What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

How to use a store's smart phone app to save yourself some money.

I resisted getting a cell phone for the longest time. I am not a social butterfly, and I don't make, or receive, many calls anymore. However, my bank now requires us to use their bank app to scan checks for deposits. My military bank, USAA, is stationed in Texas but I live in Minnesota. I have the option of sending checks through the mail, but that takes time and I really don't want to risk any deposit being lost in the mail. So, I had to get a smart phone and cancelled my landline phone that I had for the past 30 years.

But, there are many other advantages to using your smart phone.

Almost all the stores I shop at now have their own phone apps. What I find very useful is using their Shopping List feature. I know Harbor Freight and Home Depot both have a little heart icon that you simply tap on and that item is automatically added to your shopping list. I don't get notices on sales for those items like I do for Amazon, but what I can do is just tap on the item in the list and quickly see if that item is on sale for this week.

Also, for Harbor Freight anyway, it tells me if the item is in stock, or not, so I can decide if it's worth my time to swing by there to pick it up or save a little gas money and time and go straight home. Harbor Freight also has a link on their app with their in-store sales and specials, so you can easily check out the new sale items for the current period.

If you are a veteran, Home Depot now requires you to use the phone app for the military discount program. That's 10% off many items and well worth it when shopping. I bought a few clearance items at Home Depot today, originally $15 but marked down to $5, and I got another 10% off the clearance price using the phone app with my military discount.

Some places even give you an initial discount or cash reward for downloading their app and making a purchase online with your phone. I have not personally been able to use one of those deals, yet.

Forgive me if this just old news to you younger people, but I'm just finding new ways to save money with my cell phone apps. I hope it might be interesting to someone else and maybe save them some money.

 

[gtaus]

Hire the chickens as house maids.

Dear Wife is the greatest, and I could not imagine being without her. 33+ years together. I hope you did not take my post as in any way negative. I try to be careful in not mansplaining things to her, especially in her area of the house. But she never grew up needing to manage a pantry. She was a city girl with everything she needed, when she needed, on the store shelves. I grew up in a rural area with a large pantry in our house, and I have a better understanding of how to manage one.

We are working together on building up our pantry supplies. We are now actively looking for our necessities and buying them on sale when we can.

The COVID-19 lockdown put a real scare into her and we ended up making a panic closet full of toilet paper and other necessities. Unfortunately, at that time, we also ended up paying panic prices - which is the opposite of being frugal.

I look at a 4 pack of toilet paper and think to myself that we are good to go for another 6 months. Dear Wife looks at a 4 pack of toilet paper and thinks to herself we are going to run out before the weekend! Vive la différence!

Anyways, we have come a long way in stocking up goods. I built some additional shelves to store goods and we made more room in a number of our cabinets by removing items we seldom, or never, use. A well-managed pantry system can save you lots of money when you buy your items on sale and stock them up for use later.

 

[SmiYa0126]

just the realities of the market.

i have one bedrooms starting at $2200. two bedrooms are going for around $2500-2800 depending on location, and three bedrooms are renting for north of $3300.

For some reason I pictures you lived in a rural area..

 

[igorsMistress]

When I had my physical in June 2020, the PA asked me three or four times how I was feeling/adjusting/coping with the covid situation. I finally told her, We have 25 acres to roam around with our dog. We call/text with friends/family often. We. Are. Fine.

We are the luckiest people I know.

We’re right in town and this question was asked by our doc to both me and hubs. I think we both responded the same way…no people, no problem. We’re not get together and party people. I wish we had 25 acres to roam with my dogs though. Hubs might not see us for a few days lol.

 

[igorsMistress]

I wonder if anyone has done the economics of having additional vehicles per family. For example, Dear Wife typically drives the newer car in the family, but I have one old pickup (13 mpg) and an older Camry (26 mpg). Both my older cars are paid for, minimal insurance ($10/month each), and I don't really drive much anymore. I only drive my pickup when I load up cargo, or have to tow a trailer, etc... Otherwise, I drive the Camry.

I like the idea of someday getting an electric vehicle for our commutes back and forth from town. That's only about 30 miles round trip. Should be able to charge the car overnight with even a slow charger at that rate. Hoping that EV's come down in price because they are too expensive for my budget. I like the idea of not having to buy gas when I only get 13 mpg with the old pickup, but, the pickup is paid for and it's hard to imagine any real savings on any newer car that even gets 3X or 4X the mileage.

Dear Wife asks me why I don't get a newer vehicle, but I guess I really don't care to pay more money for transportation which my current pickup or Camry does just fine. It's just not the best looking vehicle on the lot anymore. But I can live with that. And, to be honest, I'm at an age where I really don't care what people think of my vehicles. To me, it's not a status symbol but I know for many people it is.

It’s not just the cost of fuel, but the cost of insurance as well. Long commutes often mean lots of annual mileage and the cost of the new cars is a huge impact on insurance costs.

 

[igorsMistress]

Use the Amazon Wish List to save money on items you want to buy.

I'm an Amazon Prime member, so I often compare prices online to what it costs in town. I try to buy locally first if the price is reasonable, but lots of time the local stores do not carry the item I might want.

I put a number of items on my Wish List in my Amazon account that I want to purchase, someday, but not necessarily needed right now. What I have discovered is that Amazon will often send me a notice if something in my wish list goes on sale. That is when I buy. Or, sometimes, Amazon is smart enough to suggest a similar product that goes on sale and might be of interest to me. I saved a good $20.00 on a set of work bench casters that way. Amazon notified me of a different brand of casters that I did not know about, but they were perfect for me.

I don't think you have to be an Amazon Prime member to take advantage of the Wish List feature. It could save you some money and it costs you nothing.

You don’t have to be a Prime member for it. There’s also the save for later option if people don’t want to make a list.

 

[Sally PB]

but lots of items on my list are just not in stock when I shop. So, I propose another reminder, like IIS2 "If in store, buy 2". Easily changed to IIS3, IIS4

Vermicelli has not been on ANY store shelves where I've shopped for MONTHS. I look every time I go, but, nada. It was one of my "buy a couple boxes every now and then" items, and I'm so glad I did. When we built our pantry and I got all the stored dry goods out of the basement, I found 20 (!) boxes!

A well-managed pantry and buying items when on sale can save lots of money and cover you in those shortage periods.

Really loving our pantry. I can see at a glance what we have. It used to all be in the basement in totes (mouse protection), and not really a rhyme or reason as to where.

I have the option of sending checks through the mail, but that takes time and I really don't want to risk any deposit being lost in the mail.

The "lost in the mail" excuse? Yeah, it really does happen. I used to work in shipping, and a lot of stuff went out postal. We got stacks of those white totes from the PO. I saw an envelope in the bottom of a tote at least 4 times. No idea how long it had been there.

 

[gtaus]

Really loving our pantry. I can see at a glance what we have. It used to all be in the basement in totes (mouse protection), and not really a rhyme or reason as to where.

I think being able to see what is in your pantry is very important. The new shelves I built are only about 5 inches deep. Wide enough for a couple of cans of vegetables. It's really easy to see what's on the shelves that way. And I built the new shelves with those peg inserts, so, we can adjust the height of each shelf. That saves space.

Compare that to our kitchen cabinets, which are about 12 inches deep. We have canned goods that get shoved to the back of the cabinet and never see the light of day again. In a FIFO system (First In, First Out) you rotate the stock so you don't end up with unused, expired, food stuff. Our cabinet rotation is just the opposite, it's called the FISH system (First In, Still Here). When we take the time to actually clean out the cabinets, the older food in the back may have been expired a very long time ago.

Additionally, Dear Wife cannot reach the middle and upper shelves of the cabinet without using a step stool, so it's just easier to put cans from the shopping trip in the front of the shelf and shove all the others even further back.

I have looked into buying, or building, some storage rack systems for cabinets that auto rotate canned goods - where you put the new cans in the top rail and take off the cans from the bottom rail. But those systems all seem to take up lots of space. If anyone has a good way to auto rotate cans in a cabinet, I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Chicken poppy]

Dear Wife is the greatest, and I could not imagine being without her. 33+ years together. I hope you did not take my post as in any way negative. I try to be careful in not mansplaining things to her, especially in her area of the house. But she never grew up needing to manage a pantry. She was a city girl with everything she needed, when she needed, on the store shelves. I grew up in a rural area with a large pantry in our house, and I have a better understanding of how to manage one.

We are working together on building up our pantry supplies. We are now actively looking for our necessities and buying them on sale when we can.

The COVID-19 lockdown put a real scare into her and we ended up making a panic closet full of toilet paper and other necessities. Unfortunately, at that time, we also ended up paying panic prices - which is the opposite of being frugal.

I look at a 4 pack of toilet paper and think to myself that we are good to go for another 6 months. Dear Wife looks at a 4 pack of toilet paper and thinks to herself we are going to run out before the weekend! Vive la différence!

Anyways, we have come a long way in stocking up goods. I built some additional shelves to store goods and we made more room in a number of our cabinets by removing items we seldom, or never, use. A well-managed pantry system can save you lots of money when you buy your items on sale and stock them up for use later.

I didn’t see any posts. It was a joke.

It sounds like things are going great with you guys, it was a very fun read. Hopefully you didn’t take my post as offensive or anything. I know a few people (including family) who are/were housemaids and they are very hard workers hence why i said it.

 

[saysfaa]

I've tried several versions of the auto rotate racks (homemade and otherwise) and gave up on the idea.

I write the month-year of purchase on the top of the can, keep then on box bottoms (the cut off bottoms of boxes the stores sell them on). In rows of like kinds if we don't use many.

Bags or boxes of new set to the side until I get around to marking them. That way, I shift a dozen at a time every couple of weeks instead of shifting individual cans every couple of days.

The shelves in the basement and are deep enough for one box straight and one box sideways. Of the most common sizes.

Month-date bought is close enough to work well and much faster than looking for exp. dates on the cans.