What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[igorsMistress]

The growing of the bamboo may be more sustainable than other options but you might look at what is done to process it into thread.

I choose local stores over shipping whenever possible. I don't think it makes much difference sustainability unless the product is produced locally but I want to have an option of local later and I don't want Amazon to get more of a monopoly.

Yup, those are my thoughts as well. Not to mention the shipping of the product to the US from a foreign country a lot of the time. That ship/plane/train wasn’t eco friendly that it came on. I try to buy made in the USA whenever possible.

 

[gtaus]

I choose local stores over shipping whenever possible. I don't think it makes much difference sustainability unless the product is produced locally but I want to have an option of local later and I don't want Amazon to get more of a monopoly.

I, also, attempt to purchase my products locally first. I want to support our local businesses so they will be there to support me. However, more and more, lots of our local businesses have chosen to reduce their on hand supplies and ask you to order from their online website. I'm thinking specifically of WalMart, OfficeMax, Home Depot, and most of our auto stores. Probably others, too, but I am just listing those businesses that I have had to order online because the store in town did not carry that item I wanted.

Anyway, if you have to order online, then they have to compete with Amazon and I will choose the least expensive option at that time. Amazon is not always the cheapest choice, but they often win due to a larger selection of products available.

As an Amazon Prime member, I take advantage of the free shipping and returns if necessary. Those things can be a big deal. Our local Menards offers items online that they don't carry in the store, but a $5 item might have a $35 shipping and handling fee on top of that. I don't order from Menards and have told them their online ordering sucks due to the extreme high cost of shipping. In comparison, Home Depot will send their online order directly to my house with free shipping. That's even better for me because I don't have to drive my car into town.

For all shipping companies, I hope they will start using more and more recyclable packaging. I can recycle most cardboard boxes, but don't bother if they are covered in plastic tapes and labels.

 

[gtaus]

Goodwill type stores vary a lot in how worthwhile they are.

I started shopping our local thrift store a few years ago. It is run by a church group and their profits go to help charities in our local area. Good for me when I can find something I want or need and knowing that my money is going to help others in need in my community. Sometimes I buy an item that may or may not work out for me. If it's a complete failure for my use, at least I consider my money went to charity. Sometimes I just donate an item back to the thrift store, but if broken or doesn't work I trash it myself.

Not all of it is the garbage we are currently generating; some of is decluttering.

I usually box up items in the house that we no longer want and drop it off at the church thrift shop. They can decide if they want to sell the items, put them outside in their "free" bins, or dump the items in their big trash bins. One person's trash might be another person's treasure.

 

[saysfaa]

I, also, attempt to purchase my products locally first. I want to support our local businesses so they will be there to support me. However, more and more, lots of our local businesses have chosen to reduce their on hand supplies and ask you to order from their online website. I'm thinking specifically of WalMart, OfficeMax, Home Depot, and most of our auto stores. Probably others, too, but I am just listing those businesses that I have had to order online because the store in town did not carry that item I wanted.

Anyway, if you have to order online, then they have to compete with Amazon and I will choose the least expensive option at that time. Amazon is not always the cheapest choice, but they often win due to a larger selection of products available.

As an Amazon Prime member, I take advantage of the free shipping and returns if necessary. Those things can be a big deal. Our local Menards offers items online that they don't carry in the store, but a $5 item might have a $35 shipping and handling fee on top of that. I don't order from Menards and have told them their online ordering sucks due to the extreme high cost of shipping. In comparison, Home Depot will send their online order directly to my house with free shipping. That's even better for me because I don't have to drive my car into town.

For all shipping companies, I hope they will start using more and more recyclable packaging. I can recycle most cardboard boxes, but don't bother if they are covered in plastic tapes and labels.

Yes, there are good reasons they is well on its way to being more of a monopoly. As they have gotten closer, they have already started using more the pricing and policy advantages of being a monopoly. Besides, we moved to house a third the size of our last one and our next house will probably not have a basement so identifying things I don't need has become much more important.

 

[gtaus]

The fail that bothers most is feed bags. I wish feed still came in burlap bags.

Agree. Add to that, I remember the days when you could reuse your feed bag and save half a dollar on a refill of feed. Now, we are forced to buy a new, paper-plastic feed bag every time.

 

[LizzzyJo]

There's no need to be nervous about canning fruits and vegetables. The process is pretty straightforward, but you do have to stick to proven, safe recipes and don't modify them, or you could change the acid content.

Here are a couple of the best resources I've ever found:
https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html#gsc.tab=0
and
https://www.amazon.com/Ball-21400-Blue-Book/dp/B005SK6Y1Q#:~:text=Ball Blue Book 1 Each edition is filled,ingredients that make it easy to capture freshness.

I use water-bath canning for high-acid foods like tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa, jellies and jams, most fruits, and pickled foods. I use pressure-canning for low-acid foods like green beans, corn, beets, spinach, turnips, asparagus, soups and stews. I haven't tried canning meat yet, but plan to give that a try this year.

I only have access to water bath. What would happen it I tried beans? Would I know that they were bad? Like botulism?

 

[Matejka]

I shred almost all our paper and light weight food-box type cardboard for chicken coop deep bedding litter. Works great. Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips? Lots of good comments in that thread on reusing paper products. Paper shreds go into the chicken run compost system after the coop. Then the finished chicken run compost gets added to my garden beds to grow people food.

I use heavy cardboard as floor mats to work under our cars. Makes a good surface to paint things on. Can be used as a weed barrier for pathways, etc... Use it also for covering the compost in my pallet wood compost bins. Soiled or dirty cardboard will be saved and used in a fire pit when I burn out a stump.

I bag all my grass clippings and dump them into the chicken run compost. The chickens will eat some fresh greens, and the rest will be mixed in with the compost and breakdown over time.

All my tree leaves get mowed up and tossed into the chicken run.

Most of my branches and fallen trees either get chipped up to make wood chips for the chickens or if too big, they get used in a hügelkultur raised garden bed.

Kitchen scraps and leftovers get fed to the chickens. If something gets moldy, then I dump it into the pallet wood compost bins. Very little food products ever get tossed into our trash.

We try to buy grocery products with minimal packing, or if possible, in reusable plastic containers. We buy some products in Tupperware-like containers that we use over and over again until they break and fall apart.

I save the plastic lids from food containers to use to mix up epoxy and stuff like that. Get one more use out of them before throwing them away in the trash.

We take advantage of our local recycling bins to discard our plastics, metals, and glass that we can't find a second life at home.

Between reusing whatever we can at home, and recycling excess materials, we have gone from about 3 kitchen sized garbage bags per week to maybe 2 or 3 bags per month. That's how I measure our progress.

Last summer I started making pallet wood projects. Show Me Your Pallet Projects! Lots of good ideas on using pallet wood and reclaimed lumber. I am mainly building garden beds and planters, but others have built lots of other projects. Instead of hauling off used lumber to the landfill, I reclaim and reuse most of the wood I get. It takes some time, but I think it's worth it. The odd bits and pieces of lumber that I cannot use, I burn in a fire pit when I burn out stumps. So nothing gets tossed into a landfill.

What we don't do well: Dear Wife insists on buying plastic bottled water and will not consider using a reusable drink container or refilling the plastic bottles. It's a shame because we have a fresh water well that provides fantastic drinking water. But she has bought into the notion that drinking water has to come in a bottle.

My mansplaining to her about that issue has had no effect. If I had any idea of how to use those empty water bottles, I would not feel so bad. However, the empties currently get tossed into the plastic recycle bin.

Ditto for most of our plastic food bottles which don't get reused. Glass jars don't have much of a second life around here, either. But, fortunately, all that stuff is put into our recycle bins.




I need suggestions of ways to reuse my feed bags. I have 3+ years of saved feed bags to put to use. Currently, I just cut them open and use them as a workbench covering when I am doing a glue up project, painting, or working with something oily. I have lots of feed bags to be used for something.



That sounds like a good idea. I live on a lake, but if you lived somewhere with water ration concerns, no need to waste all that water.



I started going to a Senior Citizen's cooking class. Our instructor suggested that we save all the juice from canned vegetables, put it in a container in the freezer, and then use all that vegetable juice for homemade soups. Like she says, you paid for all that juice, you might as well use it in something good to eat. Anyways, I have made one homemade vegetable soup using the saved juices from canned vegetables and it was fantastic. No more straining out the juice down the kitchen drain.

If we have canned fruit that we need to strain, we strain it into a glass and drink it later. Works great for the Pineapple juice and fruit cocktail cans.



I am semi-retired, and don't have to use my car very often. I am currently driving my 1993 Ford Explorer, which only gets about 13 mpg. But I only put on maybe 100 miles per month. So, I figure I do more for the environment by keeping the old car in service and not having to have a new car manufactured to replace it. Also, maintaining the old car keeps it out of the dead car dumps. I'll probably drive that Explorer until I can't fix it anymore. I got my money's worth out of it years ago, so no tears if/when I have to send it off.

If I end up getting another job, then I'll have to get a different car. I just don't want to get into a situation where I need a job to pay for a car that I need to get me to my job. Did that as a teenager...

Also, I take care of my belongings and they tend to last a long time. I guess that results in less need for new products and therefore maybe helps the environment in a small way. It sure reduces the amount of stuff that we throw away each year.

I hope this thread takes off because I am saving way more items than I currently have ideas on how to reuse them.

I use feed bags for my trash cans. The small desk/bathroom cans -i use the plastic grocery bags. I generally use reusable grocery bags, but occasionally (on purpose) will use the store provided bags (when I need trashcan liners). Feed bags in big cans-1 for burnable trash 1 for metal/bottles to be hauled to recycle. I also have used feed sacks as a wind break on walls of coop. If they tear/get pooped on/dirty they are easy to replace.

 

[LizzzyJo]

I shred almost all our paper and light weight food-box type cardboard for chicken coop deep bedding litter. Works great. Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips? Lots of good comments in that thread on reusing paper products. Paper shreds go into the chicken run compost system after the coop. Then the finished chicken run compost gets added to my garden beds to grow people food.

I use heavy cardboard as floor mats to work under our cars. Makes a good surface to paint things on. Can be used as a weed barrier for pathways, etc... Use it also for covering the compost in my pallet wood compost bins. Soiled or dirty cardboard will be saved and used in a fire pit when I burn out a stump.

I bag all my grass clippings and dump them into the chicken run compost. The chickens will eat some fresh greens, and the rest will be mixed in with the compost and breakdown over time.

All my tree leaves get mowed up and tossed into the chicken run.

Most of my branches and fallen trees either get chipped up to make wood chips for the chickens or if too big, they get used in a hügelkultur raised garden bed.

Kitchen scraps and leftovers get fed to the chickens. If something gets moldy, then I dump it into the pallet wood compost bins. Very little food products ever get tossed into our trash.

We try to buy grocery products with minimal packing, or if possible, in reusable plastic containers. We buy some products in Tupperware-like containers that we use over and over again until they break and fall apart.

I save the plastic lids from food containers to use to mix up epoxy and stuff like that. Get one more use out of them before throwing them away in the trash.

We take advantage of our local recycling bins to discard our plastics, metals, and glass that we can't find a second life at home.

Between reusing whatever we can at home, and recycling excess materials, we have gone from about 3 kitchen sized garbage bags per week to maybe 2 or 3 bags per month. That's how I measure our progress.

Last summer I started making pallet wood projects. Show Me Your Pallet Projects! Lots of good ideas on using pallet wood and reclaimed lumber. I am mainly building garden beds and planters, but others have built lots of other projects. Instead of hauling off used lumber to the landfill, I reclaim and reuse most of the wood I get. It takes some time, but I think it's worth it. The odd bits and pieces of lumber that I cannot use, I burn in a fire pit when I burn out stumps. So nothing gets tossed into a landfill.

What we don't do well: Dear Wife insists on buying plastic bottled water and will not consider using a reusable drink container or refilling the plastic bottles. It's a shame because we have a fresh water well that provides fantastic drinking water. But she has bought into the notion that drinking water has to come in a bottle.

My mansplaining to her about that issue has had no effect. If I had any idea of how to use those empty water bottles, I would not feel so bad. However, the empties currently get tossed into the plastic recycle bin.

Ditto for most of our plastic food bottles which don't get reused. Glass jars don't have much of a second life around here, either. But, fortunately, all that stuff is put into our recycle bins.




I need suggestions of ways to reuse my feed bags. I have 3+ years of saved feed bags to put to use. Currently, I just cut them open and use them as a workbench covering when I am doing a glue up project, painting, or working with something oily. I have lots of feed bags to be used for something.



That sounds like a good idea. I live on a lake, but if you lived somewhere with water ration concerns, no need to waste all that water.



I started going to a Senior Citizen's cooking class. Our instructor suggested that we save all the juice from canned vegetables, put it in a container in the freezer, and then use all that vegetable juice for homemade soups. Like she says, you paid for all that juice, you might as well use it in something good to eat. Anyways, I have made one homemade vegetable soup using the saved juices from canned vegetables and it was fantastic. No more straining out the juice down the kitchen drain.

If we have canned fruit that we need to strain, we strain it into a glass and drink it later. Works great for the Pineapple juice and fruit cocktail cans.



I am semi-retired, and don't have to use my car very often. I am currently driving my 1993 Ford Explorer, which only gets about 13 mpg. But I only put on maybe 100 miles per month. So, I figure I do more for the environment by keeping the old car in service and not having to have a new car manufactured to replace it. Also, maintaining the old car keeps it out of the dead car dumps. I'll probably drive that Explorer until I can't fix it anymore. I got my money's worth out of it years ago, so no tears if/when I have to send it off.

If I end up getting another job, then I'll have to get a different car. I just don't want to get into a situation where I need a job to pay for a car that I need to get me to my job. Did that as a teenager...

Also, I take care of my belongings and they tend to last a long time. I guess that results in less need for new products and therefore maybe helps the environment in a small way. It sure reduces the amount of stuff that we throw away each year.

I hope this thread takes off because I am saving way more items than I currently have ideas on how to reuse them.

In 2021 I saved, cleaned, and weighed all of my non “recyclable” plastics each month and weighed them. 17lbs total. By far the heaviest was the animal feed bags. I reuse what I can, but there are so many. Can I get them re-filled with food anywhere?

 

[gtaus]

I do like that I can get into a nice car when I have to leave, but I often use my bike or my golf cart if I’m just running to the store. Depends on the volume of groceries I buy.

I don't live in town. So, my strategy is to make a list of things I really need and do all my in-town shopping once a week, sometimes every other week. Dear Wife still has a job in town, so she picks up most food items that we need fresh on her way back home. When I go to town, I'm mainly shopping for my "guy" things that Dear Wife would not know what to buy.

I have been considering getting an eBike, but would need one with extended range to make it to town and back. I'm young enough to want to get some exercise, but old enough to know that I don't want to give myself a heart attack trying to peddle myself back home (15 miles to town). But the initial cost of an eBike, plus the fact that I only would use for about 6 none snow months of the year here in northern Minnesota, makes an eBike more of nice thing to have than a practical necessity.

For feed bags I use them as trash bags outside, usually for dog poop, but we don’t buy extra bags for that can. We use them under small paint and glue projects, and for storage quite a bit actually. I used several under a plant stand when I stained it. They hold rags, small pieces of lumber left over from projects that might still come in handy, etc. You can use them as grow bags in the garden, ours only last one season but that’s how long a grow bag purchased from the store will last anyway in our sun. We partially filled a bunch of them with lemons and gave those out to coworkers and neighbors since we don’t have the grocery store bags. I use one to cover my garden shredder to keep the sun and rain off it, I’ve used them over the “door” of my shed to block sun and rain with a couple of magnets. I also attached them to garden stakes to provide afternoon shade to tender plants in summer. I’ve read that people use them as wind blocks for their coops over windows and around their runs.

Lots of good ideas. Think the grow bag idea might work for me. But I have lots of raised bed gardens and will be making more out of pallet wood this spring.

 

[alwaystj9]

I tried the reuseable wooden toothbrushes bambuu brushes but my dentist wanted me to start using a waterpic.
I use feed bags to make hay feeders for the goats haybag, for kindling storage and for barn trash.
I am pretty self sufficient, and I measure that by how many trips I have to make to town. I also keep cutting back on the amount of garbage I am producing and am down to one roadside bin or less each week. I am also trying to quit buying crap -- and I am decluttering what I do have.