One Frugal Thing — Painting a Toilet Seat
by Katy on May 24, 2025 · 8 comments
Our 111-year-old house has one small bathroom, despite it having four full bedrooms. This fact means that our single toilet holds great importance, which is why the mystery scratch in the white finish really bothered me. Like super duper bothered me! Looked like poop from afar.
My husband invested in a schmancy “soft close” seat for some unfathomable reason, which made it a pricier purchase. Although he probably paid less than this example.
I decided enough was enough and unearthed a can of spray paint from the basement and got to work. I taped a plastic bag around the lid and spent the day coating the seat with three light coats of paint. By the way, these are weeds along the side of my house.
No reason to send a bulky item to the landfill when it can be refurbished and brought back to like new condition.
Better!
I’m glad no one was home yesterday to bear witness to me hovering over this seat-less toilet like I was in a 1970s gas station bathroom! Sacrifices were made.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
1. Someone brought my partner 2 donuts at his work. Partner doesn’t really like donuts so he brought them home for me and I ate one for breakfast with my (made at home, from the clearance section) coffee.
2. I picked up 2 mystery shops along my 3.5 hour commute yesterday. One was at a grocery store, where I stretched the impact buying items that were on sale (so an extra $6.92 worth of food!), although I screwed up and bought 2 ears of corn, but missed the threshold of $10 to get the super-sale price, by 0.33. I hope these two ears of corn are the best I’ve ever had, at $0.60 instead of the $0.10 I thought that I was going to pay for them.) The second shop was at a restaurant, so I had dinner and pocketed the payout of $18.
3. I found heavy cream on FlashFood. I rarely need it, but when I do, I get sticker shock, so I’ll divide into 2 1-cup jars and freeze.
4. I rented out my work apartment to a friend, so I’ll add an additional $60 to my travel fund.
5. I just found out that I was granted a sabbatical for the fall semester, so I’ll save 4 months of commuting (7 hours weekly + tolls), which I estimate will be about $900 + a reduction in taxes, since I won’t be working in NY.
Congrats on sabbatical! Will you sublet your NY apartment?
I just love reading your mystery shops. We don’t have too many restaurant shops in Fairbanks because there are fewer franchises (still too many for my taste because I remember the days when we had to drive 358 miles one way to go to Wendy’s in Anchorage. We also had only a one screen movie theater so about once a summer we would take a weekend to drive down there, eat at Wendy’s and McDonalds, and go to as many movies as we could fit in.)
Is that a bidet attachment? Do you have stats on how much that’s saving you?
Good job on the toilet seat!
My latest frugal fail is that I couldn’t find an item I’d hoped to buy used, so I ordered a new one. I got it yesterday, and it was defective, so I returned it. One benefit of buying used is that the truly crappy items will break before they reach the used market.
Katy, you have pretty weeds. Nice save on the toilet seat. Like you, I’d try to fix what looks like dried poop.
Frugal fail: went to hardware store to look for adjustable louvered window screens (the ones that let air in and keep rain out. $30 for 2. However, it means we can enjoy natural air conditioning/fresh air and not run the air conditioner that sucks electricity. Possibly a trade off?
Stopped by a local coffee shop. We went to a free community thanksgiving dinner in November and were each given a coupon for a free 12 oz. coffee. Finally got to use the coupons!
Stopped at the grocery store to get some cheese. Found a lot of 8 oz bottles of French’s mustard regularly $1.79 marked down to $.80. Bought 3. We use mustard, but not a lot. This should be enough for the rest of 2025, maybe into 2026.
Whole seedless watermelon regularly $7.99. On sale for $6.99. Had e-coupon for $3 off. Final price $3.99. Local farmers market wants $10 for a watermelon. Hope my $3.99 watermelon is good.
1.I sanded and painted all of my floor vent covers, I had the paint and sanding supplies so no $$ spent and they look good! I have no idea why but when my semi-feral long haired rescue cat decides she needs to barf a hairball, she will invariably do it on at floor vent. Its disgusting but I love her anyway.
2. Discovered we finally got a flash foods and was able to get several types of meat for the freezer. I think I am going to like Flash Foods!
3. picking spinach and lettuce from my garden.
4. doing all of my yard and garden work and keeping up on weeds. Most everything is growing well. I cannot seem to get the colorful carrots or parsnips to germinate and grow but have decided that when I am home from my mini-vaca if they aren’t doing anything I will plant another few rows of green beans.
5. making my own yogurt and bread as always.
* haven’t sold out my country or my soul for filthy lucre.
Katy, I have said how my refugee parents were poverty stricken. Years later my father invented something and became wealthy (not in comparison to the oligarchs taking over the U.S. but more money than he had dreamt of those years in various German camps). He built his dream house and his dream bathroom: separate shower and giant tub, double counters, huge mirrors, and the pride of his life—a giant screen TV and a recliner. The bathroom was larger than any bedroom I have ever had. His toilet was set up higher so that in his old age he did not struggle to get off. Personally, I would not have wanted to watch TV or snooze in the bathroom, but when he got the cancer that killed him, that bathroom became his bedroom when he could no longer sleep lying flat, and it was conveniently located near a toilet so when he was nauseated he did not have to trot far to throw up. I am glad he got to build the Taj Mahal of toilets after all that suffering as a young kid and man, but it still made me cringe. At least he didn’t gold plate everything, like some people we know.