What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

Clearance on Central Machinery 9" Band Saw at HF

I just picked up a Central Machinery 9" band saw at Harbor Freight on clearance for $84.00. I got the last one at our store. Here is a picture of the box...

That Central Machinery band saw is being replaced by the Bauer 9" band saw selling for $180.00, which, as far as I can tell, is the same saw just under the Bauer brand name.

Of course, I read the reviews on the Central Machinery before I bought it, and it was rated 4.5/5 stars at full retail price. Guys were really happy on the performance given the price of the saw. Yes, you can spend a lot more money and get a much better band saw, but most of the stuff I do is pallet wood projects. This saw should be more than adequate for my needs.

My frugal strategy: I had a band saw on my short "To-buy List" for about a year, but I just was not willing to pay full retail price. Patience paid off for me. I ended up getting my band saw for about 50% off on clearance. If you know what you want, and the price point at which you are willing to pay, it's really sweet when you come across a deal even better than you had hoped for.

Did I really need a band saw? Well, I don't know for sure. There have been times when I wished I had a band saw but used other tools to get the job done. I guess I'll be looking for projects to make with a band saw now that I have one. Some of the shop guys I talk with use their band saws a lot. So, I hope I find it just as useful in my shop.

Heading into my retirement years, I am building up my shop tools and experimenting with them. I'm at a point in my life where I have both the free time and money to enjoy a few hobbies. And I do enjoy using my hands and making stuff after most of my life pushing paper in office jobs, if you know what I mean.

To put costs in perspective, Dear Wife and I went out to a new Mexican restaurant in town. It was $40 plus tip for our meal. Yeah, the food was good, but it was only one meal. I would rather have that $40 for shop tools and supplies that I can use to make things of value to me. I'm not a big fan of eating out. I'm OK with a frozen burrito that has fresh lettuce, sour cream, and salsa on top.

 

[gtaus]

I did briefly consider a small ziptie, but the wire is a better fit.

That's why I have stashes of both in my shop. Dear Wife does not like those metal coat hangers, so I take them out to the garage, and they eventually get used for something. I save the thin wire from unpacking stuff. Just roll it up and put it in a drawer, ready for use if/when the time comes. If I can reuse it, I'm willing to save it for later.

The missing screw is a special machine bolt, technically, with a thin metal "nut" to hold it in place. I doubted I'd find anything similar in the hardware section. I could contact the company, to request a replacement, but the wire works fine.

And the birds don't care! Yeah, I've had to do similar stuff on my repairs. Lately, I have been modifying tools for one-time projects I am working on. Sometimes it seems that nobody is using standard hardware on their products.

When we have something that has failed and needs to be junked, I'll tear it apart and save those small nuts, bolts, screws, etc.. I put them in a plastic jar for storage. No organization other than it's my misc jar of parts. If I have need for something like that for a repair, I just dump the contents of the jar out on the bench and see if anything works. Most of the time - not. But sometimes I hit gold!

 

[Smokerbill]

One of my earliest memories is of me and my grandpa straightening used bent nails with hammers. I learned early on how to make use of what most would consider to be trash. That was a little over 60 years ago.

 

[gtaus]

One of my earliest memories is of me and my grandpa straightening used bent nails with hammers. I learned early on how to make use of what most would consider to be trash. That was a little over 60 years ago.

We must be close to the same age. I have the exact same memories. My grandpa grew up during the Great Depression, and I cannot remember throwing anything away that might be reused. We built lots of stuff with both used lumber and used nails. Maybe that's why I am so comfortable making pallet projects today. It just fits into the way I did things at the start.

BTW, I learned how to straighten out a bent nail long before I learned that you could buy new ones at the store!

I think lots of guys our age learned that most valuable lesson from our grandfathers. I save almost all the nails I pull out of pallets and reuse them in projects. I still have the skills to straighten out those bent nails!

However, with our new cordless drills and impact drivers, I prefer to use screws on most of the projects I build. I find screws faster to use and have better holding strength for most of my projects.

 

[Smokerbill]

I think I'm a little older than you but not much. My grandpa was near 30 years old when the depression started, born in 1901. He was definitely frugal, buying lots of things at auctions.

His home that he put in place in the late 40's was actually a pair of decomissioned army barracks that he moved and repurposed. Lived there with Grandma until he died. The "house" was demolished maybe 10 or 15 years ago.