them into jars with canned sliced pickled beets. I just pour some juice in the pickling jar, add some peeled hardboiled eggs, put on a layer of sliced pickled beets, then repeat until the jar is full or I am out of canned beets.

Here is a Google picture of what the pickled eggs look like after a few days...

I love them in my salads, but you could also have them as a side dish with a meal. I don't add anything to the canned pickled beet slices juice, but I suppose you could. I just don't know what would make it better? Perhaps someone can suggest some herbs for a spicy mix?

In my jars, I will put about 6-8 eggs in and a whole can of sliced beets and the pickle juice. But there was never enough pickle juice in one can of sliced pickled beets to fill it up to the top. So, I would open a second can just to get more juice. Otherwise, the eggs on top of jar might only get half covered in juice. However, if your lid is watertight, you can put the jar in the refrigerator upside down overnight, covering all those top eggs in pickle juice, and then flip it back right side up the next day. That works for me and saves me from having to open a second can just for the juice.

I don't know how long the eggs will stay good, but since it's not a true canning process, I always eat them in about 2 weeks at most.

Well, it's a good way to use up excess eggs. I think they taste great.

 

[MichaelDJ]

Repurpose and reuse.
in the process of building a 2nd coup and very large run. 1/2 of the coup and half of the run were made with boards from my recently rebuilt decks.
I throw very little out, especially wood / lumber.

 

[igorsMistress]

Repurpose and reuse.
in the process of building a 2nd coup and very large run. 1/2 of the coup and half of the run were made with boards from my recently rebuilt decks.
I throw very little out, especially wood / lumber.

Would live a pic when you’re done!

My husband has a corner of the garage full of wood, and a bucket full of bits and pieces, and another bucket half full of hardware.

 

[gtaus]

My husband has a corner of the garage full of wood, and a bucket full of bits and pieces,...

I do a lot of pallet projects and end up with buckets full of off cut bits and pieces of wood. I used to consider that waste wood. However, I now make all my raised beds using the hügelkultur method with logs. Instead of burning all those buckets full of wood bits and pieces or hauling them off to a landfill, I dump them in a new hügelkultur raised bed along with my other tree logs and wood chips. Wood is wood, and I turned a waste product from my shop into something valuable.

Of course, if the wood is contaminated, painted, or somehow not fit to put into a garden bed, I would dispose of it some other way. But I only pick up pallets that the wood is safe to use in my gardens and for building raised beds.

 

[FrostRanger]

It's spring and many hardware stores are having sales on mulch. I managed to remulch my run for less than 40 bucks (mulch was 2 bucks a bag and I used 16 bags)