I am so cheap:

  • I have gotten into the windshield washer spray from the car ahead to clean my windshield.

You?

I don’t follow the car in front of me nearly closely enough to benefit from that.

I would suggest that NObody follow that closely, especially in the weather much of the country is experiencng right now.

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Time to stop feeding the Troll .

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+1
Getting overspray from the car in front is clear evidence of driving too closely to the car in front.

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or severely poorly aimed windshield washer shooters…

I was driving one day, following one of my friends who was in a rental minivan, and kept getting water droplets on my windshield. Could not figure it out. Finally noticed that whenever I got the water droplets, my friend’s wipers were going. At the next stop, I inspected their washers, and the hose was disconnected and shooting (perhaps aimed on purpose by a previous renter,) to shoot straight over the top of the van. But I wasn’t tailgating, or I probably would have gotten more of a bath lol

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Sorry nobody else appreciates your sense of humor. A college friend had a Chevy Vega and the windshield washer was a rubber bulb on the floor. If he stepped on the bulb hard enough the fluid would arc over the top of the car to the rear window.
When I was much poorer I routinely bought used tires because they were all I could afford. I can’t think of too many cheap things I’ve done lately except driving out of my way for cheap gas. Beyond a certain point the savings are offset by the extra driving.

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Remember cheapest people awards of the year. One guy wore his mechanic outfit to a wedding because he refused to buy clothes, another family spent Friday nights splitting 2 ply toilet paper into 2 rolls. You have some competition.

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No. We recycle used toilet paper by rewinding it on the other side.

We’re so cheap that myvife has me use the toilet after she uses it so we flush once!
(In China, her parents and other households collect water slowly dripping into basins. Their water meters can’t measure the flowhen that slow.)

I’m so cheap that rather than buy a new calendar, I reuse 2020’s June calendar for this month!

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Maybe I missed the conversation, but I’m busy today. I had a car with mis-adjusted washers so unless at highway speed, the jet spray would go over the roof. OK call me antagonistic but a couple times I ran the washer to squirt the guy in back of me who was following too close. I snickered to myself when he turned his wipers on. I don’t brake check, just turn the washers on.

Cheap or necessity, on the other topic? In the truck plant as a youth, I worked with a guy that had spent some time in jail. When he lit a cig (while working-this was the 60’s) he showed me how he made matches last longer by splitting them in two. He said in jail they had plenty of cigs, but no matches. I’ll confess I still do that from time to time.

As a kid we had a neighbor who would not buy watermelon because he said it was mainly water and wouldn’t pay the dollar for just water. We’d invite the kids over for watermelon though and loved it. Nothing better when its 100 degrees in July.

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I was raised by my thrifty Swiss grandmother.

We always foraged for food, dandelions in the spring, bee trees for honey, Beechnuts and hazlelnuts, black berries, watercress growing in a spring, cherries and apples from long abandoned homesteads, gooseberries and mulberries etc.

We vacationed on the eastern shore of the Potomac in the 40s and one summer the nearby farms were letting their crops to rot in the field because the crop prices were so low they could not afford to pay pickers.

They told everyone in the area to come take what they wanted. There was an estate sale in the area and one of the things that did not sell was a huge lot of glass canning jars with the wire bails that needed only new rubber seals.

The crops available to us were tiger rock watermelons, and Lima beans. We returned home from our summer vacation with the car stuffed with canned Lima beans and pickled watermelon rinds.

To this day, I can’t stand Lima beans and I have not seen a pickled watermelon rind since the 50s.

We never lacked for protein in our month there. I could catch a bushel basket of blue crabs in less than an hour, we would have crab meat and eggs for breakfast, when I got enough softshell crabs at once we would deep fry them and you could eat the legs like french fries, boiled crabs for dinner and I once caught a large eel that my grandmother devoured herself, telling me I would not appreciate it. She was probably right. I still love blue crab, the only thing hard to swallow about it today is the price.

The biggest cheapskate I ever heard of was from the pages of Yankee magazine. A very wealthy Bostnian shared this money saving tip. She collected her children’s ear wax and used it for lip balm!

Are you talking about watermelon pickles??? I love those things that my grandmother used to make. A couple years ago I looked high and low for a local source for the pickles. I ended up ordering the minimum of a case of them out of Pennsylvania. Then ordered another case. They were a little sweet for most people and after giving some away had to discard some that were beyond their use date.

We used to go pick berries in the woods in a special spot but can’t remember if they were raspberries or blueberries. We grew our own strawberries, apples, pears, rhubarb, etc. I don’t grow a thing now. Last time was years ago when I grew potatoes. After all that work I managed to get a bag full. Then went to the store and they had ten pounds for 99 cents. Kinda too the wind out of my sails.

I really washed my windshield on the 101 somewhere near Santa Monica and the car behind me didn’t like it. He got in front of me and did the same thing. Since my windshield was just cleaned I waited four seconds for the water to evaporate and drove on with no need for wipers. Lesson learned? Clean first and you win.

I used to have a large garden to feed the six of us years ago but now grow only heirloom tomatoes.

I used to have a job bringing in sugar from Canada to the US and customs used to take a sample from one (one hundred lb.) bag of sugar that the consignee then used to refuse. I would ask the consignee for a slip bag to put over the sampled one and call my company and get permission to take it home.

We made all our own jams and jellies for years. From my job as a local driver I knew the location of every kind of free fruit in Western NY. Apples, crab apples, elderberries, black berries, goose berries, sweet and sour cherries and blueberries. and blueberries. Peaches we had to buy. Alas now I have been diabetic for years and can’t eat any of that. I still eat some fruit, just not with added sugar.

I would guess that pickled watermelon rind and watermelon pickles were the same thing. They were quite sweet.

I do know that the load of Lima beans and watermelon rinds was so heavy that my grandmother did not travel her customary 90 mph on our way home.

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Not car related, my grandmother knew of a plum tree out in the woods, we would go there every year to pick plums to make jam. She would add a little bitters to vodka to imitate scotch. Knew a guy whos father would get drain oil to change his oil, figuring it was probably better than what was in his car.

How could I have forgotten the plums? My grandmother used to can them and then use them to make plum kuchen in the winter, you could not get fresh fruit in the winter back then.

She used to can everything when it was abundant, even meat. She did not buy a lot of groceries in the winter and what she did she ordered by phone and the grocer delivered them on his way home because she had her car put up on blocks for the winter. A not uncommon practice back then, our local gas station had a whole line of peoples batteries on a trickle charger all winter.

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You’re following too close. Extremely bad driving habit.

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Wow

Blockquote

ou gotta spill

Wow you gotta spill the beans. Just HOW do you get around without stopping at traffic lights, & traffic jams? Is there some trick? Military grade pre-trip planning of backstreets, corner gas stations & strip malls? Do tell!

I think that there is some extreme standard here, the regulars don’t stop within 50 feet from the next vehicle at a traffic light. This is why there is no chance of another vehicles washer spray landing on their windshield.

You made me remember. In school in South Dakota, the guy across the hall was from New York and he drove a VW cross country to school. He claimed (and I have no reason to doubt him) that he would get right in back of a semi so that the back draft would carry him along to save gas. Claimed he could even let go of the steering wheel and would be just pulled along.

I figure a trip from NY back then would have cost under $20 for gas. So I think the most he probably could have saved would have been $5. But $5 was $5 when huge famous hot cinnamon rolls were a dollar.

No beans to spill.

Zero mph at 5 ft away means the water spray won’t reach me in any volume.

Water spray at 60 mph and 120 ft away won’t either.