Let's share money saving tips!

[CarriBrown]

Quote:
GREAT FIND!!!

 

[mudhen]

Just LOVE this thread!! So many good ideas. I too hate shopping retail. Second hand shops, goodwill and salvation army stores go a long way to strech the dollar.
BTW, welcome Alisha in Cali ,

, and your farm name is great!!
AccidentalFarm, that tip about dryer sheets is priceless! I'm starting that right now!! Thanks!

 

[mandolinmama]

I just wanted to share this with everyone trying to pinch and save. I have the BEST book on the subject of the money saving lifestyle.
You should go to your library (saves money to not buy it) and check out The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn.
It's been sort of like a second bible for me teaching me more about being a stay at home mother and being able to afford it.
Trust me on this one. I ended up getting the book for my birthday because I kept running to the library to grab it. lol!
There's WAY too much for me to start listing all the great tips i've learned from this amazing woman.

Best of luck!

Donna Sue
faithful follower of the Frugal Zealot

 

[kelli120]

Its only me and my boyfriend, 2 chickens, 2 dogs and a cat and we are VERY FRUGAL.

Every Saturday in the summer we hit the yard sales, and we never miss a 50% off sale at the Goodwills, Thrift stores, etc. I get the bulk of my video games (my other hobby) from there, 1.50 T-shirts, $4 jeans, $5 gym shoes/workboots all the stuff needed for kick around clothes......why clean the kennel/coop and garden in expensive clothes?
If you need good workclothes invest in a pair of work specific brands (we have a pair of Dickies pants that you simply cannot tear up and they stand up to multiple washings) and most of our clothes are washed and hung outside to dry during the summer.

50% of our home furnishings is second-hand, with the exception of our bedroom suite (I learned my lesson about financing furniture after that one). All our lights are energy saving, and all the appliances are set for energy saving.

Both my dogs houses and my cats 4ft. deluxe cat house are second hand with a savings of over 200 dollars compared to what Petco or others want for new large dog houses. I set $50 aside for the coop and so far I have only spent a total of 12 dollars on it because we were fortunate to find 90% of the building materials, and it is one fine coop if I must say so myself

We know every clearance aisle in every store from Target, to Walmart, to Kroger. We cook enough for our 2 meals for 2 days and if we have meat like chicken or beef we trim the fat and boil the bones for a nice broth for our pets. Some of thoes fancy pet broths are 5 dollars a bottle!!!

 

[Ricky]

Yeah I bought a medium size reptile tank,a heat lamp,a thermometer on 98.7 F to 101.0 F and a hydrometer that is on 60 with a bowl of water and 5 muscovy duck eggs.A brown shirt under the eggs,.turn the eggs every 3 hours but at night I turn them at 11:00 PM and then I turn them at 6:30 AM and at 7:10 then I go to school turn themat 3:00 PM and so forth every 2 hours until 11:00 again.I have a thin black shirt over the top to keep in humidity.I havent seen any progress and its been 2 days.Should I be worried?

 

[cookinmom]

Quote:
Ricky, if you haven't yet, you might want to repost your question under the section of From Egg to Hatch. It would probably get seen quicker there by someone who can answer your question.

 

[justusnak]

Just a thought......for those of us who want to make our own hanging feeders...I went to Burger King and asked them to save me thier 5 gallon pickle buckets...with lids. They work great for makeing hanging feeders. I will get a pic of mine later...total cost to make....2.00, for hardware.

 

[Alisha in Cali]

I love "The Complete Tightwad Gazette" by Amy Dacyczyn! I got that book and I have about fifty bookmarks in it of stuff I need to try. I can't believe how little their family lives on. That book is full of great ideas.

 

[mandolinmama]

Glad to see you've already found that book. I'm the same way with the book marks. I've also taken tons of notes and highlighted several parts of it. I've got page #'s written down inside the covers. That book gets more use than any other on my shelf.

 

[d_rooster]

Along the lines of the laundry soap, if you like to use the OxiClean type cleaners then you can substitute sodium carbonate purchased in bulk. Information on the Internet indicates that the dry, granular OxiClean Stain Remover formulation is roughly 50% sodium carbonate and 50% sodium percarbonate (Dicarbonate sodium with hydrogen peroxide). I buy just the the sodium carbonate component (washing soda) purchased from a pool supply place online for about half the price (including fedex delivery) for what I would pay if I bought it in little tubs at a discount chain store.

In addition to laundry, Sodium carbonate (washing soda) works great for cleaning mildew on deck furniture or vinyl siding.

Murphy's Oil soap (2 Tbsp to the gallon in water) works great to discourage aphids or other soft bodies insects on plants in the garden.

Epsom salts is a good tonic when diluted with water and sprayed on plants. It also helps deter slugs/snails.

Buy clothes for fast growing teenagers at thrift stores. My wife has saved us money by buying some jeans, dresses, and clothes for school field trips for our teenage daughter at the Goodwill thrift store. Send your kids on school field trips that involve slugging through a swamp ,coastal area, or hiking wearing the clothes you paid little to nothing for at the thrift store rather than their everday school attire.

No one will like this one, but driving the speed limit usually saves on gasoline consumption (not to mention reducing your chance of receiving speeding citations and experiencing increased car insurance premiums).

Learn to enjoy drinking plain water instead of soft drinks, sports drinks(sugar water), and juices. Use a water filtration pitcher with a charcoal filter to improve the taste of municipal/city water. If I want a carbonated drink, I buy 2 liter bottles of lemon seltzer water (no sugar or articial sweetener added) at Publix grocery for $0.69. This stuff makes good non-alcoholic spritzers by pouring just a little bit of fruit juice over a full glass of the iced, seltzer water. Makes the juice go further and doesn't tastes as sweet as straight juice, especially on hot summer days.

Most money saving tips involve some sort of sacrifice of convenience or some form of behavior modification. Conveniences cost money, whether it's a convenient product, convenient food to prepare, a convenient restaurant, etc. Why? because time is money. It all boils down to whether your time is worth the money you spend for convenience.