@Whitey …whoever they are, what I learned, best not to ask what they are doing … lol …
One of my uncles was carefully prying off the cap from a bottle of his home brewed beer with a pair of pliers. My brother tells him “we have a bottle opener if you need one”. My uncle declined the offer explaining that by carefully prying the caps off, he can use them over again.
One of the cheapest things that I’ve ever done was the facade I used to get out of some motorcycle equipment violations; all of which I rightfully deserved a ticket for.
One of them was for no front brake on a spool hub custom bike. I scrounged up a bicycle brake handle for the handlebars, cut a length of old ratted out yellow extension cord, and spray painted the yellow cord black. This cord was taped on from brake handle to the lower side of the fork where it dead ended to nothing. Total cost was about 79 cents for a can of cheap black paint and the small amount of gas used to ride down to the police station.
The police approved it as a legal working front brake, voided the ticket, and sent me on my way.
Even from 30 feet away they should have been able to see through this… 
OK, so, am I the only one who, when the bar of soap is just about gone, “welds” the left over sliver to the new bar so none of it goes to waste???
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I do worse. I collect the slivers of soap in the soap dish by the sink in my master bathroom when they get too small to use in the shower. I use them when I wash my hands. There are three of them in the soap dish right now.
I am so there @DrRocket. And I haven’t bought soap in about 20 years. I collect all the soap they leave on the counter at the hotels. Well, not so much anymore. I have a vast supply and can afford to be picky.
I clean the insides of windows with crumpled newspaper; no Windex, no ammonia, no water. Works just fine.
I guess the cheapest things we did was in the car’s we bought. Always bought 2 wd Mazda and Toyota basic short bed pick ups and the cheapest Civics, Subarus and Corrollas we could find. The base models in everything. Air onditioning and a radio and later cruise control added after market were it. Did our own brake jobs and all routine maintenance as well as oiled the bodies of the cars to keep them from rusting. That was the single biggest and cheapest thing I can could ever think of to keep them safe and rust free.
Also did what @Docnick did and put the largest high profile tire I could fit to enhance the ride and decrease tire wear in those little Junkers.
When I moved to the country and purchased my new place from a friend, he never had trash service. He simply took his trash to his work and dumped it there. I didn’t think it was too bad of an idea being a single guy and all and continued the tradition, figuring I would save a few bucks.
- Aluminum cans from soda and beer as well as steel cans get saved for when I haul metal to the scrap yard and I get paid for them.
- Plastic and glass containers get hauled to the city recycle center once a month or so.
- Paper and cardboard are burned. If during the winter, I use them to help start fires in my wood stove. I can’t have enough of this trash during times I need the wood heat. Of course I can’t keep all the stuff from the summer so I burn it outside once a week or so.
- Meat scraps get fed to the dog and the cats.
- Vegetable and other food scraps are composted or burned if they are dry.
- Stinky trash like used cat litter and packaging from chicken/meat gets put in a double or triple bagged sack like those from Wal-Mart and grocery stores and deposited in the outdoor trashcan of the first business I come to. This is often a gas station or similar.
- One of my neighbors lets me put other trash in their can if their is room.
- The friend who started all this lets me dump larger items in his dumpster at work
- Another guy has been remodeling an old house on his own for several years and has a dumpster outside at all times so he lets me put stuff in there during the slow times.
I really don’t have that much trash being a single guy and this seems to work quite well for me plus anything recyclable gets recycled in one way or another.
@cwatkin You’re saving money and being good for the environment as well! Where we live, all beverage containers have a deposit and we get that refunded when we take them to a central collection/recycling depot. All other paper, plastic, metal containers and cardboard goes into the city supplied blue bin and gets picked up once a week. Heavy metal items I take to a metal recycler and get paid for that.
We have a composter on the back deck and non-meat food scraps get composted there. Our lawnmower has a mulching blade, so no grass clippings to dispose of. Autumn leaves get dropped off at a city reception point and the city mulches them for bedding materials for city parks, they also provide free mulch from Xmas trees and shrubs for those who can pick it up. My neighbor regularly takes advantage of this.
The overall effect of all these programs has been a very significant reduction in waste to landfill per household (around 35%) and landfill life extension. The net effect has been lower taxes.
6. Stinky trash like used cat litter and packaging from chicken/meat gets put in a double or triple bagged sack like those from Wal-Mart and grocery stores and deposited in the outdoor trashcan of the first business I come to. This is often a gas station or similar.
Sounds illegal and disrespectful of other’s people’s property to me.
I don’t resort to questionable things like this, but a close friend of mine–who could well afford to not pinch pennies–saves money in ways that actually affect his health, either directly or indirectly.
Here are some of my friend’s money-saving practices:
>He buys his shoes from a thrift shop.
Even though I don’t buy my clothing from a thrift shop, it is likely that you wouldn’t affect your health by doing so–as long as you launder or dry clean these items before wearing. However, shoes can’t be laundered, and they harbor all of the fungi that the previous owner’s feet were afflicted with. So…my friend has constant battles with athlete’s foot, jungle rot, and…God only know what other fungal infections of his feet as a result of wearing somebody else’s old shoes. He gets treated for the latest fungal infection, and shortly thereafter, he winds up infected again after buying another pair of somebody’s old shoes.
Also, after somebody wears a pair of new shoes for a few weeks, the shoes conform to the contours of that person’s foot, with the result that they are unlikely to fit the second owner properly, even if–theoretically–they are the correct size. The result is that my friend constantly has his toes and other parts of his feet swathed in Band-Aids as a result of the blisters and general irritations that his feet are subjected to by wearing old shoes that don’t fit him properly. Needless to say, his fungal and other foot problems are probably exacerbated by his refusal to wear socks. When asked why he shuns socks, his answer is that this gives him less laundry to wash!
>He refuses to use his dishwasher, and instead, washes his dishes & glasses by hand. I have given him articles proving that washing a full load of dishes/glasses in a modern dishwasher actually uses less water than you use when washing these items by hand. What was his reaction to this factual information? He began using only cold water to hand-wash those items, in order to save on hot water costs!
The immediate result is that his kitchen sink drain is frequently clogged with congealed fat, as a result of the cold water & the crappy Chinese-made dish detergent that he uses. The less obvious results include his very frequent gastric upsets that–I believe–result largely from eating off of dishes that were not sanitized. Also, nobody who knows him will eat anything that comes from his kitchen, simply because we know of the very poor state of sanitation.
>He buys all of his fruits & vegetables from the “clearance” table at the market.
He admits that he has to throw these items out if they are not consumed the same day that he buys them, due to their advanced state of decomposition, and this habit of his is one more reason why none of his friends will eat anything that comes from his kitchen. I have tried to explain to him that one of the reasons for eating fresh fruits & vegetables is for the health-giving anti-oxidants that are present in them. However, produce that is beginning to rot (as his purchases always are) has already lost its anti-oxidants, and that is why they are…oxidizing! His response is always something along the lines of…But these items were cheap!
If somebody is truly impoverished, I could well understand doing things as he does, but he has a very comfortable income and manages to put over $1k per month into savings. I could also understand these practices if a person was not intelligent, but this guy is extremely intelligent. However, he is able to rationalize almost anything that will–theoretically–save him some money, even though almost all of his money-saving practices either cost him more money in the long run or are an actual threat to his health. In essence, he just keeps shooting himself in the foot (no pun intended).
Go figure!
@VDCDriver With some, saving money becomes an obsession bordering on addiction. And yes, it can affect your health. Refusal to take vitamins and wear sunglasses can seriously affect your health and vision.
Vegan diets can cause all sorts of problems. I have yet to meet someone on this diet who looks really healthy.
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Agreed on all counts, Doc!
The folks who “economize” by not buying sunglasses are ultimately harming their eyes. In fact, my eye doctor has advised me to wear a cap with a peak, as well as sunglasses, when I go outside in order to keep random UV rays from affecting my old eyes.
And, the young Vegans with whom I am familiar always seem to look pale and anemic, and they seem to lack the energy that I have at the age of 65. I limit my red meat intake to just a few times per month, and I eat chicken, turkey, or fish as my normal diet, along with a lot of fresh fruits & vegetables daily. My doctor is very pleased with my blood pressure, my cholesterol level, and my EKG results, even though she is still bugging me to lose 20 lbs.
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Your friend is his own worst enemy
Worse than that, it sounds like his penny-pinching is actually doing him in
@cwatkin
"When I moved to the country…"
I think that is a good motivator. You sure watch what you throw in your garbage disposal with a septic system. You sure watch what you do to the land polution wise when you have a well. And, if you live very far out, you sure maintain your car well, which IMHO, is one of the easiest ways to save money. Break downs with older cars and buying new cars to avoid it are both expensive and wasteful. Proper maintenance of a car so you get a minimum of 10 plus productive, worry free years is efficient. Taking care of the environment while doing so is also efficient. We have found moving into the country to be a good motivator on all those fronts.
If I move to the country, why would I dispose of autumn leaves by having them removed from my property ? Everything that grows on your property should, theoretically be recycled back into the ground to maintain thatch which minimizes erosion and maintains soil integrety. Removing brush, leaves, grass etc. makes it more difficult to reclaim the nutrients that are taken from the soil by plant growth. Cutting trees and removing them is a huge waste as well. That is a suburban habit where land is limited that may find some favor, but not in the country. That’s why country living helps foster conservation in many ways. In communities with suburbs where this isn’t possible, like @Docnick, I respect and applaud their proactive approach. Keeping your natural resources within your boundaries as much as possible is always cheaper. “The net effect has been lower taxes”.
…and if you have a well and a septic tank, prepare to haul your drinking water. Yuck!
“…and if you have a well and a septic tank, prepare to haul your drinking water. Yuck”
If the ground percs, that is not a problem. Even if it doesn’t percolate, there is at least one alternative. I know someone that used to build greenhouses set up to recover water that evaporates off the leaves of the crop inside. They tended to use grasses. The water came from the septic system and was of course clean after it evaporated off the grass and condensed in a barrel.
Leaves at our summer place get hauled to be recycled somewhere else. 3/4 acre and 17 bags of oak leaves among other trees. Gave up on the compost pile as we did not need a sled hill, and Oak leaves do not compost well.
As far as dishwasher we have to clean our dishes before they go in as it might get run once a week. Most stuff I do by hand, but we have cheap water and sewer. It averages $30 a month or so, with a sprinkling credit as we do not get charged sewer for extra water used over our average winter consumption.
Before I replaced the plumbing I took the flow restricter out of the shower massage and drilled out the feed. We used to have about 4 gal per minute, sinks usually are 2 gpm, so the only real downside was a sprinkler, it would do like an 8 foot sweep at most, now I can do a 50 ft sweep at least. We went from a 5 gallon bucket getting filled in 2 min 40 seconds to 35 seconds.
I really had to do this to run a pressure washer, as we had peeling paint on the fence and the pressure washer would starve out after 30 seconds or so, and we were in the targeted neighborhood inspection program and knew it would not pass.
Later because of a day care with kids 6 years old or so screaming at the fence line at our dogs, I hate you dog I kill you dog pulled up the old 4’ cemented in fence posts to put 8’ posts for a new 6’ privacy fence, Enjoying it immensely.
If I wish I can drain the 60 gal water heater in 20 minutes for a nice waterpick massage shower! Feels so good, it is almost strong enough to strip the skin from your bones! Sympathy to others with flow restrictors.