What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[SmiYa0126]

Is it frugal to pay more for item from an authorized seller?

Today, I received a notice from Honey, the online shopping helper, telling me that they found a "better" price on the Ryobi 40v batteries that I buy. Although I am using Ryobi as the example in this post, it applies to just about any brand I can think of.

First of all, Honey, how to do you know that I own Ryobi tools? I never told you that, or did I???? Does everybody know everything about my life?

Anyways, Honey is a great shopping helper that has saved me money on purchases before, so I clicked the link to find out more.

So, here's the deal. You could get this Genuine Ryobi 40v 5Ah battery (not a knock-off) for only $130 on Amazon! Holy Cow! That's about $50 less than Home Depot price at $180 per battery. I could save lots of money by purchasing the battery through Amazon.... or could I?

Here is my thinking, to save myself both money and aggravation that I will pass on to you. This advice probably applies to other name brand batteries as well.

1) Amazon is not an authorized dealer for Ryobi.

These batteries are sold by unauthorized third party sellers. Ryobi will not honor any warranty on tools or batteries sold by unauthorized third party sellers. Why? Well, because, believe it or not, lots of their stuff is either stolen and resold, or used and resold as new. Another scam is people buying a pallet full of product returns and reselling the items as new.

Read the fine print on Amazon and you will find out that you have a 30 day window for a return to Amazon, after that, you have to deal with the seller. Read the reviews, and try to find anyone who had as issue with the battery and attempted to return it to the third party seller - not going to happen! Most likely, that third party seller has gone out of business or changed their name and you will never find them again.

Essentially, you have a 30 day warranty on that $130 Ryobi battery you bought on Amazon. You could also think of it as $1560 per year for the life of the (30) day warranty.

2) If you buy the same Ryobi battery at Home Depot for $180, you can register it with RyobiTools.com and are guaranteed a full 3 years of service backed by Ryobi and Home Depot. Of all the Ryobi batteries that I have purchased from Home Depot over the past 15+ years, I only had one battery fail and Ryobi sent me a new replacement battery no problems (I did have to prove that I had purchased it from Home Depot).

Essentially, you have a 3-year warranty on the $180 battery from Home Depot, or how I think of it, $60 per year over the life of the warranty.

So, what do you think, is it more fugal to save $50 and take your chances on a 30-day warranty battery from Amazon, with no expected support from the third-party seller after that, or are you better off paying that extra $50 and buying the battery from Home Depot, an authorized Ryobi seller, and getting a full 3-year warranty backed by Ryobi?

Bonus Frugal Tip: Buy your tools on sale, in kits, and save lots of money.

Well, I buy my Ryobi tools only from Home Depot. I wait for them to go on sale and then drop the cash. Most recent case is that I wanted to get an extra Ryobi 40v 4ah battery for my Ryobi 40v chainsaw. The battery alone cost $180 at the time. But I found a Ryobi 40v snow shovel kit, with powerhead, snow shovel attachment, charger, and 40v 4Ah battery on pre-winter sale at Home Depot for $190!

I suppose you could think of this deal at least a couple different ways. First of all, I got all that stuff in the snow shovel kit and only paid an extra $10 for the 40v 4Ah battery. Or, you could think of it as buying the battery for $180 and getting the powerhead, snow shovel attachment, and the battery charger for only $10 more. In any case, all the tools and the battery are backed by Ryobi for the full 3-year warranty.

That, my friends, is how these companies get you into their tool line and battery platforms and keep you there. It would make no frugal sense for me to buy other tool brands with a different battery platform due to the high investment cost of these batteries.

We do the same thing, always from authorized retailers. If it's that much lower I would be suspicious it's a knockoff.

 

[gtaus]

We do the same thing, always [buying brand name batteries] from authorized retailers. If it's that much lower I would be suspicious it's a knockoff.

Well, these batteries listed on Amazon I was talking about are genuine Ryobi batteries, not knockoffs, but they do not have the Ryobi backing for the 3-year warranty. I suspect a lot of people might not know that fact, and, to me at least, that makes a world of difference.

FYI, last summer I purchased a couple of no-name knockoff Ryobi-type 40v 4Ah batteries for my chainsaw. The first one cut out after only half the charge, showing 2 of 4 bars left on the battery gauge, but would not power the chainsaw. Returned it to Amazon within the 30 day period for a replacement battery. The replacement battery also stopped working when it hit 2 of 4 bars left on the battery. I suspect that company used inferior battery cells or older, reclaimed cells from other packs. Or, maybe they just lied about the capacity of the battery pack. In any case, I ended up returning that second knockoff battery before the 30 day return period for a full refund.

Maybe those knockoff batteries would have worked better in a fan, or something low drain, but they would not power my chainsaw after it hit 2 of 4 bars on the battery gauge. In contrast, my genuine Ryobi batteries run all the way down to the last bar flashing on the fuel gauge. So, I had a really bad experience with the knockoffs.

Those companies that sell knockoff batteries only warranty their batteries for 1 year, and after reading the reviews, lots of those companies seem to disappear from existence within one year never to be heard of again. Probably knowingly sell their junk, warranty it for one year, but plan on taking the company down and out of business before all those warranty returns start to stack up.

If you buy these brand name tools and batteries on Amazon from unauthorized third-party sellers, you can only count on the 30-day Amazon return period.

My point, if you think you are being frugal and saving money by purchasing these brand name tools and batteries on Amazon, you might be sadly mistaken.

 

[LizzzyJo]

Off topic - I just got my first egg of spring today! My white french marans. Which is surprising because she’s 4 and I have some younger ladies. But I’m not complaining! Yay! Now I can feel more sustainable with home grown eggs again

 

[fuzzi]

I think I could easily get by with a window AC unit for our bedroom. Lot less money to cool down one room than the whole house. Unfortunately, we have those horizontal sliding windows so a typical window AC unit would not work.



I usually have the deck sliding door open all night and blow cool air into the house. In the morning, I shut the sliding door and close all the blinds to keep the cool in the house. Usually, that's good enough to last the entire day and then I open the doors and put the fan in it again when it cools down in the evening.

We have ceiling fans throughout the house, so that is usually running 24/7 in the summer circulating the air. Much less expensive than turning on the AC.

Although not running the AC saves me lots of money, the other reason I don't like to run the AC is because I am usually working outside, sweating up a storm at times, and there is nothing worse than coming into a cold AC'd house and getting the chills. That's a good way to ensure you get a summer cold.

Over the years I have developed a habit of changing out of my wet tee-shirts when I come into the house, for lunch, or a break. I might go through 4 tee shirts in a day. But I don't want to cool off inside the house wearing wet clothes.

Speaking of changing out all those tee-shirts, I have on my list this summer to install a umbrella clothesline to hang out our clothes. No need to waste money on a dryer if you can air dry the clothes. Having said that, Dear Wife does almost all the laundry and she likes the convenience of just transferring the clothes to the dryer next to the washer. Maybe she will have change of heart if I get the clothesline installed out on our back deck. I really like the fresh smell of clothes dried out in the open air, but I know it means extra steps and more work for us if we do that. To me, it's worth it. But as I said, Dear Wife does almost all the laundry.

And before anyone jumps on me for not doing the laundry, I will tell you that Dear Wife does not want me to wash her stuff. I am allowed to wash my dirty clothes, if I want, but it's hands off on her clothes.

Would you believe we even have separate clothes hampers for our dirty laundry? Her basket fills up every two days, mine can go a week or longer before full. Does that make me more frugal than her? Or not?

Post your insults if you must, I can take it.

Hubby and I have separate laundry baskets, each do our own laundry. It probably started back when he worked in a tire plant, came home covered in carbon black. I have nice skirts and fine gauge sweaters/shirts I wear to work, can't wash them with jeans and towels!

I like the smell of clothing dried on a line, but it winds up covered in bugs and wild bird excrement. The clothes dryer is a safer option for me.

 

[SmiYa0126]

Well, these batteries listed on Amazon I was talking about are genuine Ryobi batteries, not knockoffs, but they do not have the Ryobi backing for the 3-year warranty. I suspect a lot of people might not know that fact, and, to me at least, that makes a world of difference.

FYI, last summer I purchased a couple of no-name knockoff Ryobi-type 40v 4Ah batteries for my chainsaw. The first one cut out after only half the charge, showing 2 of 4 bars left on the battery gauge, but would not power the chainsaw. Returned it to Amazon within the 30 day period for a replacement battery. The replacement battery also stopped working when it hit 2 of 4 bars left on the battery. I suspect that company used inferior battery cells or older, reclaimed cells from other packs. Or, maybe they just lied about the capacity of the battery pack. In any case, I ended up returning that second knockoff battery before the 30 day return period for a full refund.

Maybe those knockoff batteries would have worked better in a fan, or something low drain, but they would not power my chainsaw after it hit 2 of 4 bars on the battery gauge. In contrast, my genuine Ryobi batteries run all the way down to the last bar flashing on the fuel gauge. So, I had a really bad experience with the knockoffs.

Those companies that sell knockoff batteries only warranty their batteries for 1 year, and after reading the reviews, lots of those companies seem to disappear from existence within one year never to be heard of again. Probably knowingly sell their junk, warranty it for one year, but plan on taking the company down and out of business before all those warranty returns start to stack up.

If you buy these brand name tools and batteries on Amazon from unauthorized third-party sellers, you can only count on the 30-day Amazon return period.

My point, if you think you are being frugal and saving money by purchasing these brand name tools and batteries on Amazon, you might be sadly mistaken.

I completely agree!

 

[Sally PB]

but it winds up covered in bugs and wild bird excrement.

Yeah, I've had to rewash some things for bird poop. I also got a wasp in a pair of jeans one time... oh my. Did not get stung, but I made lots of "woman seeing a mouse" eeks and screams!

 

[gtaus]

I like the smell of clothing dried on a line, but it winds up covered in bugs and wild bird excrement. The clothes dryer is a safer option for me.

To the bugs and excrement.

 

[LizzzyJo]

Hubby and I have separate laundry baskets, each do our own laundry. It probably started back when he worked in a tire plant, came home covered in carbon black. I have nice skirts and fine gauge sweaters/shirts I wear to work, can't wash them with jeans and towels!

I like the smell of clothing dried on a line, but it winds up covered in bugs and wild bird excrement. The clothes dryer is a safer option for me.

Hubby and I also generally do our own laundry. I never know which of his clothes needs to be dried, etc.

We use Drops laundry detergent, which is plastic free all the way, and dryer lint balls. I like to line dry when I can, but we live in one of the windiest places on Earth, so it's not always an option.

 

[fuzzi]

Hubby and I also generally do our own laundry. I never know which of his clothes needs to be dried, etc.

We use Drops laundry detergent, which is plastic free all the way, and dryer lint balls. I like to line dry when I can, but we live in one of the windiest places on Earth, so it's not always an option.

I have a dryer ball made from wool, love it.

 

[TropicalBabies]

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.

Sorry, did not get notification
Yes, hand turn lol. But only 1x. We added the French drain for some added air and to speed things up. Can get finished compost in 3-4 months if we play it right.
Yes, I was following that thread. Like you I just get so excited about compost (chickens, cats, recycling and life) loved what you had going on. I did have to remove a few inches from my run a few months back and treated it like black gold but no sifting. You are a better man than I. Well, I'm actually not a man at all lol.... still, don't have that kind of dedication.