What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

I have a lot of "free" 5-gallon buckets from Harbor Freight. They are having another free bucket weekend sale at Harbor Freight this weekend...

I am an Inside Track Club member, so I always keep a short list of consumables that I use and will wait until these weekend free bucket sales come around. They have these free bucket sales maybe once every 2-3 months.

I have lots of these buckets and use them for lots of stuff. For example, I use them as tool buckets, trash buckets, storage buckets and toting water when needed.

I have about 6 buckets, with covers, that I use to store all my chicken feed, scratch, and other grains. Keeps the mice out. You can get 25# of feed in each bucket. When I buy chicken feed on sale at the farm store, I put them into these buckets immediately when I get them home. They stack nicely in my garage, and like I said, they keep the rodents out.

On my short list is to convert some of these free buckets into DIY grow buckets for food. I have various plastic bottles and PVC fill tubes to use to complete that project. Basically, just stuff I saved to use for something like this rather than tossing them into the recycle bins for the landfill.

 

[Smokerbill]

I'm not sure this belongs here but I put together a watering wand/sprayer the other day using things I had laying around.

Starting with a splitter valve, I attached a section of 1/2" Pex to one side and a spray nozzle to the other. I used a garden hose fitting that I bought for my drip irrigation system for connecting the pex. I had to soften the tubing with a heat gun to get it onto the hose barb of the fitting.

The Pex wand is nice because I can water next to base of plants without getting the leaves wet. Works great for watering my squash and tomatoes. And it reaches the other side of my 5 foot wide beds.

I use the nozzle to water plants from a distance, that I don't worry about getting the leaves wet. I guess it's a frugal thing because I already had the parts and I wasn't using them for anything at the moment.

 

[saysfaa]

...I'd be interested in what others would do in this case. Would you buy something on clearance expecting you would use it in the future, or would you wait until you actually needed it?

In your scenario - something I expected to buy in a relatively short timeframe for an already identified need- yes, I would.

There was a time I would have bought things when I found such a discount if I thought they might be useful someday. Now, I very, very rarely do. I've found that much too often, I didn't use it. Even if I eventually used it, it tied up time, space, and money that ended up worth more than the 20 bucks or whatever the savings was. Possessions consume energy - even when they don't have to be moved and even when they are stored out of sight. They have a weight to them on the mind and spirit.

One can go too far though. My sister overheard a woman (who had children with her) laughing at children's winter coats being offered at a garage sale saying, "Nobody wears winter coats in June" Did she not realize that winter will come? Incomprehensible.

 

[Sally PB]

Possessions consume energy - even when they don't have to be moved and even when they are stored out of sight. They have a weight to them on the mind and spirit.

So true. A former boss of ours sold his house, sold/gave/stored a lot of possessions, bought a travel trailer, and started traveling. He said it was "very freeing" to get rid of "all the stuff."

He had a beautiful Howard Miller grandfather clock that none of the kids had room for. Hubby bought it for $200, and it's in our library.

 

[Sally PB]

One can go too far though. My sister overheard a woman (who had children with her) laughing at children's winter coats being offered at a garage sale saying, "Nobody wears winter coats in June" Did she not realize that winter will come? Incomprehensible.

 

[gtaus]

There was a time I would have bought things when I found such a discount if I thought they might be useful someday. Now, I very, very rarely do. I've found that much too often, I didn't use it. Even if I eventually used it, it tied up time, space, and money that ended up worth more than the 20 bucks or whatever the savings was. Possessions consume energy - even when they don't have to be moved and even when they are stored out of sight. They have a weight to them on the mind and spirit.

All of what you said is true. I won't deny that.

On the other hand, there is also a cost to not having something available for when you need it. I grew up in a family where my parents would buy stuff on sale at the store and fill our pantry with goods. So maybe I just figured that was the way to approach life.

Dear Wife is almost my polar opposite. She does not want to buy anything (except shoes) until she runs out.

Pre-COVID, I kept telling my wife that we should stock up on non-perishable consumables when they go on sale. You know, all those toilet and paper rolls, for example. It's not like they will go bad sitting on the storage shelf. She saw no reason for stocking anything and just wanted to buy things as needed. That worked fine for us until COVID hit.

Of course, we can all remember the runs on the stores during COVID and when the price of a roll of toilet paper went from 25 cents per roll to as much as $5.00 for a pack of 4. Dear Wife immediately went into panic mode and started buying those paper products for whatever the price if/when they did have the goods on the shelf. Lots of times the stores had bare shelves and there was no toilet paper in the store. Those were bad days.

Long story short, we ended up having a panic closet full of paper products that cost us I would imagine easily 4X-5X times the cost of those items pre-COVID. In fact, we stocked up more toilet paper than I had ever suggested before. At that point, I was telling Dear Wife that I thought we had more than enough in stock and that she did not have to continue to panic buy the stuff. Of course, that fell on deaf ears.

We survived the COVID toilet paper panic buying period, our stock is getting back down to pre-COVID levels, and Dear Wife has forgotten everything. I am back to saying let's stock up on those items when they go on sale, and she is back to saying we don't need any now, so we don't have to buy anything yet. Life is just strange that way.

 

[gtaus]

A former boss of ours sold his house, sold/gave/stored a lot of possessions, bought a travel trailer, and started traveling. He said it was "very freeing" to get rid of "all the stuff."

I can understand that. When I was in college, I spent two summers traveling through Europe. Everything I cared about, at that time, was in my backpack. There is a certain freedom to living like that, even if for only a short period of time.

But I'm a much older guy now, and I really enjoy all my stuff that I have collected over the years. I am good with that, too. It's just a different period of my life, I guess.

 

[fuzzi]

All of what you said is true. I won't deny that.

On the other hand, there is also a cost to not having something available for when you need it. I grew up in a family where my parents would buy stuff on sale at the store and fill our pantry with goods. So maybe I just figured that was the way to approach life.

Dear Wife is almost my polar opposite. She does not want to buy anything (except shoes) until she runs out.

Pre-COVID, I kept telling my wife that we should stock up on non-perishable consumables when they go on sale. You know, all those toilet and paper rolls, for example. It's not like they will go bad sitting on the storage shelf. She saw no reason for stocking anything and just wanted to buy things as needed. That worked fine for us until COVID hit.

Of course, we can all remember the runs on the stores during COVID and when the price of a roll of toilet paper went from 25 cents per roll to as much as $5.00 for a pack of 4. Dear Wife immediately went into panic mode and started buying those paper products for whatever the price if/when they did have the goods on the shelf. Lots of times the stores had bare shelves and there was no toilet paper in the store. Those were bad days.

Long story short, we ended up having a panic closet full of paper products that cost us I would imagine easily 4X-5X times the cost of those items pre-COVID. In fact, we stocked up more toilet paper than I had ever suggested before. At that point, I was telling Dear Wife that I thought we had more than enough in stock and that she did not have to continue to panic buy the stuff. Of course, that fell on deaf ears.

We survived the COVID toilet paper panic buying period, our stock is getting back down to pre-COVID levels, and Dear Wife has forgotten everything. I am back to saying let's stock up on those items when they go on sale, and she is back to saying we don't need any now, so we don't have to buy anything yet. Life is just strange that way.

When there isn't inflation it does not make sense to tie up your liquid assets on items you don't need.

But when prices go up regularly it makes sense to buy and squirrel away what you might/will need later.

 

[fuzzi]

I can understand that. When I was in college, I spent two summers traveling through Europe. Everything I cared about, at that time, was in my backpack. There is a certain freedom to living like that, even if for only a short period of time.

But I'm a much older guy now, and I really enjoy all my stuff that I have collected over the years. I am good with that, too. It's just a different period of my life, I guess.

Hubby and I were contemplating getting a fiberglass trailer and doing the travel life once we both retired. It's not going to happen now, so I am investing in what will help me live where I am.

 

[TooCheep]

But when prices go up regularly it makes sense to buy and squirrel away what you might/will need later.

Yup. If you expect significant inflation (as I do), then it makes sense to convert depreciating dollars into hard assets. Buy things you know you will need anyway. Do maintenance/repairs now rather than later. Do medical procedures now rather than later (ex: Lasik eye procedure).

Obviously, you have to balance how much cash you are spending vs. what you need to maintain for spending/emergencies.