What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Liz Birdlover]

I wish more people would be able to do that. I like to think that lots of stuff that we throw away because it has no value to us might have some value to someone else. I would rather see that stuff have a second life for somebody rather than filling up our landfills.

Back in the 1980's, when I was in the Navy, I had the opportunity to visit China. One of the things that impressed me was that there was no garbage to be found. Any piece of wood, scrap of metal, or plastic was picked up and reused by the people. I'm sure they have garbage somewhere, but you did not see any out in the streets or in public places like you so often see here in the USA.

Unfortunately, here in the US, you often cannot pick useable items out of the trash/recycle pile. I was at our local county landfill a few years ago, and I noticed that some contractor had dumped a perfectly good scaffolding set because they no longer needed it. So, I picked it up out of the metal pile and put it into my trailer. Before I knew it, one of the old timers working out there at the landfill was yelling at me that I could not take anything out of the pile. They landfill only gets pennies for that metal, so I offered to pay for the scaffolding at 2X or 3X their value for the county treasury. Well, he would have nothing to do with that idea. But he felt better about yelling at me and told me just to take it and leave, but don't do it again.

So, I got yelled at for giving a second life to that scaffolding, but it was worth about $250.00 new. I guess it was worth getting yelled at. I set the scaffolding up in my garage and used it as an extra workbench for a few years and now I use it as a heavy duty shelf.

You know, it's a county landfill and they charge people to toss out their unwanted metal. They only make pennies on the pound for scrap metal when they sell it. It's too bad that they cannot just offer to sell it anyone who wants to use some of that stuff and bring even more money for the county treasury.

When I was a kid and dad had to go to the dump, it was the best, because not only would we unload stuff from the job site trash, but then we would pick through things and bring them home and repurpose them. One of my favorites was an old iron Singer sewing machine, you know the type with the foot pedal. Dad shaped a piece of marble for the top because the sewing machine portion was gone but it made an absolutely gorgeous table or stand. I don't know when the dumps decided to stop people from doing that, but it really is a wasteful shame.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

I like to drive around local suburbs on large item trash pickup day! It's mine blowing what good stuff people will set out for the landfill. I've gotten rolls of fencing, chicken tractors, rabbit cages, dog kennels, screen doors, 4x4x8s, wood flooring, and more this way, most of which were in good to great condition.

In the 80s, I saw an old 1960s Hoover canister vacuum cleaner in someone's trash, & recently 4 rounded wooden outdoor benches. I always knock on doors and get permission 1st, all usually say yeah, go for it. That vacuum cleaner is so awesome, it looks like a little spaceship and works fine still to this day! It is all metal, the only plastic on that thing is the hose itself and the on/off switch. I absolutely love it. The benches looked rather old but a little bit of sanding and paint with the same paint I have used designed for treated lumber on all my birds pens, and they are totally awesome, looking especially cool around the fire pit. It is so true that 1 person's trash may be another one's treasure!

 

[LizzzyJo]

This is news to me (about the US not recycling plastics anymore). I’d like to learn more. What are we doing instead of recycling the plastics? Sorry if this is old news. I have six kids (youngest 3 are triplets who only just started school this year) so I basically live under a rock.

Here’s an article on it from when it began. Now it’s just a mundane reality. Nearly every city in the us takes the recycling and eventually has to throw it into a landfill. It’s very sad.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/

 

[Sally PB]

We still have a very active church Thrift Shop in our town and we can donate lots of stuff to them. They sell their donated items at garage sale prices and lots of people are more than happy to pick up those hidden treasures and save lots of money. Also, their profits go to support our local charities. When my parents passed, we donated lots of their clothes and stuff to the Thrift Shop.

There are a couple of thrift shops in the nearby town where I shop. I love going there to "shop." I get all my dog blankets there, and have found some kitchen items that I've put to good use. I get a fair amount of my clothes there too. Not shoes, alas; my feet are very particular.

I've mentioned my neighbor who goes to estate sales; she gets a LOT of stuff at those.

One of my favorites was an old iron Singer sewing machine, you know the type with the foot pedal. Dad shaped a piece of marble for the top because the sewing machine portion was gone but it made an absolutely gorgeous table or stand.

Oh, I bet that was beautiful! What a treasure.

 

[saysfaa]

I like estate sales. They are quite different from anything else and from each other depending on the neighborhoods. In the bigger markets, at least, many people go as their business but I like the stuff that is useful rather than valuable for resale. In the boondocks, they are more like big garage sales. Either way, it isn't usually more economical than thrift shops once the mileage is counted, unless one is just getting a first home so needs nearly everything, but it is fun.

Anyway, among my favorite things are old paintbrushes and old dish towels. I've given up on learning how to properly clean paintbrushes; I do better with estate sale paintbrushes - not many want them so they are priced really low to start with and still there at the half off days. Even then I can usually negotiate down from there. The old dish towels are easy to negotiate down even on the first day. They make wonderful rags with less effort than cutting down old bath towels, although I still like the size of a cut down bath towel better and that they are all the same- I like about 5"x10" towel rags.

 

[ChicksnMore]

Love to talk about homemade compost. Really jealous of you guys in the tropics as I imagine you can make finished compost in no time compared to me here in northern Minnesota. Those look like some really big compost bins. Do you turn over the compost from one bin to another bin along the line? I don't think my back could handle that much work with a manual pitchfork. I'd definitely need something mechanical to turn that much compost.

FWIW, I turned my chicken run into a chicken run composting system. My composting chickens are outside (in the non-snow months) scratching and pecking the litter in the chicken run from early morning until they go inside the coop to roost for the night. All that constant turnover means my chicken run compost is finished in about 3 months and ready to be used. I don't sell my compost, but it saves me 100's of dollars every year in not having to buy compost bags from the big box stores. As a bonus, my composting chickens give me eggs. We sell the excess eggs and that pretty much pays for all our feed costs.

I also have 5 pallet compost bins for excess material and/or for stuff that I don't want to toss into the chicken run - like moldy food. I treat those bins as totally hands off. I fill up bin one and then move on to bin two, etc... It takes me about one summer to fill up each compost bin. When I fill up bin five, then I harvest bin one, which usually has had about 4 years of composting in place without turning. Just about everything breaks down to finished compost over 4 years. Not nearly as fast as your compost bins in Hawaii, but I'm not in a hurry for those bins to finish so it's OK with me.

I always end up with so much compost from horse manure. I let friends take all they want. I just give them a stack of feed bags and let them fill as many as they want, but it's still more then I need these days. Maybe I should try adding it to the coops like a litter. I know all the chickens love digging in and eating the stuff. Never thought of trying to sell it...might try that too.

I like estate sales. They are quite different from anything else and from each other depending on the neighborhoods. In the bigger markets, at least, many people go as their business but I like the stuff that is useful rather than valuable for resale. In the boondocks, they are more like big garage sales. Either way, it isn't usually more economical than thrift shops once the mileage is counted, unless one is just getting a first home so needs nearly everything, but it is fun.

Anyway, among my favorite things are old paintbrushes and old dish towels. I've given up on learning how to properly clean paintbrushes; I do better with estate sale paintbrushes - not many want them so they are priced really low to start with and still there at the half off days. Even then I can usually negotiate down from there. The old dish towels are easy to negotiate down even on the first day. They make wonderful rags with less effort than cutting down old bath towels, although I still like the size of a cut down bath towel better and that they are all the same- I like about 5"x10" towel rags.

Love the estate sale for paint brushes thought. Think I'll give that a try and see if I can pick some up that way. I'm a fan of old tshirts for towels. I think they make the best dusting rags and I use them to apply stain and wipe on poly as well. I always have a stack of cut up tshirt rags.

 

[gtaus]

This is news to me (about the US not recycling plastics anymore).

Our community still has all the recycling bins. However, I suspect that a lot, if not almost all of that stuff, eventually ends up in a landfill in a third world country or hidden from sight somewhere here in the US. That's why I try to reuse and repurpose as much as possible.

I don't know when the dumps decided to stop people from doing that, but it really is a wasteful shame.

When I was growing up in the 1960's, our small town had an open dump on the outskirts of town. It smelled bad, and when they burned the garbage, everyone in town could smell it if the wind was blowing in our direction. As kids, we liked to pile up old tires and burn them, sending black smoke high into the air. Small town entertainment...

The much larger town I now live in has a recycle/transfer station and all garbage gets dumped and compacted in large metal bins. Once the stuff is tossed in the garbage bin, it's gone forever.

The benches looked rather old but a little bit of sanding and paint with the same paint I have used designed for treated lumber on all my birds pens, and they are totally awesome, looking especially cool around the fire pit. It is so true that 1 person's trash may be another one's treasure!

I got a nice porch bench swing for an older relative who no longer wanted it. I had to custom cut most of the base wood pieces to replace the rotting base boards, but I have the saws and tools to do that kind of work. Works as good as new. All it cost me was a few scrap pieces of wood, a little time to cut the boards to size, and then reassemble the swing with a few new nuts and bolts. For less than $1.00, I reconditioned a $150.00 (at that time) bench swing.

Dear Wife was so excited about the reconditioning that she put that bench out in the midst of her flower gardens in front of the house. Now she can take a break on the swing and enjoy her gardens. That was an awesome save that I am still very proud of having done.

My bench swing is under 2 feet of snow, but here is a Google picture of the type of bench I reconditioned....

 

[gtaus]

Here’s an article on it from when it began. Now it’s just a mundane reality. Nearly every city in the us takes the recycling and eventually has to throw it into a landfill. It’s very sad.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/

I lived in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area back in the 1990's. We had to separate all our recyclable products into separate bins, for example, bins for plastic, metal, glass, paper, etc... It gave you the feeling that you were doing something good for the environment, so I never complained about the extra effort to wash out and sort our recyclable items.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on your view, our local paper did an exposé on what happens to our recyclable products once they get picked up from our houses and hauled away. They followed those trucks all the way to the landfill where all those separated products were unceremoniously dumped into one pile out at the landfill. Nothing was recycled, nothing was separated, everything was combined as one big trash pile and buried out of sight at the landfill.

Since then, I have little to no faith that anything we drop off at the recycle center actually ever gets recycled. So, I try to reuse and repurpose as much as possible.

I think the real solution is to come up with packaging that sits on the shelf safely for months but biodegrades in a landfill in little time. I'm thinking paper over plastic for as much as possible, but something better needs to be done to replace canned goods. That's the bulk of our recyclable trash these days.

I shred almost all our paper products and packaging to make bedding for the coop. Paper shreds (paper, newspaper, light food box cardboard, and shipping boxes) can all be shredded up and used as coop bedding. Then, when it gets cleaned out, it goes into my chicken run to compost in place. After a few months in the summertime, it has turned into wonderful compost (along with chicken poo) for my gardens.

I am my own recycling center for almost all our paper products!

 

[TooCheep]

I always end up with so much compost from horse manure. I let friends take all they want. I just give them a stack of feed bags and let them fill as many as they want, but it's still more then I need these days. Maybe I should try adding it to the coops like a litter. I know all the chickens love digging in and eating the stuff. Never thought of trying to sell it...might try that too.

Definitely try selling it. Not only will you get rid of your excess, but there are a lot of newbies getting into backyard gardens now and many are trying to use more natural inputs.

Win-win.

 

[gtaus]

I always end up with so much compost from horse manure. I let friends take all they want. I just give them a stack of feed bags and let them fill as many as they want, but it's still more then I need these days. Maybe I should try adding it to the coops like a litter. I know all the chickens love digging in and eating the stuff. Never thought of trying to sell it...might try that too.

I would love to add horse manure to my chicken run composting system. Very nice of you to let people take as much as they want.

I don't think I would put manure inside my coop. I try to keep my deep bedding in the coop as dry as possible. If you have a deep litter (moist, composting) setup in your coop, I think horse manure would be great for that.

I do all my composting out in the chicken run, and the chickens love to dig in the compost and find all kinds of bugs and worms to eat. In the summertime, when my chickens can have access to the chicken run compost, my commercial feed costs are cut in half.