What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Sally PB]

This and better insulation makes them much quieter than in the past.

Mine is one of those "in the past" ones. Even though it says, "Quiet wash plus" on the door.

The filter on mine is in the hood over the stove near the light fixture. I just have a basic electric stove with the hood mounted over it. It has a washable silver filter visible by just looking up into the hood.

The exhaust fan in the hood over our oven died about 15 years ago. The light still works.

My mechanic told me the worst thing some of his customers do is not drive their cars which is needed to circulate that oil and other fluids, keeping those gaskets from drying out.

I just ran my car for about 15 minutes today, as it hasn't gone anywhere since the day before Thanksgiving.

The treasure is basically a neighbor doing the township business out of their house in the evenings. Or we can stop by where she works to drop it off.

Yeah, same here. One good thing: They send out the tax bills about 2 months before they're due. We pay property tax twice a year, with about 65%-70% of the yearly amount due in February, and the rest due in September.

 

[gtaus]

The Return of FREE After Rebate Items at Menards!

It's been a long time since I have seen those doorbuster deals at Menards, but the FREE after rebate items have shown up again at Menards....

Menards has had their 11% Rebate program for ages, but that was all for past ~2 years. It's good to see that the new advertisement has started adding some of those FREE items after rebate again. Essentially, if you play the rebate game, you get the item for the cost of your state sales tax after you get your rebate check back.

Frugal Tip: If you use a Rebate check to pay for your new purchases, you don't pay sales tax again! For some magic reason, in my state anyways, if you use the rebate check to pay for your items, you don't get charged for sales tax again! That's a bonus deal that I don't think many people know about.

Here is a sample from my receipt today, no sales tax when paid with a rebate check!...

I loaded up on those 6-Piece Square Power Drive Bit sets, the 10-Pack Utility Blades, and a couple of those 4-in-1 Precision Screwdrivers. All consumable items for me that I use out in the garage. There were a few other deals I picked up today at Menards, just walking through the aisles.

If you have chickens, you might consider this item...

I have one of those that I keep with my chicken scratch and grains. If, for some reason, I need to mix leftover grains into chicken scratch, I dump the stuff into a 5-gallon bucket and use that mixer to blend the grains together. Yeah, I know you could probably just mix up the grains in a bucket with a stick, but this mixer works so much better and faster. You end up with one evenly mixed bucket of grains.

The barley seed I bought this year for my winter fodder was full of mold spores. Instead of wasting all that grain growing mold in my fodder bins, I'll just have to mix the dry barley seeds into the chicken scratch and feed it to the chickens as treats. I also bought 100# of cracked corn that I use in the evening, tossing in a cupful as a treat before bedtime. I usually have leftover cracked corn in the spring, so I'll just mix that in with my chicken scratch as well. Nothing gets wasted. I'm disappointed that the barley grain this year was not worth growing into fodder, but it will be fine as dry feed mixed in with my chicken scratch.

At that price after rebate, I bought a couple extra mixers to put in with my paint supplies. Turns out those paint mixers are also used for paint and mud buckets and not just chicken scratch!

Frugal Tip:
At one time, I checked into making my own chicken feed and/or chicken scratch. What I discovered was that I could not save money by making my own feed mixes. Unless you can buy grains in bulk - like a pallet full of grain in one of those ISB totes, you don't get much, if any, savings on making your own mixes...

I only have 10 chickens. There is no way I could buy grains in bulk to save any money on mixing my own feed recipes myself. I saw one guy on YouTube mixing his own feed, but he had access to a good supply of "free" grain that he bartered for from a local farmer. Of course, my problem with buying in bulk, is that I would never use that much grain for my 10 chickens before it went bad from age.

The most expensive cost for raising a backyard flock is my feed cost. If I end up with extra grains, I'll mix them into my chicken scratch buckets. Nothing goes to waste. But I have yet to hear of anyone saving money by mixing their own grain feed for a small backyard flock. If anyone has some tips to save money on feed and/or scratch, please let me know. Thanks.

It looks like I am finding much better deals this year after Black Friday. Honestly, I did not buy anything on Black Friday this year. I did not see any great deals for things that I want or need. But I'm seeing a lot of deals at Menards after Black Friday if you don't mind playing the rebate game. I hope we continue to see those specials through the Holiday Season and maybe even into the New Year. That would be nice.

 

[saysfaa]

Yes
two steps forward and one step back. Repeat .... sometimes reversed though

, mostly reversed today. I'd call it more than two steps even though the plumbing went well. I call the plumbing 1 1/2 steps forward. The extra half step is because he fixed the leak in the bathroom sink too.

I paid another $500ish for a gas valve installed in the furnace this morning. The furnace was working when he left. When it reached temp, it turned off and hasn't worked since.

The tech came back and said the blower needs to be replaced. He will look up the price tomorrow but they are expensive. He can't tell if the computer control board needs to be swapped out until the blower works.

Also, the furnace was replaced in 2022. It should be under a ten year warranty but the people we bought it from didn't registered it so his company didn't put a claim in.

It looks to him like the cheapest furnace and not installed right besides the pvc vent system also not done right... way too many elbows.

I suppose it is possible for two or three, mostly unrelated, systems to fail simultaneously on a 2-year-old furnace. But we are getting a second opinion. If we are going to replace the furnace, I'd rather do it all at once instead of one piece at a time.

My son-in-law is an hvac tech, just not near here. He says the hvac tech should be able to tell if the computer controller is good even if the blower isn't working. And that the manufacturer will cover the warranty within five years even if it isn't registered; just not the second five years but that we can't claim it ourselves; an hvac company has to do that. And that he would buy us a new furnace, bring it when he comes at Christmastime, and install it. If we really want it but that we shouldn't need a new furnace. He isn't reluctant to do it; just really thinks it isn't likely to really be needed.

My head hurts.

 

[saysfaa]

Anyway, do check your furnace filters, and the water trap. Dirty, even filthy, filters shouldn't have taken out the blower this fast, or the gas valve at all, but it really does shorten the life significantly.

And it might complicate getting the manufacturer to honor the warranty.

 

[gtaus]

Also, the furnace was replaced in 2022. It should be under a ten year warranty but the people we bought it from didn't registered it so his company didn't put a claim in.

You still should have warranty coverage rights.

My son-in-law is an hvac tech, just not near here. He says the hvac tech should be able to tell if the computer controller is good even if the blower isn't working. And that the manufacturer will cover the warranty within five years even if it isn't registered; just not the second five years but that we can't claim it ourselves; an hvac company has to do that. And that he would buy us a new furnace for $2,000 - $3,000, bring it when he comes at Christmastime, and install it. If we really want it but that we shouldn't need a new furnace.

Trust in your furnace installer is important. When I had my house built, I hired a company to install the furnace. I had problems with the furnace from the start and every year for a number of years after that. For some reason, it was constantly blowing out electric heating coils. I ended up calling a different company to service the furnace, and they told me that the original installer had put in an extra filter that should have been left out, was blocking the air flow, and causing my heating coils to overheat and fail. He took out that extra filter and I have not had any problems for ~10 years.

The guy from a different company who came out to the house knew that problem right away. He just shook his head and stated that the originally installer should not have put that extra air filter into the system. It was an obvious install error to him.

I don't want to accuse people of doing a bad job to get paid more, but the original installer got paid for warranty service on my furnace for all those service calls every year.

Frugal Tip: When I gave up on the original installer, I called around and asked which company had the best reputation for solving furnace problems. I was told who to contact, but that I would have to pay almost twice the service charge for that company. Yes, they charged more for the service call, but he immediately identified and corrected the problem, and I have not had any problems with the furnace in ~10 years since. Sometimes you might have to pay a bit more upfront to save money over the longer term!

My head hurts.

I understand. I don't like to rely on the "expertise" of someone I don't know and have no reason to trust. If they are bad at their job, or dishonest, you can be dealing with issues that you don't need.

If you have to get a new furnace, I'd seriously consider having your son-in-law do the work. If nothing else, at least you are keeping some of the money you spend within the family.

 

[gtaus]

Amazon Refund Issue Update

A week ago, I mentioned that I have been dealing with a bad order from Amazon that has lasted almost 4 months. Last week, I got charged $18.35 for not returning an item back to Amazon from this past Aug, 2025. Well, Amazon sent me out an outdated model, not once, but twice, and told me not to bother returning the old inventory. I had ordered an 18TB USB HDD enclosure, and their fulfillment center sent me out ~2-3-year-old 12TB models.

Last week I was told by a live rep in chat that the charge would be reversed within 3-5 business days and that I would receive an email confirmation. I never received either the email confirmation or the credit back on my account.

This evening, I contacted Amazon chat live rep again. This live rep sent me an email while I was on chat, and Amazon is giving me $50.00 credit on my account for all the problems.

I hope this will be the end to this order that I placed almost 4 months ago. We buy lots of stuff from Amazon that we cannot get locally, and I seldom have problems with returns or charges. This was an exception. But at least I have an email confirmation in hand at this point so I think the issue will be finally resolved.

BTW, I had sent out an email complaint to Amazon about this issue. I never got a response from Amazon. I suspect that email never got read by anyone. A lot of their system today is just run by AI bots, that apparently not all that smart. I wasted my time on that complaint email.

I had fewer problems and continuing issues back in the day when I talked to real, live people. I miss that personal customer service I grew up with. I don't like having to order things we used to get locally. I hate seeing all those good customer service people being replaced by auto-bots which never seem to solve the issues I have to deal with on a purchase gone bad. Yeah, I sound like my grandparents at this point. I suppose that was inevitable.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Amazon cut way back on their personnel, didn't they?

 

[Sally PB]

Amazon cut way back on their personnel, didn't they?

And it sure does show, doesn't it????!!!!!

 

[saysfaa]

Once a business has have enough of a monopoly, they don't have to be as responsive to customers. Whatever way. Maybe giving value - various kinds of service, prices - maybe other ways.

 

[gtaus]

Once a business has have enough of a monopoly, they don't have to be as responsive to customers.

I would agree with that.

Back in the 1990's, I was in Los Angeles for some training. I met some guys that were retail business bankruptcy liquidators. They told me that WalMart would go into an area, mark down their products just enough to kill all the local competition, and then jack up prices higher than before. WalMart was the reason why so many small towns lost all their retail stores, leaving death and destruction behind, and then when nobody had any jobs or money to spend anymore, they would close that Walmart store and just leave the town dead.

When a company gets big enough to sustain short term loss on items, they can wipe out the other local small businesses and then recoup their losses with higher prices when the community has nowhere else to go.