What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[fuzzi]

For those looking for ways to preserve food, one thing you may not have tried but likely have handy is eggs. I always save some eggs in the spring for use over the winter when the girls mostly or fully stop laying.

There are a number of ways to preserve eggs, but the three I think are best are freeze drying (very good but requires expensive equipment), freezing (works but uses valuable freezer space) or water-glassing (cheap, requires no power, but has ~10% failure rate). I've been doing water-glassing for a number of years now.

Here is the master thread on water-glassing:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/water-glassing-egg-preservation-experiment.1428588/

I make refrigerator pickled eggs. They only last about 6 months, but are an easy way to have eggs to eat when the hens decide to molt!

 

[fuzzi]

While hubby was visiting his dad in Charlotte, NC, their water heater died. It was a smaller unit, in a closet on the second floor. (That seems like a really dumb idea to me. I've not been impressed several aspects of the build on this house.)

The cost was $3000 for the replacement.

Charlotte is not a cheap place to live.

We rented a duplex apartment for about a year. It was fairly new, and the water heater was in the attic! That's an expensive accident waiting to happen.

I had to replace my 18 year old water heater last year. I was horrified at the prices, but my plumber (yeah, Tim!) gave me a cash price of $800 including installation.

Oh, and it's in the outside closet, which is part of but lower than the living areas of the house.

 

[gtaus]

My late MIL swore up and down she couldn't stand the taste of softened water either. ... I guess you can get used to anything.

Well, I imagine so. Still, there are many things I don't care to change at this stage of my life. I'm comfortable with having hard water at our house.

FYI, I was in the military and moved around to a number of countries and cities. We had soft water in most of those places. I liked returning to my home with hard well water. But I grew up in a small rural town and spent most of my summers pumping water by hand at my grandparent's lake cabin. I think the taste of hard well water is just ingrained in my DNA.

 

[gtaus]

...I don't know if something would have failed in that time, but I will say that our clothes are cleaner, the washer is cleaner, the dish washer is cleaner, and no orange bowl in the toilet.

One of our "expenses" is our quality of life. It's one of the things we worked and saved for.

Some things are worth paying for if it really makes a difference to you. We buy lots of house brand food at the supermarkets to save money, but there are certain items that I will still buy the name brand. It's no use to save a little money on something if you make yourself miserable in the process.

Being frugal is not only about saving money. It's also about deciding where and how to best spend your money.

 

[gtaus]

I used to have a "water boss " water softener, From Menards.
At the highest setting, it still wasn't enough. It lasted about 10 years and I replaced with the same that lasted about 10 years. I lost interest in soft water.

I had to get some plumbing work done last year. I had a leaky value and my pressure tank needed to be replaced. It was the cost of labor charged by the plumber that drove up the cost of the project. I don't mind paying someone by the hour for their service at the house, but I swear they started the time clock 2 days earlier when I first scheduled a service call! The labor cost was almost 3X the cost of materials.

 

[gtaus]

I had to replace my 18 year old water heater last year. I was horrified at the prices, but my plumber (yeah, Tim!) gave me a cash price of $800 including installation.

I was charged $800 for the labor alone on my water heater installation. Sounds like you got a really good deal from your plumber. Good for you.

My post on the cost of a new water installation was just to give some people an idea that there may be other options to plumbing services than a local contractor. Home Depot ended up saving me $400-$500 from the local quotes I got. If you have a good plumber that works for you, there is value in that. I was just looking at total contract price and Home Depot came in lower than my local options.

Well, I also have a commercial account at Home Depot and get a 10% military discount on the materials, but not on the labor. I saved another $70 on the water heater with my military discount, which was nice.

 

[Sally PB]

and the water heater was in the attic!

What is it with water heaters on upstairs floors/attics??? I don't get it! Do they not do basements in Charlotte? FIL's home does not have a basement.

 

[fuzzi]

What is it with water heaters on upstairs floors/attics??? I don't get it! Do they not do basements in Charlotte? FIL's home does not have a basement.

Basements are not standard here in NC, most houses I have seen are on a slab or have a crawlspace.

Why?
https://www.searchclaytonncrealestate.com/blog/why-are-basement-homes-not-common-in-north-carolina/

 

[Sally PB]

Basements are not standard here in NC, most houses I have seen are on a slab or have a crawlspace.

Interesting! Why is that? Is there a high water table?

 

[gtaus]

Interesting! Why is that? Is there a high water table?

I grew up in Minnesota. Most of our houses have basements. But I have lived in many other places in my adult life where they did not have basements on their houses. Sometimes the native soil was too hard to dig into and was cost prohibitive, other times it was coastal areas and the ground water level was too high.

But I thought it was an interesting question as to why some places have basements and others not. I posed the question to MicroSoft CoPilot AI and here is the response I got...

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You're absolutely right—many places don’t have basements, and it mostly comes down to geography, climate, soil conditions, and local building traditions. Here’s why basements are more common in some areas and rare in others:

Reasons Some Places Don’t Have Basements​

1. Soil & Ground Conditions
   • Some regions have high water tables, meaning the ground is too wet for basements without serious flooding risks.
   • Expansive clay soil (common in places like Texas) shifts too much, making basement construction unstable.
2. Climate & Frost Line Depth
   • In colder climates, foundations must be built below the frost line to prevent damage from freezing and thawing.
   • Since deeper foundations are required anyway, adding a basement is often cost-effective.
   • In warmer climates, shallow foundations work fine, so basements aren’t necessary.
3. Building Costs & Regulations
   • Some states have strict building codes that make basements more expensive or impractical.
   • In places like Florida, basements are rare because the cost of waterproofing against flooding is too high.
4. Cultural & Historical Preferences
   • In some regions, homes have traditionally been built without basements, and that trend continues today.
   • In Mediterranean-style homes (common in California and Florida), basements aren’t part of the architectural design.

Where Basements Are Common​

• Midwest & Northern U.S. – Cold winters and deep frost lines make basements practical.
• Tornado-prone areas – Basements provide shelter during storms.
• Older homes in the Northeast – Many historic homes were built with basements for storage and heating systems.

*******************

Nothing surprising to me in all that info. Just learned a few more reasons why people may or may not have a basement for their house.