What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[LizzzyJo]

My blackberries and cherry tomatoes are coming in and I get to use my stashed “disposable” grocery store plastic berry containers for them for the umpteenth year in a row Youcant recycle them but you can reuse them!

 

[jpalmatier83]

Oh, yes! I want to tell ya’ll about raising rechargeable batteries from death!
I tore off the end of an old cell phone charger and carefully laid the bare wires onto the corresponding poles. Hold it there about 2 mins. Plug in the phone charger. Take care not to zap yourself. Place the battery back on its charger. If it still shows error, zap it again, try on charger. Do this until you give up or have enough charge on the battery for it to trigger the recharge chip of the charger. I extended my Makita battery about 5 years doing this.

If you’re talking about rechargeable power tool batteries, yes, that will temporarily fix them. You’re essentially forcing a charge into the cells that are messing with the charger to bring them back to a level that’s about the same as the others and will allow the charger to function.

Power tool batteries are actually made of a number of 1.2v “sub-c” batteries joined in series. So, a 12v has 10 of them, an 18v has 15, etc…

Typically only one or two of these will go bad and interrupt charging cycles, but that’s enough to get error codes or really shorten battery life.

Battery refurbishment companies will crack open the case, unsolder the batteries, replace the one or two bad cells and resell the battery.

If you’re handy and motivated you can do the same thing. And last time I checked, stores like Batteries + Bulbs actually stock the sub-C batteries. Just make sure not to mix nicad, nimh, or lithium. It’s also better to have similar amp hour cells for best performance from the charger and the pack.

 

[gtaus]

What about a crock with a dipper, like the Old days…

Never heard of using a crock with a dipper for butter. I'm pretty old, but I only remember getting butter in plastic bowls. When the butter was gone, the plastic bowls were washed out and used as cereal and soup bowls. They were nice big bowels, too, not small like our regular dishes.

Thinking about that, it's too bad that we don't have more plastic items that can be reused at home instead of being tossed out as trash or sent to a recycling center at best. Was there not something like mayonnaise jars with handles that you could use as mugs when empty?

I would certainly like to see more food packaged in reusable containers instead of a one use and throw it away in the landfill.

FWIW. after years of asking Dear Wife not to throw out plastic food grade containers with lids, like Cool Whip bowls, she finally got warm to the idea of saving them for leftovers to give away at parties. Not that I had anything to do with changing her mind. She would toss out all those plastic food grade containers and buy cheap plastic stuff at WalMart. Then, she went to a party with her friends and the host sent some leftovers with my wife in a Cool Whip bowl.

Hey, that's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that!?

So, now we are saving the Cool Whip containers to give away, too.

 

[gtaus]

f you’re talking about rechargeable power tool batteries, yes, that will temporarily fix them. You’re essentially forcing a charge into the cells that are messing with the charger to bring them back to a level that’s about the same as the others and will allow the charger to function.
...
Typically only one or two of these will go bad and interrupt charging cycles, but that’s enough to get error codes or really shorten battery life.

If you have one or two battery cells go bad, you can propably shock it back to life enough to charge it, like you said. But you will probably notice that the battery pack is never as good as it was. It might have a shorter run time and show up again as defective in the near future.

The other case, one that I have dealt with, is that for some reason the power tool drains the battery below the recharge level and caused the charger to think the battery is defective. In that case, if you can shock the battery pack and get it back on the charger, then you should have a battery pack about as good as new.

Battery refurbishment companies will crack open the case, unsolder the batteries, replace the one or two bad cells and resell the battery.

Unfortunately, where I live, the refurbished batteries cost more than buying new packs. At least for the Ryobi batteries that I was looking to buy at the time.

If you’re handy and motivated you can do the same thing. And last time I checked, stores like Batteries + Bulbs actually stock the sub-C batteries. Just make sure not to mix nicad, nimh, or lithium. It’s also better to have similar amp hour cells for best performance from the charger and the pack.

There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to harvest battery cells from dead battery packs. There might be only one or two defective cells in the pack, but that is enough for the charger to report the pack is defective. If you had maybe 4 or 5 "defective" battery packs, you might be able to harvest and rebuild 3 or 4 good battery packs from the good cells you saved.

But, like you said, you have to be sure not to mix types of batteries in the pack. They should all be the same type.

 

[-Chanticleer-]

Dog treat bowls I got from the dollar store. I turned the bowl into a waterer for my quails. I can open the top to add ice or meds without having to turn it upside down. Food grade plastic. I have a small flock of 8

 

[gtaus]

On the gardening thread, someone mentioned that I could use leftover pickle juice from an empty jar of pickles and pickle hard boiled eggs in that juice. I'm going to try that tonight.

Never had pickled hard boiled eggs, so don't know if I will like it. If it turns out good, it's a great way to reuse that pickle juice before you dump it down the drain. IIRC, they suggested only using the pickle juice once for the eggs and then dumping it.

I'm thinking the pickled eggs might go good on a salad. I like pickled beans and beets, so maybe pickled eggs will be tasty as well.

 

[jpalmatier83]

On the gardening thread, someone mentioned that I could use leftover pickle juice from an empty jar of pickles and pickle hard boiled eggs in that juice. I'm going to try that tonight.

Never had pickled hard boiled eggs, so don't know if I will like it. If it turns out good, it's a great way to reuse that pickle juice before you dump it down the drain. IIRC, they suggested only using the pickle juice once for the eggs and then dumping it.

I'm thinking the pickled eggs might go good on a salad. I like pickled beans and beets, so maybe pickled eggs will be tasty as well.

Oh, man, I love pickled eggs.

I’ve never reused old pickle juice. I typically go from scratch. The only reason that may matter, the liquid I use is warm. I don’t know how well reheating pickle juice would hold up.

Throw in a couple sliced jalapeño peppers.

 

[gtaus]

Oh, man, I love pickled eggs.

I’ve never reused old pickle juice. I typically go from scratch. The only reason that may matter, the liquid I use is warm. I don’t know how well reheating pickle juice would hold up.

Throw in a couple sliced jalapeño peppers.

Oh no! Nobody said I had to heat up the pickle juice. I just put the hard boiled eggs in the cold pickle juice in the pickle jar. Do I have to take out the eggs and heat or boil the pickle juice before I reuse it?

When I made my Spicy Pickled Beans, I boiled the pickle juice because I had to cook and blend all the fresh ingredients. It never occurred to me that I would have to reheat or reboil used pickle juice.

I don't have jalapeno peppers, but I do have banana peppers I could slice up and put in the jar. That sounds good.

 

[canne50]

Never heard of using a crock with a dipper for butter. I'm pretty old, but I only remember getting butter in plastic bowls. When the butter was gone, the plastic bowls were washed out and used as cereal and soup bowls. They were nice big bowels, too, not small like our regular dishes.

Thinking about that, it's too bad that we don't have more plastic items that can be reused at home instead of being tossed out as trash or sent to a recycling center at best. Was there not something like mayonnaise jars with handles that you could use as mugs when empty?

I would certainly like to see more food packaged in reusable containers instead of a one use and throw it away in the landfill.

FWIW. after years of asking Dear Wife not to throw out plastic food grade containers with lids, like Cool Whip bowls, she finally got warm to the idea of saving them for leftovers to give away at parties. Not that I had anything to do with changing her mind. She would toss out all those plastic food grade containers and buy cheap plastic stuff at WalMart. Then, she went to a party with her friends and the host sent some leftovers with my wife in a Cool Whip bowl.

Hey, that's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that!?

So, now we are saving the Cool Whip containers to give away, too.

I’m sorry, I thought the crock would be for iced tea, water, or sangria. We use small covered crocks for homemade butter.
That’s a commendable practice for a couple of times. The ‘disposable’ plastic bowls like coolwhip, margarine, sour cream, etc. are not food grade after a few washings. Evidently, the very thin layer of food grade plastic is extremely thin and not meant to be durable. This is why I use plastic storage containers sparingly for food storage reuse.
Do ya’ll remember having store bought jams and jellies in glass with a metal lid. When the jelly was gone we had small or juice size glasses.
I don’t remember handles on mayonnaise jars, but we used them for canning in hot bath method only. Any pressure canning was only done with Mason, or Ball jars because they tend to be thicker and higher quality.
I save my Yankee or Villiage Candle jars for candy gifts at Christmas. The little bitty jars are cute for gifting red pepper jelly.
Best to ya’ll!

 

[Sally PB]

I'm pretty old, but I only remember getting butter in plastic bowls. When the butter was gone, the plastic bowls were washed out and used as cereal and soup bowls. They were nice big bowels, too, not small like our regular dishes.

Oh, man, thanks for the memories! We had a cupboard FULL of the plastic bowls. My mom would try to buy the butter that was in "our favorite" colors. I recall red, olive green, a brighter green, yellow, and once! a blue one. They were heavy duty plastic too.