The Scottish Frugality Thread

[ETOWNCANUCK]

Buy within your means.

Not a bad thing to have new and shiny and payments for this and that so long as you are not robbing from Peter to pay Paul and you are comfortable with what you are doing.

[bubba300]

Originally Posted by CaberTosser

On the water conservation topic I have done some prep work for collecting rainwater at my house but I have not yet built the rack for the 1000l tote tanks. I will route my eavestroughs to drain into the tote tanks but will also pipe in the discharge from my sump pump which is fed from my foundation weeping tile. I will put in 3-4 tote tanks and they will be elevated about 6' so as to provide pressure to the raised bed garden that I'm also building.

I used to work in a remote camp(gasplant) that had no water well,we had to get water trucked in on a winter road and would store in a large tank , it would not usally last the year.We had a 2000 gal plastic tank with eavestroghs feeding it under the one modular home that we would use most of the time.I preferred it to the town water we had in the tank.I have always thought of doing this at home.

[Au revoir, Gopher]

Originally Posted by fitzy

There was a thread on here a while ago that convinced me to try wet shaving. I use my Grandfathers razor from WW2 and feather blades. I went from despising buying blades and hating shaving to enjoy the experience and 10$ in blades have lasted me for months. I'll never go back to a cartridge razor.

Don't forget to use soap instead of aerosol shaving creams.



ARG

[Au revoir, Gopher]

Originally Posted by bsmitty27

Dont wear logos unless someone pays you.

A pet peeve of mine. Always wondered why I should pay extra to advertise for a company

ARG

[Slash8]

Once I let the dog clean the supper plates off before they went into the dish washer because I thought it was ridiculous to wash them off in the sink before hand. My wife then correct me on how ridiculous it was let the dog lick them off. I still do it when she's not around.

[oilngas]

Slash8;
why would you put the dog cleaned dishes in the dishwasher, to use energy, surfactant and water?? They look clean enuff!!!

[Jeron Kahyar]

Originally Posted by Big Sky

.
Take up reloading.

That's a cruel trick to play on somebody trying to save a dime. You just end up shooting 3x as much and spending more trying to dial in the accuracy.

[grouse_hunter]

Originally Posted by Au revoir, Gopher

Don't forget to use soap instead of aerosol shaving creams.

I just whip up some lather with a bar of regular soap. Being single has strengthened my wrists!

[Battle Rat]

I've taken tooth paste tube that the wife through out, rolled the remaining amount down the cap and got another weeks worth out of it.

[Spidey]

This is a great thread. I'm learning a lot. Gonna try the safety razor for shaving. I've just been buying the 52 pack of Gilette disposable razors at Costco. I can shave for a year for $25 worth of razors (on sale).

Also, I would totally support another buy and sell forum if it was something like Free/Trade/Nearly-Free

[Weedy1]

Originally Posted by Davey Boy

Here's mine.

When you turn on your water, you pay both a rate for water and another rate for amount used in sewer. Even when watering your lawn.

So 2-3 times a week, wife baths or showers, leaves the water in tub. I only shower so go after her.

Tub is full. I drain the water from the tub to the washing machine with a sump pump (small) that is used to just start the water siphoning into the washer. Two story so once started water drains without using pump.

I pay for water used once and sewer once, but use the water twice.
First washer load is soapy water anyway and then it rinses clear. So what the hay. LOL

FIL used to scoop the water from the tub and water his garden and flowers with gray water and never seemed to harm the plants.

Every day that I do that I save 25-30 gallons. Thinking daily in summer for my trees and lawn.

Don't be surprised if someone else in your family is being frugal too

http://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-...ple-pee-shower

[From The Hip]

That being said....I could "wash" my yeast and thusly use those hard working buggers again and again BUT I dont do it.

Rather than take the chance of ruining a batch of beer I allways use fresh yeast instead of harvesting yeast.

Call me Mr.Picky if you want....I allways want to unleash a nice fresh yeast colony onto the latest batch of beer.....yeah I could stretch a single packet of US-Safale 05 to 3 brews but if 1 single brew gets killed because of an infection I look at as 12 pounds of malt lost as well as the hops not to mention the time involved.

FTH

[masalma]

Every week Costco has unadvertised deals in store. This guy goes every Monday and takes pictures and posts them to his blog.

http://cocowest.ca/

I always scroll through it before heading down there.


A major money saver for my family is that my wife is addicted to couponing. Saves a ton of money. Sometimes she would go shopping and bring back around $500 worth of goods while only spending about $50. I don't know how she does it but they have groups that collect and swap coupons, they use stamps as currency... In the basement I built shelves for her and she just stocks them like a store. We donate most of the excess stuff we don't need. Before they go on a couponing blitz, they phone the store ahead of time to have a cashier ready to process everything.

[CaberTosser]

I'll occasionally find meat or chicken on sale with a fixed discount per package, when this is the case I'll select the packages the weigh the least so that I'm getting the most off per lb. Why buy 2 of the heaviest packages of chicken breasts at $4 off each (totalling $8 discount) when you can buy 3 of the lightest packages for a savings of $12 for a potentially similar overall weight?

[fitzy]

Originally Posted by Au revoir, Gopher

Don't forget to use soap instead of aerosol shaving creams.



ARG

I use Proraso in the white box. It's my favorite so far. Crazy how much closer you can shave and with less irritation once you get the hang of it.

[6.5swedeforelk]

Work boot laces seem to break when you're pressed for time.
It's always at the eyelets, then you need to tie a knot & run.

Make the laces last nearly the life of your new boots by relacing them so the right lace is 1 inch longer.

Many months later, adjust laces so they are now even.

etc

[6.5swedeforelk]

Birthday, Christmas & anniversary presents are devilishly expensive.
They often turn out to be disappointing to the wife.

I now simply have her go to her favorite ladies shop & pick up something that she truely adores.

That saves me a ton of money & so far she's never been caught!

[ETOWNCANUCK]

Originally Posted by 6.5swedeforelk

Birthday, Christmas & anniversary presents are devilishly expensive.
They often turn out to be disappointing to the wife.

I now simply have her go to her favorite ladies shop & pick up something that she truely adores.

That saves me a ton of money & so far she's never been caught!

LOL

I got that.

[haggis95]

Register with the Canadian Tire website and create a sales alert for products you often buy (oil, filters etc) or items you would like, but not at full price (tools).

But if you want car parts online places like rockauto are better

I rarely buy anything at full price.

[Tom Pullings]

Time for a revival. Read through and found lots of good ideas. Some of my ways to save money, resources, etc are:

Installed a cheap water shutoff valve on my shower head so I can turn the water off when I’m soaping up. You can really save water if you take navy showers (get wet, turn water off, soap entire body, turn water on and rinse).

I also do the bucket trick to save the water while waiting for the shower to get to temp. I generally use this extra water to water plants or for doing hand wash laundry.

Put a 2 litre pop bottle full of water and a bit of stones in my toilet tank. Haven’t noticed and performance change and saves 2l every flush.

I wear mostly wool clothing and hand wash it all in a laundry sink. I end up doing most of my laundry by hand now. It’s fast and saves water and electricity. Hang dry outside in summer or on a rack in winter. Another good thing about wool is it doesn’t really need washing very often as it doesn’t hold on to smells or dirt like most fabrics.

Walk to do any chores or shopping in town. Invest in a good backpack. Hard to impulse buy something large or heavy if you have to carry it home on your back.

Don’t buy big name outdoors gear. Lots of great hunting and fishing clothing and gear can be found in military surplus stores for unreal cheap. Usually gonna last you longer too as it’s military grade.

That’s all I can think of for now.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Crankbait]

Originally Posted by haggis95

Register with the Canadian Tire website and create a sales alert for products you often buy (oil, filters etc) or items you would like, but not at full price (tools).

But if you want car parts online places like rockauto are better

I rarely buy anything at full price.

winter tires are insanely marked down right now, so I bought an extra set plus got new ones put on for altogether cheaper than new ones next year. the alert app is great

[Crankbait]

when my clothes are worn in dust, I toss them in the dryer with a sopping wet towel and tumble for a bit then tumble a bit longer without towel. also keep a drying rack in the laundry room.

I also press garments between the box spring and mattress

[Fisherpeak]

Originally Posted by saskbooknut

Previous post saying that he hunts his own meat rather than buying it - hilarious !

I usually carefully avoid calculating what my game meat costs.
$73 for tags and license, say....$300 for gas ( optimist), we'll not count the trips to the range to practice, reloading costs, depreciation, gift to landowner.....

Game meat is priceless.

Depends where you live. I hunt Crown land and take my 2 white tails(one buck,one doe) every year within 10 miles of my house. $76 for license and 2 tags, do all my own butchering. Average 160 pounds of fine eating in the freezer. Factor in $50 for gas( I like to explore a bit) 2 30.06 shells at $1.50 each...Yeah, I'm doing fine.

[koothunter]

Just adjust the float in the toilet, instead of a 2L with rocks.

[CaberTosser]

Originally Posted by koothunter

Just adjust the float in the toilet, instead of a 2L with rocks.

Lowering the water level is less effective than displacing some water because a lower column of water has less head pressure. Volumes being equal one would get better performance from a taller column of water. That being said with a newer low-flush toilet such measures might reduce performance, not to mention that the smaller tanks have less space in which to fit displacing items, one can't have things interfering with the moving parts in there after all.

[Tom Pullings]

Originally Posted by CaberTosser

Lowering the water level is less effective than displacing some water because a lower column of water has less head pressure. Volumes being equal one would get better performance from a taller column of water. That being said with a newer low-flush toilet such measures might reduce performance, not to mention that the smaller tanks have less space in which to fit displacing items, one can't have things interfering with the moving parts in there after all.

That’s what I figured as well. Less pressure from a lowered water level. Luckily my throne is old and has lots of room for a 2l bottle. Not quite enough for a 4l though.

[The Fisherman Guy]

I take Caber's advice and checked out the European Market in Deerfoot Meadows!

Fantastic eggs from the Brightstone Colony in Carbon, cheapest in town.

Great, super cheap produce too - just like you said. Thanks for the tip!

[Stir]

I have a coworker that won't charge his cell phone at home...only at worknot something I would stoop too

[Fish along]

Originally Posted by grouse_hunter

I've had a few deer that cost me over a thousand dollars in expenses...
This year, money is tight, so I bought 4 250-300 lb pigs at $250 each. Right now I'm cutting up a beef calf which cost me $2 per pound of live weight. I also butchered 27 chickens, which were free ranged, weight around 7-9lbs and cost $15 per bird.
You don't have to be a Scot to be cheap, I mean frrrrugal

You must have to buy a new kitchen range every 6 months lol,don't care what you call me,as long as you don't call me late for supper.

[pinelakeperch]

Collect bottles
Pump an extra $.02 when paying cash for gas
Shop at Value Village (ask an employee when the next 50% off sale is)