What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

I do a lot of my shopping at Aldi's, as they have better quality and lower prices on some items, but do have less selection.

We recently got an Aldi's in our town. Dear Wife does our grocery shopping, so I have not paid much attention until recently. I found they had lower prices on many items, but not all items. They seem to carry everything you might need even if stock is limited and you might not always find what you want in brand or size options.

WalMart is our biggest grocery store in town. If you buy the house brands, you can save money. Otherwise, name brand items seem to as high as the other stores. They win the contest in carrying the largest selection of food, especially compared to Aldi, which is maybe 1/3 the size of our WalMart grocery store.

Having said that, our WalMart seems to be having a problem keeping the shelves stocked. Many times they have half empty spaces, especially on the lower priced house brand items. Also, I'm not so sure that their meats and dairy are top quality. More than once we have had milk go bad days before its expiration.

Speaking of milk, if that's all on our grocery list, I'll just pick up the milk at Menards while I do my other shopping. It's the same price but seems to last a few days after its expiration stamp. I've had better luck with the milk from Menards than WalMart. So, it's not worth my time or effort to go to WalMart even if I could save a few pennies on milk.

I remember reports of people at the charging station when it was -20. Eight hours later they didn't have half a charge.
Pickup pulling RV got 80 miles to a charge. They started carrying a generator and fuel .

I have heard similar stories. I live in northern Minnesota and we can get cold spells in the dead of winter down to -35F for a week or even longer. If you parked your EV outside in that cold, that would really reduce your battery capacity. But all the people I talked to at the EV show had heated garages, which is not uncommon where I live. The cold weather outside is not as big of a factor if the EV is in a heated garage, driven outside in the cold, but then put back in the heated garage for charging overnight.

Even so, adoption of EV's has been really slow up here in the north country. We inherently distrust batteries in the cold because we know they have significantly reduced capacity. That's why I go to the EV show every year to see what advances they have made concerning battery capacity loss in the cold.

Our little city is one of those designated cold testing spots for a number of manufactures. We have fleet cars from BMW, Tesla, Ford, etc... that drive specific routes all winter long and their performance is logged. When you see 4 or 5 of the same cars driving together, you know they are test cars. I don't know of anyone locally that owns a Tesla Cybertruck but I often see 3 or 4 of them driving down the roads or highways together. Point is, these companies are trying to improve their cold weather perfromance and that's a good thing.

FWIW, I did look online to see what the loss in battery capacity is on the EV's. Here is what I found that may be interesting for you...

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EV batteries lose significant range and charging efficiency in cold weather—especially around -20°F. Range can drop by up to 40%, and charging becomes slower and less efficient.

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How Cold Affects EV Batteries

• Optimal battery performance occurs between 60°F and 95°F. Below 20°F, the electrochemical reactions inside lithium-ion cells slow dramatically.
• At -20°F, batteries experience:
  • Increased internal resistance
  • Reduced discharge rates
  • Slower charging times
  • Lower regenerative braking efficiency
  • More frequent traction control activation, which consumes extra energy

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Range Loss Estimates

• AAA and Recurrent studiesshow:
  • At 20°F, EVs can lose up to 41% of their range, especially when cabin heat is used
  • At -20°F, range loss can exceed 40–50%, depending on the vehicle and thermal management system

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Cabin Heating Impact

• Resistive heaters (common in older or budget EVs) draw 4–8 kW, reducing range by up to 45% at 32°F
• Heat pumps (found in newer models like Audi e-tron) are more efficient and can retain 80% of EPA range at 32°F, but their effectiveness drops sharply below 0°F

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What You Can Do

• Precondition your EV while plugged in to warm the battery and cabin before driving
• Choose models with heat pumps for better winter performance
• Expect slower charging and plan for longer trips accordingly

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I have an attached, heated garage, which I keep at about 45F in the wintertime. It costs me some money to keep the garage heated, but since it's attached, it also helps heat the house at least on that wall. But the big thing for me is that my old gas cars will start in the extreme cold and get us to work in town. It's much easier on the cars to start them at 45F inside the garage then starting them at -35F outside in the dead of winter. My mechanic tells me it's worth the money to heat the garage above freezing because it will reduce the wear and tear on the car compared to being out in the cold.

Well, at those temps of -35F, lots of cars just won't start if left outside. Back when I was working, on those really cold days, we used to have to go outside at lunch time to start our cars and let them run a while to warm up or you would not be able to start them after work to get home.

I can remember my grandfather, who did not have a garage, having to get up in the middle of the night to go outside to start his car and let it warm up. Otherwise, the car would probably not start come morning because the battery would be dead and the fluids thick as mud.

 

[Molpet]

Well, at those temps of -35F, lots of cars just won't start if left outside. Back when I was working, on those really cold days, we used to have to go outside at lunch time to start our cars and let them run a while to warm up or you would not be able to start them after work to get home.

I can remember my grandfather, who did not have a garage, having to get up in the middle of the night to go outside to start his car and let it warm up. Otherwise, the car would probably not start come morning because the battery would be dead and the fluids thick as mud.

Yes in the late 70s it was colder here and had to start the truck in the middle of the night.
I tried a dipstick heater, but it seemed to burn the oil.
Tarp over the hood weighted down and halogen work light worked better.

 

[gtaus]

Yes in the late 70s it was colder here and had to start the truck in the middle of the night.
I tried a dipstick heater, but it seemed to burn the oil.

All my cars have oil pan heaters. I put my heater cord on a timer, so it turned on and warmed up the oil a couple hours before I was going to start the car. That was enough time to get everything warm enough, but I did not have to pay for all night heating. Over time, it saved some money. But now I have a heated garage so it's not an issue.

 

[BDutch]

Turns out heavier EV's use more brakes and have more tire wear, which adds to the smog in areas with poor airflow.

Cant be true. The EV car is a bit heavier bc of the large battery but that doesn’t add up as much as burning gasoline.
I know the oil companies are posting (hire people to/lobby workers) a lot of crap to bring EV into disrepute.

We had to buy new tires after 4 years for our EV. I don’t think that’s very different than gasoline cars.
Other items we gad to replace were: windshield wipers after 3-4 years. a new small starter battery after 5 years (like all gasoline cars have too). The yearly check service is extremely cheap (less than €100). So the investment with a higher price to buy, kind of pays itself back over the years.

True: it’s important to use renewable energy like solar, wind or water if you want to bring less greenhouse gasses into the air. We try to recharge the battery during the day as much as possible.

I don’t know what happens starting with extreme cold. But I do know lots of people in Norway ride electric cars.

 

[Sally PB]

I will strongly consider getting an EV if/when the infrastructure is there to support it.

I do have a question for EV owners: If you need to recharge at a public station, how long does it take? How much does it cost?

 

[saysfaa]

I will consider EV when the batteries are not made with Cobalt. And, since the next best alternative to cobalt in the batteries uses nickel, also when all the nickel in the vehicles driven in the US is mined in the US.

My info about the devastation of cobalt production is not from information from oil companies. It is from my daughter-in-law who is not only Congolese but from the part of the Democratic Republic of Congo that contains the mines. The farm her mother grew up on is now the location of a mine. I don't remember if it is a cobalt mine, though, to be fair. I don't ask much anymore. Not since the war there heated up last February. All of her family except one brother are in deadly danger still. Before the war heated up, she told some about it. It is worse than the bits of info we could find by researching everything we could find and the country and its people, current and history.

It doesn't matter much which kind of mine as they are all truly terrible as far as destruction and exploitation of the Congolese land and people.

Edit to add, owning the land where the mine now is did not gain her mother anything. Her mother cleaned houses for a living because the family lost the farm. I once asked her (dil, not her mother) if she ever went hungry. She said she herself did not but that she was the youngest. She was the first of the children to be sent to live with extended family when there wasn't enough food. She is sure from memories of visiting her home in those times that her mother and some of her sisters did.
That area is very fertile, the problem is the fighting over the minerals (extraction and transportation) and general power struggles that tear down any movements toward stability.