What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Sally PB]

I don't have store credit cards. Yes, I would pay them in full every month, just like I do my Mastercard. But stories like yours make me not want to have more cards in my wallet.

If I have an issue with my MC, I can talk to someone at the bank. In fact, I pay my bill at the bank because it's right in front of my usual grocery store. All the tellers know me. Even when I have a problem, I go in with a smile on my face and am patient while they look into it.

The cash back (1.666% because it's Fifth Third Bank, yes that's their name, really) might be less, and I don't do anything with "categories," but the people are nice and helpful.

 

[gtaus]

I don't have store credit cards. Yes, I would pay them in full every month, just like I do my Mastercard. But stories like yours make me not want to have more cards in my wallet.

Yeah, I'm cutting back on my store credit cards, too. They might offer some good incentives, but when there is a problem, it's just not worth all the time and effort to get things corrected.

If I have an issue with my MC, I can talk to someone at the bank.

I think face to face service like that is worth something. I do much better talking to a person than trying to navigate through one phone menu option after another, and never getting to where I need to go to get a problem solved.

I buy lots of stuff at Harbor Freight. If you get the Harbor Freight credit card you get 5% back in Harbor Freight rewards that can only be used at their store. When the system works, it's fine. But I have had more than one problem with the Harbor Freight credit card in the past year. When you have a problem, you will find out that the Harbor Freight store employees and managers will tell you that they have nothing to do with the credit card company and that you need to call them. When you call the Harbor Freight credit card reps, they tell you that the store screwed up!

Case in point, after you buy $100 of merchandise on your Harbor Freight credit card, you receive a $5.00 coupon for a purchase at the store. That sounds great, but you have to use all the $5.00 on a single purchase or forfeit the remaining balance. Next, if you have purchased a number of items and used your Rewards Coupon for the purchase, if you return ANYTHING on that receipt, you forfeit that $5.00 off the top first and will not get it back. So, only use the Rewards Coupon for consumable items that you know you will never return.

The store employees will not tell you that because they don't know, or say they don't know, and the Harbor Freight credit card company reps won't give you the correct answer either. Turns out that different credit card reps will give you different answers, but the system itself will not refund your Rewards Coupon if you return an item. Ask me how I know!?

I know because I had to return a 13 inch utility wheel that would not fit on my wagon because the hub size was too small. The Harbor Freight store employee that did the return told me that the credit card would reissue my $5.00 coupon that I used on that purchase. Frankly, I did not believe him so I asked for a manager. The manager said that the credit card company would refund the $5.00 lost on the return, no problem. I said that was fine, just write that on the refund receipt along with both their names. Of course, the credit card never reissued the $5.00 coupon, so after a number of attempts to call them, I finally got to talk to a live person, sent them a photocopy of the receipt with signatures of the store manager and employee, so they agreed to reissue another $5.00 rewards coupon to me in that one, and only, instance.

Too often I find these store credit cards appear to run a scam on you by telling you one thing and then actually doing something else. When you call them on it, they claim someone must have misinformed you. Yeah, right, you did!

So good for you that you use a credit card at a bank where you can talk to real people to solve issues. There is real value in that relationship.

 

[Sally PB]

at a bank where you can talk to real people to solve issues. There is real value in that relationship.

Absolutely. And since it's a small town, I see the bank people at the store or the gas station. I make a point to smile and say hello when I do.

I also try to make a personal connection with anyone I see regularly in any kind of service capacity. I noticed one bank teller's turquoise hair (some day I'm going to dye my hair purple! haha), one had a really cute stuffed bird ornament on her computer. If they mention a dog, I ask about their dog. If I hear they've had a baby or been on a nice vacation, I ask about that.

This is not to shmooze, but to let them know I see them as a person, not just "the bank teller." Having been on the other side of the counter, I appreciated a customer doing that.

 

[gtaus]

Still Losing The Battle...

Just a quick rant here. I'm still upset that I cannot make any headway against the false idea that water must be bottled in plastic and bought on the shelf or it is no good. Not only that, but you cannot reuse those plastic bottles of water once emptied without shame for being cheap!

I live on a lake, and our water control laws and regulations make it impossible to do anything (legally) that would pollute our lakes. We have hard well water, which I think is perhaps even better than anything we could buy in plastic bottle. I grew up with the taste of well water, so I prefer the taste of well water to soft water or city water with fluoride and other chemicals in it.

Anyways, Dear Wife continues to purchase bottled water for her use at work. If she does not bring her water, they charge $1.00 per bottle of water in the vending machines. So, yeah, it's cheaper to bring your own. But when I ask why she just does not get a refillable water flask or thermos, or even just refill some of her bottled water containers, she just looks at me like I am from a different planet. "Nobody refills their water bottles at work. You just don't do that!"

I truly don't understand how we have become a society that pays big bucks for water treatment centers, pay more per gallon for clean tap water in our house, and then are convinced that we now need to buy water in one use, throw away and pollute the environment for hundreds of years, plastic water bottles?

And yes, I mean hundreds of years. I'm not a chemist, but I asked my new best friend, ChapGPT AI how long it takes for a plastic bottle to decompose in a landfill, and this is the answer I got:

"A plastic water bottle can take 450 to 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill, depending on the type of plastic and environmental conditions. Here's a breakdown of the factors involved:..."

I have no doubt that everyone at the office where Dear Wife works all buy plastic water bottles and toss them out after first use. I have no doubt that people might be shamed if they, god forbid, should refill a bottle of water. I am wondering if anyone here on the forum notices this where they work, a kind of social pressure, to actually do the wrong thing (IMHO) and buy water in plastic bottles that are used once and tossed into the waste stream to pollute our environment for a hundred years or more?

Obviously, my rant does not apply to those who live in areas where the tap water is not safe to drink. I was stationed in Naples, Italy for 2 years and we had to buy bottle water for drinking and cooking because the local water was not safe to drink. And I mean really "not safe to drink." In fact, the Navy would send out trucks with huge containers of clean water to base housing that our service members and family could refill their water containers with clean water and not go broke buying water for the family use. We called those tanker trucks "water buffalos". But that was the only place I have ever lived where I felt it necessary to buy bottled water.

Rant over. Thanks for any comments if you made it this far. Would love to hear other thoughts, for or against, on this subject of bottled water that affects us both in the frugal sense and sustainable life style.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

I’ve been drinking tap water as far back as I can remember. I end up with bottled water occasionally (EX: it’s being handed out on a flight) and the empties get shoved into suitcases to refill past security for the next flight.

 

[Sally PB]

"Nobody refills their water bottles at work. You just don't do that!"

Hubby and I do. We have designated glass bottles (from my kombucha bottle stash) that are our water bottles. They get a trip through the dish washer every now and then. We might buy a bottle of water on a road trip. For hubby's last two road trips, he took his 6 bottles, full of water. On one of them, he also took 4 gallons of RO tap water with him.

The recyclables come home with us and go in our recycle bin.

 

[gtaus]

I’ve been drinking tap water as far back as I can remember. I end up with bottled water occasionally (EX: it’s being handed out on a flight) and the empties get shoved into suitcases to refill past security for the next flight.

Yeah, I don't want to pretend that I would never buy bottled water. I just do everything I can to NOT have to buy bottled water.

Hubby and I do. We have designated glass bottles (from my kombucha bottle stash) that are our water bottles. They get a trip through the dish washer every now and then. We might buy a bottle of water on a road trip.

I don't have any glass bottles for refilling. But I do like the idea of sending them through the dishwasher to clean and sanitize them every once in a while. Most of the plastic bottles that I toss into the recycle bin have been used a number of times, but if they get left out in the sun, or forgotten in the hot car, for example, I won't reuse that plastic bottle.

For hubby's last two road trips, he took his 6 bottles, full of water. On one of them, he also took 4 gallons of RO tap water with him.

During the summer, I end up taking some long trips to work on property in another town. I'll fill up empty water bottles with ice tea and freeze them. I put them in my lunch bag/cooler which keeps the food fresh, while at the same time I still have cold ice tea later in the day when I drive back home.

The recyclables come home with us and go in our recycle bin.

Oh, we toss all our recyclables into the bins as well. It is just my belief that little to none of those plastic products are every recycled.

I read the laws in my state about how those recyclable products must be used. By law, they are supposed to be recycled. In theory, that's a great idea. In practice, after mentioning all the possible uses of making new products from used plastics, there is an escape clause that those products can be sold to any other "recycle" center for use. I suspect that means that you can sell (actually have to pay for transfer of) your plastic waste to a third world country "recycler" and you are off the hook. If it ends up in their landfill, you still have fulfilled the requirements of my state to "reuse" those plastics. They can probably just sell to another state "recycler" and that still counts - as long as it does not end up in our state landfills they get credit for having "recycled" that plastic.

The article that I read boasted about how much of our plastics in my state get "recycled." Currently, 45% of all our plastics are recycled, with a future goal of 75% recycled use, by their definition. But nowhere could you find what percentage of that plastic was made into other products versus how much was just transferred to an out of state, or out of country, "recycler" which still counts as having recycled plastic waste.

Here is all I could find on the actual percentages of plastics reused...

"In terms of plastics specifically, detailed statistics on the exact percentage reused in new products were not readily available. - ChatGPT response."

I suspect there is a good reason that you cannot find those statistics. Nobody wants you to know that almost all of our waste plastic ends up in someone else's landfill, or worse, just dumped into the oceans...

 

[saysfaa]

I worked in a call center with several hundred people in one huge room. Most people brought refillable water bottles - maybe 2/3 to 3/4 at any given time. I think some of those who had single use water bottles brought them only sometimes - I did once in a while when life happened that day. Only one other person that I know of brought a glass refillable bottle, though.

At various workplaces I go as a customer, I think more people use single use bottles but not so overwelmingly so that reusable bottles look noteworthy.

 

[gtaus]

I worked in a call center with several hundred people in one huge room. Most people brought refillable water bottles - maybe 2/3 to 3/4 at any given time. I think some of those who had single use water bottles brought them only sometimes - I did once in a while when life happened that day. Only one other person that I know of brought a glass refillable bottle, though.

I am glad to hear that some places, some people, are using refillable water bottles. It gives me some hope. When I was working, I had a insulated refillable big Gulp type mug with a lid that I kept ice water in. I like my water cold, so the insulated mug was better for me.

 

[gtaus]

Repurposing Junk Mail Paper

I have not had to purchase new printer paper for years. I still have a number of reams of new printer paper in a box that I bought about 7 years ago. That is because most of what I print out is only temporary stuff to be marked up and tossed out. For those draft, or working copy printouts, I just load the printer up with the backside of junk mail paper that is blank.

When I get junk mail, I'll open it up and check to see if the backside of any page is blank for use in my printer. If it has writing on both sides, it gets immediately fed into the paper shredder to make coop litter. But if the backside is blank, I save it for use for printing out draft copies of things I might need it for.

After I print on the backside of that junk paper, it gets fed into my paper shredder and turned into coop bedding for the chickens. After being used as coop bedding for about 6 months, it gets tossed out into the chicken run to compost in place along with my leaves, dried grass, wood chips, etc... Then I take that finished compost and put it in my raised bed gardens.

Obviously, I am not saving a lot of money by using the backside of junk mail paper, but I go through maybe half a ream of used paper every month and only a few new sheets are needed for final printing for me. More importantly, I am reusing some of that junk mail one more time before it gets shredded up to make coop litter. That reduces my need for purchasing new paper while at the same time reduces the amount of junk mail getting tossed into our landfills.

Actually, almost none of my paper products gets sent to the recycle center anymore. Even my cardboard is shredded to make bedding, then composted in the chicken run. All these little things add up and I have not had to haul any paper products to the recycle center for over three years now.

If we all do some small things for a better, cleaner world, I like to think our collective efforts will have an impact that will mean something.

Here are some 13 Ways To Repurpose Junk Mail Instead Of Sending It To The Trash that you might find interesting.