What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Molpet]

Yep. My local Fleet store only sells the ceramic eggs, and they are about $3.00 each. Amazon was selling colored wooden eggs for about $1.00 each. It's probably a once in lifetime purchase, either way, but I wanted to save some money. I think having fake eggs in the nest box does encourage the hens to keep laying in the next box. For me, it was a good purchase.

Actually I have been using golf balls... mostly because the wooden eggs keep disappearing. The first time I found them halfway to the creek with scratches on them . Also when dirty they look like dirty eggs. I found that out when I washed one to cook

I also use dated real turkey eggs because my turkeys can tell the difference. Turkey eggs are harder to get broken.

I bought some fillable easter eggs last year on clearance. I filled with sand and taped close. 2 and a golf ball are missing from nesting places in poultry yard. 2 were broken open in the coops and no one is using the boxes that still have them.

 

[gtaus]

Amazon but I try to avoid buying from them.

I can understand that. However, Amazon does sell things I cannot get locally. If our local stores carry an item, they usually have a competitive price compared to Amazon or they know they might lose the sale. Unfortunately, more and more local stores are opting to carry things online only and trying to become more like Amazon. If I go into our local store, and they tell me I can order the item, I don't hesitate to order from Amazon and just get it cheaper and faster in many cases.

Dear Wife is a Filipina. She cannot buy some of her favorite native foods locally. The closest Asian store that stocks her favorite items is 7 hours round trip by car. But Amazon carries many of her items. Considering the time and expense to drive 7 hours, it is cheaper to order from Amazon.

It would be cheaper to buy those items at the Asian store, so when the girls get together for a shopping run - about twice a year - I give Dear Wife some extra money and tell her to stock up to save on items that have a long shelf life. It's an all-day shopping trip for the girls because of the long drive. But they have fun.

One of my challenges has been trying to convince Dear Wife that she should stock up on goods when they go on those trips. She grew up shopping for food every day, as in the case in many countries. She just never developed the notion of buying more than what you need for the day. You buy what you need, for today, at today's price. That's not a very frugal approach to buying food goods. But, since we don't have many of her favorite native foods locally, she has gotten better at buying more on those trips and stocking up at home.

I grew up in a house where my parents would buy groceries and stock up a panty full of food. Usually, one would buy stuff on sale and restock the shelves. That saved us a lot of money, but you have to plan ahead and be sure to rotate your stock on the shelves.

Anyways, Dear Wife and I have different approaches to buying goods and that is something that we have had to work out over our 36+ years of marriage. I buy stuff on sale and stock up, and she buys stuff from Amazon when she needs it. Somehow, we make it work.

 

[BDutch]

I don't know if you have Amazon there in the Netherlands, but I had to order my wooden eggs from them.

We can buy from Amazon, but I wont buy from a horrible company/guy like Jeff Bezos. There are more like them/him in this world. I try to avoid all of them.

His company is not sustainable for sure. Taking the money he owns to space, polluting the environment with unnecessary use of greenhouse gasses and underpaying the workers.
Please stop promoting Amazingly bad companies in this thread.

 

[Molpet]

I grew up in a house where my parents would buy groceries and stock up a panty full of food. Usually, one would buy stuff on sale and restock the shelves. That saved us a lot of money, but you have to plan ahead and be sure to rotate your stock on the shelves.

Same here.
I always am very glad to have winter stockpile. Also when I got covid....

 

[BDutch]

Actually I have been using golf balls... mostly because the wooden eggs keep disappearing. The first time I found them halfway to the creek with scratches on them . Also when dirty they look like dirty eggs. I found that out when I washed one to cook

My neighbour took the chalk eggs to cook when we were on a vacation and she was chickensitting.
The rubber ones often disappeared (with permission) when curious children were asking questions about the bigger brown egg.

I have marked the chalk eggs with a waterproof marker bc they look so real.
And yes they do get dirty. But they are easy to wash.

 

[BDutch]

I grew up in a house where my parents would buy groceries and stock up a panty full of food. Usually, one would buy stuff on sale and restock the shelves. That saved us a lot of money, but you have to plan ahead and be sure to rotate your stock on the shelves.

Yes! Ditto.
But sometimes I got tempted to buy things that are not very good/tasteful. So now I try to limit myself with well known products.

 

[gtaus]

Please stop promoting Amazingly bad companies in this thread.

I only promote items or companies where I can get good sales or service. That has value to me. Also, I live in small rural area and online shopping has really been a big plus for me. A person might easily find an alternative store to support depending on where they live. My options are more limited.

Feel free to provide alternative links for products from other companies that may be more worthy of support. I don't mind. I remain open to better options, if available.

 

[gtaus]

Using Rainchecks for Feed Management Purchases

Last week, our local Fleet store had a sale on the chicken layer pellets that I usually buy for my chickens. It was $2.00 off per bag, or 15% discount. That's about the best I ever see for sale prices on feed. So, I went into town and was going to pick up a couple bags of feed. I was down to about a week left of layer pellets in my 5-gallon storage bucket.

Unfortunately, they did not have any of that brand in the store. Somebody messed up on their shipments, or so I was told. Anyways, they offered to give me a Raincheck at the sale price.

Hmm, I got to thinking. My favorite method to save money on chicken feed is to buy a broken "Oops" bag at a discount. But you can never guarantee those will be available. Of course, I wanted to pick up a raincheck for the feed at the current sale price. At the customer service desk, I asked if there was any expiration date on their rainchecks. They told there was no expiration date.

So, instead of asking for one raincheck for 2 bags of feed, I asked if I could get 2 rainchecks for 1 bag each. The young girl at the counter was puzzled, so I told her that I wanted to buy one bag this month, and the other bag next month. That way, the feed would be fresher than if I had to store it at home in my garage for a month or two.

I got my 2 rainchecks, for 1 bag each, and they should get a shipment for that feed sometime this week. My plan is to stretch out the purchases so I will be buying the freshest stock only when I need it.

When I got home, I started thinking that if the rainchecks do not expire, I should get some more of them. That way, I could buy the open "Oops" bags whenever I can at a bigger discount and just use the sale price rainchecks if I run out of feed for the chickens. That would give me a lot of flexibility in my purchases and still get the sale price in the future only when I need fresh feed.

I recently picked up one "Oops" bag of layer crumbles at 40% off, and another at 50% off! Both were almost completely full. But our Fleet store sometimes offers a bigger discount if the bag is ripped pretty bad. I don't mind. I weigh the feed at home and it's always close to 50# per bag. So, I come out ahead. Normally, you might only get about a 20% discount, or even less. But still, it's worth it.

Long Term Storage of Feed to Save Money

FWIW, I store all my feeds in 5-gallon buckets with airtight lids. That helps keep the feed fresh. I have lots of those 5-gallon buckets from Harbor Freight "free" bucket sale weekends...

Well, the buckets are free, but you have to buy the lids separately. The lids at Harbor Freight are $2.99 each. I get my bucket lids at Home Depot where I get a 10% military discount...

Those bucket lids really close down airtight on the buckets. That is good. But they are a real pain to take off. For long term storage of feed, however, I like them because they have a big ring on top which allows me to stack up the buckets securely, even 3 or 4 high.

When it gets to the point of using a bucket of feed, I take off those airtight lids and replace it with an easy off lid that I get from WalMart...

Those do a good enough job for the buckets I need to remove the lid every day to take out some feed. I put those buckets with the easy off lids on top of the stack of the other buckets. Because of the lid design on the easy off lid, they do not stack as securely as the long-term lids.

Buying feed on sale or getting rainchecks for feed at sale prices, picking up "Oops" bags at heavy discounts when available, and storing feed in those free 5-gallon buckets saves me maybe up to a couple hundred dollars every year. It's certainly worth my time and effort. Multiply that by 5 years of having chickens, and it adds up to a lot of money, for me anyways.

 

[saysfaa]

Do you have a bucket lid wrench?

It is still worth switching to easy off lids for buckets opened frequently. Or Gamma lids if you want the extra security or stability or ease of use compared to standard lids.

 

[gtaus]

Do you have a bucket lid wrench?

It is still worth switching to easy off lids for buckets opened frequently. Or Gamma lids if you want the extra security or stability or ease of use compared to standard lids.

I have never seen a bucket lid wrench. Now, I'll have to look into getting one! For as many buckets as I use for storage, it might be worth the money. Thanks.

As for the Gamma lids, they are nice but also much more expensive. I only have one Gamma lid that screws on/off to my 5-gallon hanging PVC bucket feeder in my chicken coop. The extra money for the Gamma lid in that application was worth it to me. But in the garage, the easy off lids are great for every day access. I'll have to check out those bucket lid wrenches for my airtight lids. I have never seen them in the stores, so maybe it will have to be an online purchase.

For those who don't know what a Gamma lid is...

It has an outer ring that snaps on to the bucket tightly, and the inner lid can be easily screwed on/off. Great for buckets that you need to get into frequently. However, they are generally not considered airtight as I have seen many tests where they cannot hold water. If water leaks out, air can leak in.

I made my own DIY 5-gallon hanging bucket feeder. You not only save a lot of money, but I personally think they work better than many of the commercially available feeders. It certainly has reduced the amount of spilled feed I used to get with other feeders. Check out this short video if something like that interests you...