How did I save money today?

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Haertig said:
I also found a neat trick to hook up the chained sprinklers. I have two of them in a chain and I found that I needed to be able to separately adjust the water flow to each sprinkler. Just using the built-in flow through of the sprinklers (one input connection and one output connection) didn't work because then each sprinkler took whatever water it could, resulting in one of them spraying too far and the other not spraying far enough.

So I took one of those Y connectors with shutoffs and connected the main feed hose (the darker hose in the picture) to the input of the first sprinkler in the chain, and then connected a hose to that Y going to the second sprinkler (the lighter green hose). Now I can use the two shutoff valves in partially open positions to set the flow I need to each of the two sprinkler heads in the chain, so they are balanced to my needs. Also, since I now have control of the water flow out at the sprinkler heads themselves, I can just turn on the water at the house spigot to full volume. No more needing a second person to help me set the level - one at the main valve and one out in view of the sprinkler heads yelling "Turn it down a little, no, too much, turn it back up". You can do all that with one person now since the control is right out there where the one person can view the sprinkler heads themselves.

High end sprinkler heads may have built-in adjustments for the flow they receive, but the ones I have a cheap ones and don't have this fine tuning control.

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I put one of those "Y" Connectors on the Drain Connection of Me Gas Water Heater to Stop the Drip...!!! Save many $'s instead of replacing said Unit...!!
 
Instead of driving to the store for tortillas, I am making them at home.
Saves in gas and expense of buying tortillas too.
Making up homemade gravy mixes for my pantry instead of buying pre made.
This way I control the salt.
Also saved by not going to the store and by not willy nilly shopping.
Win- win no impulse shopping done here today.
 
Sometimes I get in a lazy mood, as in lately. We got an Ollie's add last week & it didn't have anything in it that we needed. So a copy of the add arrived in the mail & I looked it over. The only possible thing in it that we could possibly use was a carpet shampooer. Today I checked out that shampooer at a trusted site (Vacuum Wars if your interested). And I found that it was rated VERY high & sold for around $269. Ollie's price for a remanufactured one was $119. Sure we already have a bissell & it's ok but it's something like 6 years old & honestly it does only an ok job. So I called my wife (who's shopping anyway) & told her to go by Ollie's & see if they have one left. They did so we bought it.

Now some of you will say "But it's remanufactured & could be garbage". That is true. But my wife also has a coupon for 15% off so I'm not risking that much money. Beside's once upon a time we "invested" in a very, very good carpet cleaner (as in over $500) & we found that with our mineralized water they need to be able to be worked on locally (the expensive one couldn't) & only may or may not last long. So it's a gamble & if I win then I win pretty big. And if I lose I don't lose that much.

And I'll throw this in (another gamble). After 2.5 years of dealing with a ceiling fan problem I FINALLY got hold of the company who charged me $29 dollars for the parts that I "think" I needed to replace to get it working again. In case your going What? The deal is that I have 2 of these fans more or less in the same room & they started out at $1500 each (or there abouts). I got them on sale & love them & want both of them to work rather than replacing both of them (I'm a little OCD & if you can stand in one place in see both of them I want them to match). I haven't installed the part yet because after 2.5 years I want to enjoy the feeling that I've solved the problem before I try it & go insane (if it doesn't) work & rip both of them out of the ceiling.
 
This is kind of tied to the above post & an old story. Maybe it will give you ideas though. We bought our house about 18 yeas ago & moved in. After about 30 days we walked through every room & made a list of what we wanted to add or replace. (The ceiling fans above were on that list). The list was something like 26 or 28 items long. One of the things was wall sconces, which I had never even seen or at least noticed before. We had 6 of them in our living room, & there were 3 different variations (who does that?), No matter where you stood in the room you could see that they didn't match. We wanted stained glass for them but took out time because those were selling at over $100 each. We found those locally on close out (after months of looking) for $24 each. Later we bought a HUGE main lamp that matched. I say man because it is like 2.5 ft across & made to hang down from the ceiling & we paid 99 bucks for it. It was cheap because not too many houses would you be able to put it in because of it's size. We also paid full price ($150) for a floor lamp to match. ( I wanted to come back & add that we watched that floor lamp for over a year & they never marked it down).

I figured up afterward & when we were through buying everything on that list we had saved about 60 percent overall from the going prices.
 
I did not check any local auctions for things the "I really, well maybe, or I goota got pick the other stuff up anyway and its cheap.........
 
About 6 months ago.
My Internet bill went way up from $30 monthly to $129 monthly.
Nope not doing it, can't afford that.
Okay, started checking around to find something more affordable than Mediacom in my area.
I put myself on several Internet list with better pricing.
One of the companies was AT&T- same everything except pricing cheaper-$95 monthly.
Nope, can't do that one either.
Still shopping around, Google is in the next town over.
They opened an office an office right next to Mediacom.
Google Internet will be $75 monthly.
Put my name on that Internet list too.
So I'm thinking that's still out of my budget, but we'll see if I can swing in 3 months.
All this time Mediacom bill is coming down.
Because now they don't have monopoly on Internet services anymore.
Now new company comes to town.
United Fiber, they're laying fiber optics all over town.
Did some investigating about them.
They're prices are more in line with my budget-$30.
So put myself on their waiting list.
Got my Mediacom bill yesterday???
Same service I had before $14.99 monthly.
So the money I will save will help pay of student loan that much quicker.
Instead of three payments to finish paying off student loan, I will have 2 payments.
In turn the saving will also pay off car faster too.
So instead of 12 months it will be nine months.
Pays to shop around.
 
There's an online auction site called mac.bid (only available in certain areas but mainly PA, OH and SC).
Most of what they sell are overruns or returns/clearance for places like Amazon, Home Depot, Lowes...
We get a lot of things from there. Sometimes you get screwed as people buy something (let's say a coffee maker) then put their old one in the box and do a return but if you're careful and/or buy the insurance, you can get some nice deals.

You pay a lot fee of $3-5 and 15% buyers premium. So if you're winning bid is $5, the total price is closer to $9.

Some recent purchases:
A $100 coffee maker - $5
A $200 sump pump - $13
A $320 ceiling fan - $62
A $480 sewer pump - $76
 
When we got the skip two weeks back we also gathered a pile of metal.Husband took it to the scrap place today- it wasn't great stuff, we kept the copper and lead, but we 50 for it. Even better, I have new woodpile area now all the junk is gone.
Started using the American envelope system I saw on Pinterest for long term bills like insurance, licences and car mot - have to say Its working out well so far.
 
Saved $149 today, by not listening to Sales Clerk at Tandy Leather.
No way am I going to pay $79 for a piece of plastic to hold my tools in for leather working.
Nor am I going to pay $79 for a block of wood with holes drilled into for the same reason.
So off I go to local Community College across the river, take a picture of one of the items I would like to make.
Boom, got my first class project for basic carpentry class.
I think the sales clerk at Tandy was miffed.
I'm not buying anything from anybody until I know exactly what I already have.
 
MoBookworm1957 said:
Saved $149 today, by not listening to Sales Clerk at Tandy Leather.
No way am I going to pay $79 for a piece of plastic to hold my tools in for leather working.
Nor am I going to pay $79 for a block of wood with holes drilled into for the same reason.
So off I go to local Community College across the river, take a picture of one of the items I would like to make.
Boom, got my first class project for basic carpentry class.
I think the sales clerk at Tandy was miffed.
I'm not buying anything from anybody until I know exactly what I already have.
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I did a similar thing decades ago when I was tying flies for fly fishing. You could buy "fly tying tables". They weren't even a table, just a workspace that you would set on an existing table. Even back then they cost a fortune. I looked at those and said to myself, "That's just a piece of plywood, covered with felt, with some wood trim around the edges, and a block of wood with some holes drilled in it." I can make that for about $10 (at the time). So I did.

I built a similar workspace when I was working with stained glass (I just left the felt covering off).

And again when I built my reloading bench. This one was a little more complicated because I wanted it to have the table built in. And it needs to be a really solid table to remain wobble-free while handling the force you will put on the press. But still, simple construction that you'd pay hundreds of dollars to buy commercially.
 
Got a pretty good deal on a television at Chinamart. They had a bunch of tvs all lined up in the boxes that were marked open box / returns. One box was a 55" TCL 4K with no signs of ever having been opened. Clerk said it was still covered by the full warranty. Was marked $188 but the same tv was marked $248 in the new section. So I brought it home and I am 99.99% sure the box was never opened. Works perfectly and saved me $60.
 
d_marsh said:
Got a pretty good deal on a television at Chinamart. They had a bunch of tvs all lined up in the boxes that were marked open box / returns. One box was a 55" TCL 4K with no signs of ever having been opened. Clerk said it was still covered by the full warranty. Was marked $188 but the same tv was marked $248 in the new section. So I brought it home and I am 99.99% sure the box was never opened. Works perfectly and saved me $60.
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Can You get South American Channels on it...?!? Inquiring Minds Want 2 Know...!! ;)
 
Mountain trapper said:
I really don't know too many people here, but I do have a call out. We'll probably start walking while we wait for a call back.
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Would someone at the feed store be able to give you a lift if you offered a couple $$$ for gas?
 
Not only did I Save $ by using the Neighbors cut grass for mulch, I am eating left-overs... No Leaving the "Casa Not So Grande" 2day...!!!
 
A year or so ago now I spilled a big half cup of coffee into the keyboard of this long suffering lap top.. Have been using a $9 plug in key board and mouse since.. Time to get another as some keys on this one are starting to stick..

Local Wednesday farmers market will open tomorrow afternoon in the park by the river parking lot.. Maybe too early for much to be there, but looking forward to getting a bunch of ground cherries for jam.. Have missed that..
 
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