What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Yup!

I bottle every other Thursday, and brew the next day. I do 2 1/2 ish gallons every other week.

When I bottle, I add 1/4 cup montmorency cherry juice. I let the bottles sit at room temperature (secondary ferment) until Monday, and then they go in the fridge.

Yum! I like the cherry juice idea. I usually did plain, ginger, basil (I think it was basil... or did I do mint?), or sometimes add some fruit.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

For those of you who drink well water, do you ever have concern about pesticides and herbicides leeching into your water supply?

I'm not trying to scare anyone, but I ask because I'm curious if this is a concern or if wells are somehow not effected by the chemicals because of how deep they are.

 

[paintedChix]

Nothing like the fresh smell of clothes hung out on a clothesline. But I know it's a lot more work than tossing them into a dryer right next to the washing machine. Well, that, and here in northern Minnesota using a clothesline outside is not a viable option for about six months out of the year.

I have had to start filling up containers only half full these days compared to when I was a younger man. It might take me a little longer to get the job done, but I'm OK with that. I would rather take smaller loads safely then trying to haul one heavy load and risk wrenching my back, for example.

For yardwork, I bought myself a Gorilla cart with four wheels. Much easier than using a one-wheeled wheelbarrow. I use it for moving all kinds of stuff. In your case, you could probably load up smaller baskets of wet clothes to take out to the clothesline. No need to risk reinjuring your broken ankle...

View attachment 4007642
I actually have three different kinds of four-wheeled carts because of what I need. I bought some off-brand carts on sale at Menards. Gorilla brand carts might be the Gold Standard, but I saved some money buying non-Gorilla brand carts. In any case, I use my carts all the time and my one-wheeled wheelbarrow is basically retired.

I just got to an age where it was worth it to me to pay extra for these four-wheeled carts which allow me to do so much more, and safer, than I could with the old wheelbarrow. It was well worth the investment.

BONUS TIP: If you are interested in getting a four-wheeled cart, I strongly recommend getting a cart that has the handle that will convert from hand pulling to riding mower towing hitch. That is what you see in the picture I post above. You can buy less expensive carts with just a hand pull handle, but I do lots of yardwork and fill up my carts with topsoil or heavy wood. It's great to have the option to hitch the cart to the riding mower and let the machine do the towing.

Way ahead of you on the carts. Used 2 wheeled carts (Rubbermaid) in late 90s & got our 1st 4 wheeled ones by 2008. And using them to haul loads (bricks, cinderblock, kindling, cut fire wood) w/ a pair of ponies pulling...

 

[AGeese]

For those of you who drink well water, do you ever have concern about pesticides and herbicides leeching into your water supply?

I'm not trying to scare anyone, but I ask because I'm curious if this is a concern or if wells are somehow not effected by the chemicals because of how deep they are.

I'm in crop dust alley so I have thought about it. Though when I test with my Zerowater tester, the PPM are far lower than city water. Haven't tested my pump yet.

 

[SkyAJK]

Nothing like the fresh smell of clothes hung out on a clothesline. But I know it's a lot more work than tossing them into a dryer right next to the washing machine. Well, that, and here in northern Minnesota using a clothesline outside is not a viable option for about six months out of the year.

I have had to start filling up containers only half full these days compared to when I was a younger man. It might take me a little longer to get the job done, but I'm OK with that. I would rather take smaller loads safely then trying to haul one heavy load and risk wrenching my back, for example.

For yardwork, I bought myself a Gorilla cart with four wheels. Much easier than using a one-wheeled wheelbarrow. I use it for moving all kinds of stuff. In your case, you could probably load up smaller baskets of wet clothes to take out to the clothesline. No need to risk reinjuring your broken ankle...

View attachment 4007642
I actually have three different kinds of four-wheeled carts because of what I need. I bought some off-brand carts on sale at Menards. Gorilla brand carts might be the Gold Standard, but I saved some money buying non-Gorilla brand carts. In any case, I use my carts all the time and my one-wheeled wheelbarrow is basically retired.

I just got to an age where it was worth it to me to pay extra for these four-wheeled carts which allow me to do so much more, and safer, than I could with the old wheelbarrow. It was well worth the investment.

BONUS TIP: If you are interested in getting a four-wheeled cart, I strongly recommend getting a cart that has the handle that will convert from hand pulling to riding mower towing hitch. That is what you see in the picture I post above. You can buy less expensive carts with just a hand pull handle, but I do lots of yardwork and fill up my carts with topsoil or heavy wood. It's great to have the option to hitch the cart to the riding mower and let the machine do the towing.

I got this similar wheel carts for garden work, but it is now housing my mother hen and chick while my 2 dogs pee on the wheels. It is be a long time before I get to use it for garden work as mother hen and chick are Japanese bantams, they love living in this carts and it suits them just perfect.

 

[SkyAJK]

My frugal tip is collect throw out cardboard boxes from the bottle shops to use as chicken coop bedding. This required me to remove it every morning and put in new one. I just undo the cardboard and flat it out in the chicken coop. I found that this is handy that it stops the lice/mites build up in the coop. The negative side is that it fills up my bin very quickly. I fold it many times to make sure I have enough room in the bin until next collection day.

 

[saysfaa]

For those of you who drink well water, do you ever have concern about pesticides and herbicides leeching into your water supply?

I'm not trying to scare anyone, but I ask because I'm curious if this is a concern or if wells are somehow not effected by the chemicals because of how deep they are.

I'm not worried about this partly because the water was tested. When I lived on an active farm, it was tested regularly.

Drinking water testing is quite straight forward and well worth doing even when not near farming.

 

[gtaus]

Way ahead of you on the carts. Used 2 wheeled carts (Rubbermaid) in late 90s & got our 1st 4 wheeled ones by 2008. And using them to haul loads (bricks, cinderblock, kindling, cut fire wood) w/ a pair of ponies pulling...

Yep. I got by with a one-wheeled wheelbarrow for about 40 years, but after I got my first 4-wheeled cart I wondered why I did know about them before! IMHO, the 4-wheeled carts are definitely worth the extra money, especially as I got older.

My first 4-wheeled cart was stolen out of my front yard, even though I had a large wooden planter loaded on it at the time. They left the planter, but took the cart. Cops told me it was easy drug money, most probably. Since then, I only leave my carts in the backyard, out of sight, out of mind.

 

[gtaus]

My frugal tip is collect throw out cardboard boxes from the bottle shops to use as chicken coop bedding. This required me to remove it every morning and put in new one. I just undo the cardboard and flat it out in the chicken coop. I found that this is handy that it stops the lice/mites build up in the coop. The negative side is that it fills up my bin very quickly. I fold it many times to make sure I have enough room in the bin until next collection day.

Have you tried shredding the cardboard and using it as deep bedding in the coop?

I have been using shredded paper and cardboard as deep bedding for over 2 years now, replacing it once every six months, and it works great. After it gets used as coop deep bedding, it gets tossed out into the chicken run to compost in place. Then the compost is used in my raised bed gardens. It's a great way to reuse a valuable free resource that so many people would consider trash.

I have never used cardboard flat, and then folded it up to put into a bin. I can tell you that my shredded cardboard breaks down into compost in only a few months outside in my chicken run. Shredded cardboard mixes well with green material, like grass clippings, and that will speed up the composting process. I would think that shredded cardboard with all that surface area would break down much faster than flattened cardboard in a bin.

I got a few used paper shredders at our local church Thrift Shop for less than $5.00 each. They work great for most paper products. When I shred cardboard, I have to cut the boxes into strips about 2 inches wide and fed them down the center slot marked for credit cards. That way, the heavier cardboard does not overload and break my paper shredders.

It's well worth my time and effort to shred the paper and cardboard and use it as coop litter. It would take me a lot longer to drive all those paper products 20 miles down the road to the recycle center. I also get a lot of satisfaction know that I am recycling almost 100% of my paper products at home instead of them ending up in a landfill somewhere.

 

[gtaus]

For those of you who drink well water, do you ever have concern about pesticides and herbicides leeching into your water supply?

I don't. I live on a lake and our regulations are really strict. It wasn't always that way, but the last 50 years or so has really cleaned up any runoff from farms.

I'm not trying to scare anyone, but I ask because I'm curious if this is a concern or if wells are somehow not effected by the chemicals because of how deep they are.

Our fresh water wells are anywhere between 100 to 300 feet. That's a lot of natural filtration. I had the water tested when we had the well put in, but that was maybe 25 years ago. It passed, and I don't believe there are any requirements for further testing.

When I was growing up, back in the 1960's, my grandparents had a lake cabin with a shallow water manual hand pump, maybe 15 or 20 feet deep. We had that water tested every year.

I was too young to know why, but I suspect that a shallow water well is more prone to contaminants.

I remember more than once pumping the lever and a frog flushing out into the bucket, jar, glass, etc...!

You quickly learned to pump out a gallon or more of water before you filled your drinking glass!