What Are Your Most Unhinged/Feral Money Saving Hacks?
by Katy on April 9, 2025 · 162 comments
I’ve been seeing an interesting trend on social media where people ask “What’s your most unhinged hack” related to whatever their speciality is. I read through one Thread that specifically asked:
“Please tell me your most unhinged money saving hacks. I’m not talking about save 5% of your paycheck or make coffee at home. Give me the most unhinged, feral things you’ve done to save money?”
There were over 3,500 responses ranging from illegal to actually useful suggestions. Either way an enjoyable rabbit hole, because you know I’m always on the hunt for new money saving ideas!
Now it’s your turn — what is your unhinged/feral things you’ve done to save money? Please share your stories in the comments section below!
To follow her lead, I’ll go first:
There’s almost nothing something that I consider “too cheap,” whether it’s eating at home before going to a restaurant, garbage picking or secretly gathering wild blackberries in the back of a retail establishment. No shame to my game!
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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{ 162 comments… read them below or add one }
I really can’t think of anything your regular commenters would consider unhinged. I think the non frugal people would think otherwise.
1. I have a dishwasher that has leaked on and off for years. Repair person was not helpful. I just put a container under the leaky area and ignore it. The dishwasher still works like a charm, so I’m happy to live with it that way.
2. I save the paper towels I use to dry berries (I don’t like to stain my towels) and reuse them to clean up grease or drain bacon on. These are the only things I generally use paper towels for, so a roll lasts forever.
3. I use handkerchiefs or toilet paper to blow my nose and save the kleenex for guests and my daughter.
4. I save water from when my shower warms up to flush my toilet. I don’t pay for water but my well pump has to run…
I also use handkerchiefs and cloth towels instead of paper. But I’m even more feral, I don’t keep Kleenex around for guests! It rarely occurs to me to acquire them before it’s too late and a guest needs one… but toilet paper works in a pinch 😉
I have not bought tissues in years! We use hankies or TP. My father-in-law recently gave us a box of tissues (because he bought way too many at Costco) and I asked my husband “what are we going to do with those?”. It’s been 2 months and they’re still sitting unused.
I have a single Kleenex box that I put out in our spare bedroom for when we have guests. Otherwise it’s bandanas or toilet paper.
Katy, you’re a nurse. What is your thinking on using handkerchiefs when one has a cold? Use the same hankie several times, or use a new one each time so as not to continue the infection?
I use a roll of toilet paper when I have the rare cold, I use hankies for when my nose is runny, which is often.
Tissues have gotten way too expensive! (Unused) toilet paper is much more economical. One might say “frugal”.
The place where I buy the smaller cubes of generic tissues jacked up the price by 25% overnight. I think it’s time to sew more hankies.
A post after my own heart! I sometimes think I’m going feral in widowhood, but then I remind myself that I was pretty much that way to begin with. Anyway:
Committed bottlepicker. A few of the neighbors even bring me NY State deposit containers now.
Recreational trashpicker. I no longer do this as actively, but there’s life in this old girl yet. See my recent comment about the splendid Farberware 8-qt. pot I found in a nearby apartment complex’s dumpster.
Committed secondhand shopper. Although I will not have a gravestone (I’ve already arranged to donate my own body to the local medical school, as I did for DH), one of my epitaphs would probably be “She never paid retail if she could help it.”
And, for that matter, committed anatomical donor. If that route doesn’t appeal to you, check out other alternative methods of disposition, such as green burial. Jessica Mitford got it right way back in 1963 with her book The American Way of Death: The conventional funeral industry is predatory.
I knew you were my people. I have suspeded donating my body to science. It upset my DH for no good reason. I will if he goes first. But I am working on him though.
Also donating my body. In our state, at least (Colorado), when they’re done fussing with it, they’ll return it cremated as a nice pile of ashes. Okay with me!
That way, they can be scattered in the places I truly love, rather than under a stone in the cemetery.
It’s not hard — but you do have to have the paperwork done before the Blessed Event.
I too have done the paperwork to donate my body to the UNM Medical School, but they won’t take it if you have made organ donations. I’m also a designated organ donor, so I guess it will be a race to the finish line between the transplant surgeons and the Med School. Somebody from the Med School may be running down the hall to the OR shouting “Stop Thief!” at the transplant team.
DH actually yearned to be an organ donor (he signed every organ donation card he ever got in his life), but by the time he died, his organs weren’t in the best condition for donation. (There’s a reason they call motorcycle accident fatalities in their teens and 20s “organ donors.”) But I figured that anatomical donation was the next best way of honoring his wish.
Your DH was such a good guy, and it’s a tremendous gift to humanity to be able to help train new doctors and researchers.
I’m in an Alzheimer’s study (Google ADNI for more info). I have agreed to donate my brain posthumously. After that happens, I don’t care about the rest of me.
I think you’ve made us all feel we knew your DH through your words. What a kind and thoughtful man, although I’m sure that doesn’t begin to describe him. He sounds like a person who had nothing but the best of intentions.
As a nurse, I’ve found after doing after death care- that after 80 years – they will only be interested in your eyes for transplant if you’ve never had cataracts.
I went to the UNM College of Nursing and worked with donated cadavers, thank you! And by the way, we treated them very respectfully.
Feral and unhinged are good words to describe how I’m feeling about pretty much everything going on right now. At the moment, I can’t think of any one particular wild thing that I’ve done, at least what I’d admit to here, but I can say that, like Katy, I have “no shame to my game.” I don’t let anything go to waste or be used only once (well, except toilet paper). Just the other day, I was at my niece’s house – the niece who is notorious for throwing things away based solely on the expiration date provided by the manufacturer – and I asked her, “Is there anything you’re about to throw away that I can take off your hands?” She replied that she was getting a lot better about that and gave me the credit. She also gave me party leftovers so a win all around.
I’ve found my people.
“Feral and Unhinged” would be a great name for a band.
Feral and unhinged could also describe some of my former students, coworkers and bosses….not to mention the Roommate from Hell!
Well, those folks were feral and unhinged in a bad way. Over here, we’re feral and unhinged in a good way. 🙂
A.Marie,
Absolutely! We are original thinkers, figuring out ways to be ferally frugal!
Once Rite Aid was sponsoring this deal where if you spent certain amounts of money and entered in your receipts, you could earn gift cards. My husband dumpster dived and retrieved all the receipts that people just threw away at the store. I have dug through garbage cans for Coke lids from bottles back when you could enter in the codes and get free stuff – I would get hundreds of dollars in gift cards to use for Christmas. I asked people for their diaper UPCs at the store in order to enter them – got my children’s first Christmases presents completely free that way. This past summer, my husband and I picked mulberries at a state park and made jelly from them. I could probably think of a lot more if I tried. LOL
I remember the day of Coke reward points as well as diaper rewards package reward points. I always enjoyed the free soda coupons. Those have gone away. But it’s now a good memory. I had a few friends who would give me their coke numbers and probably thought I was crazy. But I did the extreme couponing and it really helped me financially at the time.
I channel-surfed past a 2011 episode of “Extreme Couponers” the other day, The woman had stockpiled 400 boxes of dryer sheets. That just makes my skin itch and nose burn.
I also liked saving points and UPCs, but there isn’t much of that left that I see now. I used my Charlie Tuna phone and watch for many years.
We labor nurses went crazy cutting the proofs of purchase off the small packs of hospital diapers and ordered so much free stuff for our kids. I got a Fisher Price ride-on motorized car for the price of shipping, which was around $30. I also ordered one for a friend.
I did the Pepsi codes when my kids were young and we were broke. I would collect cans and bottles from all the sports fields every few days and turn them in. I would give my dad the coke codes and I would do the Pepsi codes. My parents and sisters would give me their Pepsi codes too. We got so much free stuff for Christmas and birthdays. We also did Kellogg’s codes. I still wear the socks. The cans and bottles money was our fun money.
I miss the Coke Rewards! Everyone at work would leave their caps in my locker, and if I saw 12 packs in the recycling while walking the dog I’d grab the code.
Entered all the diaper codes as well back in the day.
As Jill A said above…I’m not sure of anything I do would be considered unhinged on this site but I have a few.
1. I use any water leftover in my teapot from the day before to water my plants. I do actually pay a water bill so every drop counts.
2. I paid more money for a high efficiency washing machine than a regular top loader to save money on water this way. I didn’t keep track of usage but I’m pretty sure the savings on our water bill paid for the extra money spent on the HE washing machine.
3. I don’t drive faster than 64 in cruise control on highways to save gas money. Yes, I get dirty looks but I don’t care at this point in time! Lol.
4. I have a friend who sells cookware and home products through parties at people’s homes. As much as I love her and appreciate how she is trying to make a living, I won’t have a party at my home. I think the prices are high and I wouldn’t ask people to spend that kind of money on things they may not need, especially in these tough times.
5. Like Katy, I take advantage of free food where I can find it. There was a vacant lot on my old mail route where beautiful raspberries grew. When on that street, I planned my ten minute break to stuff my face full of berries. One time, my supervisor came by and saw me standing there with my mailbag on, eating the berries. She joked she had “caught me in the bushes” on my route. We had a good laugh on that one.
#4 – I have such conflicting feelings about the at home parties of independent mlm type retailers. Of course I want to support my friends, but I have to honor my budget too!!
Exactly. I do buy a few things from her every year but I don’t feel right asking others to do the same, thus the refusal to have a party.
Last Mother’s Day DH asked what I wanted to do. Answer— dumpster dive. He took a pic of me balancing on top edge of dumpster and inside dumpster. Oh I a
Was 70. Gave me great pleasure to do, think about and laugh about as I still got it going!
PS I can’t tell everyone about it. I also have a grabber stick I use to
Pull stuff out usually.
The Bestest Neighbors, DH, and I once did a photoshoot of me leaning into a dumpster, with a BN hanging onto each leg. DH took the photo. Thanks for bringing up a happy memory.
I guess it’s sort of unhinged that I take a bag with me every time I heard out on a walk, so I can gather any redeemable cans I see along the way. It’s possibly becoming less unhinged since I’ve started seeing other “normal” people doing the same thing. I used to find around 10 cans per mile, but now it’s one or two.
My pride in incorporating free stuff into the household has been called unhinged. My son has a favorite shirt that I found in a crosswalk. It had been run over by a car. It washed up nicely, and he is none the wiser! Haha.
The story of your son’s shirt reminds me of the time I found a NWT men’s L seersucker bathrobe in the middle of our nearest main drag, with only a few tire tracks on it. I took it home, laundered it, and wore it for years.
Now I’m going to stay up at night theorizing how a seersucker bathrobe ended up in the middle of the street….
If it was on a main drag, then I envision a themed pub crawl, where everyone was supposed to show up in a bathrobe.
I’m jealous that I don’t have such an exciting bathrobe.
Li– that themed pub crawl must have gotten rowdy if the wearer lost his robe. I’m picturing an old drunk guy in his tighty-whities.
I found a Hermes scarf blowing down 5th Avenue in NYC! It had not been run over, but it was a rainy and windy night so it was soaked. I did look around to see if anyone was frantically chasing it but didn’t spot anyone. I looked it up later online and it retailed for over $1000 (it was an enormous scarf).
You win!
Wow!!
You hit the scarf jackpot! I found an Old Navy scarf on a wooded trail once but I can tell you with assurance, it was not worth $1000. I did find a Lands End hooded sweatshirt hanging on a tree branch on another trail while hiking with DH. I said “Look! A sweatshirt!” to which DH replied “Yeah, I found it on the ground last week.” Turns out he hung it on the branch in case the rightfully owner came back for it. A week waiting for the owner was enough for me. I brought it home and washed it. Still wearing it at least 5 years later.
That seems like a scene from “Sex andThe City!”
I started doing this last summer on my evening walks. A small baggu style bag that fits in my pocket, but unfolds to carry whatever.
When the weather heats up I keep a bucket or two in the shower with me. I use the water I collect to fill the bird bath, and to water the odd plant. It is just a little savings, but it isn’t any trouble.
I would worry that I’d trip on the bucket. Because I would.
Years ago when we had a draught and no watering the lawn I would stop up the water in my shower (bathtub). Then I would scoop the water out in a 5 gallon bucket and water the lawn. Reason-I was having a 50th wedding celebration for my parents in August.
I reuse dental floss. I am an adult, it’s mine, I don’t expect anyone else to be as devoted to floss as I am. I cut a long piece, keep it in a dry place in the shower, use it daily, rinse it and let it dry til tomorrow when I use it again. A piece can last a month, if I am careful. Of course I get floss “samples” at routine cleanings in the USA.
I also save restaurant napkins. I don’t use tissues or paper towels, I always have a variety of napkins in a pocket. And enough to use at a picnic table or messy park bench and always one for the public toilet that is woefully damp or without any TP.
I help myself to rosemary that swipes my calf when I walk, as it’s already hanging in the public right of way.
So . . . you use eminent domain for the rosemary.
I have definitely found my people.
I save and soak banana peels in water to use as high potassium fertilizer.
I save orange peels and either grind just the orange part after drying to add to my “ho made Ms Dash” seasoning or I put the peels into a jar, cover with cheap white vinegar and use strained solution to clean with. It works a treat on a stainless steel sink amongst other things.
I have the family save any kitchen scraps for my chickens, except for grease. When my chickens see me coming with a folgers container they swarm me. They know there are goodies for them.
I use family cloth for myself, keep TP for others….soak the family cloth in above mentioned orange vinegar and water before washing.
I have separate jars for different types of cooking drippings. Kept in freezer.
I will wash and reuse foil until it is tattered.
DD bring the leftovers from office parties for the “chickens” almost all of it is in nice catering containers. I not only save and reuse the containers but I also freeze and eat the leftovers. It’s always a same day thing and they refrigerate all of it before sending it home with DD….I do send them eggs when I have extras.
The chickens get any salads and such right away because they always dress the entire container and I cannot abide slimy salad.
If any one offers free food such as garden produce or fruit from their trees we take it. If it isn’t eaten ,processed or offered to others the chickens get it.
I am sure I could think of more but you get the idea.
JC
“ho made” is funny! Loving all these feral ideas.
You have some very lucky chickens!
I think my Squamishness-meter is lower than many. I don’t require paper towels for pet messes, like my husband. I use a menstrual cup, cloth pads, cloth handkerchiefs, cloth towels. My parents tried to get us a funny “paper” related gift for our first anniversary and the only paper product we use is toilet paper! I wonder if I could get my husband on board with family cloth? LOL.
I’ll buy almost anything used. My exceptions are: mattresses, bathing suits, socks, and kid/baby car seats from strangers (I’d take either from trusted sources like friends!), and underwear from anyone. Maybe I trust hot water and soap too much LOL!
I have a high squeamish factor and probably believe too much in the power of soap and water!
Andrea, last year I bought a swimming suit at an upscale thrift store. It had plenty of life left in it until one of the straps got caught in the gym water extractor and tore off 🙁
At least it wasn’t filmed like poor Janet Jackson.
I used a menstrual cup for probably a dozen years until I got an IUD that mostly stopped my periods.
I once heard Oprah say she thought it was gross to reuse plastic baggies.I don’t use them hardly at all anymore,prefer glass containers, but if I do, they are rewashed and reused for a long time. I reuse foil paper and parchment paper too.
OK this will gross some people out: My husband thinks it is ok to wear his underwear two days in a row. So do I.Americans are too “clean”.. lol..
Am considering family cloth just for me, am of the age where I “go” often especially once summer hits and I am guzzling the ( cheap home made) iced tea.. why not.
No paper towels.Even kitty vomit is wiped up with an old rag, which is rinsed and laundered .
Trash picking: I live in a neighborhood where the neighbors would NOT be trash picking on a regular basis, but on my morning walk I saw a perfectly good office chair with the LUMBAR SUPPORT and arms I was looking for, so I simply rolled it down the sidewalk, home with me..
SHAMELESSLY ask for items I desire, on my buy nothing fb page : a blender, a foot spa, a popcorn maker, a baby monitor for when I was caregiving a sick relative, and a waffle iron all free. I also give away freely..
My husband will glue his favorite shoes back together.
I reuse tea bags (I don’t like strong tea..)
I save EVERY DROP of coffee that I make in my drip pot..into refrig and after a few days I have enough for a nice cold latte made by ME for a hot afternoon. (I live in Phoenix,it will be 98 degrees today..thanks to climate change..)
Not legal (?). When I do eat out, I order “Water” but the tap water is horrid here so I will go to the lemonade spigot and just put 1 quick squirt into my free water when no one is looking.
Doesn’t everyone everyone take a few stevia packets when they are out..
I also am not afraid to ask on my Buy Nothing page! I asked for a pizza stone thinking it was a longshot, but someone has just bought a used oven that had a stuck drawer, only to reveal an unwanted pizza stone!!
Ha, I gave my pizza stone away on Buy Nothing a few years ago.
I washed my baggies out after use too. When they’ve lived past their useful life span (zipper breaks or they spring a leak), they get recycled with other plastic bags at my grocery store. I also wash a reuse aluminum foil. Not only good for the environment but that stuff has got expensive.
Don’t mind me, I’m just taking my office chair for a walk . . .
Yeah,that was a 2 block walk but I don’t care!! That chair was MINE ALL MINE!!!!!!!
The Brick would probably say it’s my habit of looking for change — on the floor, under a counter — but most of all, the change machines at grocery stores. You would not BELIEVE the amount of change I’ve picked up at change machines!!
Same! I’m always looking down for coins when I’m walking through a parking lot, and always check the change machine after I check out at the grocery store. There’s almost always something in it. I used to find a lot of silver dimes, but it’s been a few years.
I’m on a frugal blog, so I doubt anything I do is truly unhinged!
* No paper napkins, and paper towels only for patting meat dry when I’m in a hurry (also cleaning up my aging dog’s accidents)
* Write the date on all skincare/beauty products to help me track how long things take to use and resist the urge to buy backups (obviously the most frugal would be to opt out, but I enjoy a reasonable amount of skincare/beauty).
* Cutting my husband’s hair (still using the clippers I bought 17 years ago)
* Cutting my own hair (low ponytail, pull up over my forehead, trim the obviously dead ends, husband evens up the bottom – I go in once a year for a cut with thinning shears…but I’m about to buy my own pair)
Alas, my husband will no longer let me cut his hair. A financial travesty!
Gave up underpants about ten years ago. Don’t drink alcohol, coffee, or tea. Vegan. Bathe weekly in winter-prn in gardening season. Thermostat 61 during the day, 57 at night. I’ve never purchased paper towels or plastic baggies. I’ve got old undershirts–am not reluctant to discard a rag involved in major grossness. And I get enough second-had stuff that comes in baggies to meet my needs. My husband wears things I’ve found on the street. A Marie–the technical term for these garments is “road kill.” But perhaps my most extreme was the time in college I made supper for my group house. I trapped, dressed and roasted a dozen pigeons and renamed them as Cornish game hens.
I love this!
LOL at all of this–especially the “Cornish game hens.” I always tell myself that the pigeons at my bird feeders are my extreme backup plan for hard times. At least I know what they’ve been eating. (And, hey, pigeon is delicious. DH and I had it at the wedding banquet of DH’s real estate partner and his Chinese bride, at one of the biggest restaurants in NYC’s Chinatown.)
Our senior community has a glut of Canada geese. They are my current backup plan for hard times.
Mary, yours made me laugh – starting with going commando and then ending with renaming pigeons.
You are my hero! The roasted pigeons will remain in my brain until the day I die.
“Road kill,” love it!
You trapped the pigeons ??!! Whoa, you win the prize here , my girl!!
We are going camping this weekend and there is a baseball theme. We are supposed to wear our favorite team’s logo on a tee shirt, hat, etc. My husband and I have neither so I went to the website, made a copy of the logo, and printed it. I used some single seal laminating paper to laminate them, then cut them out. I pinned one to a black cap my husband can wear and I made mine into a necklace. We did not spend $42.99 on a hat or $40 plus dollars on a tee shirt.
Patti, this is brilliant! Super creative, too.
Smart, smart, smart! Plus you get your normal unbranded clothing back when the event is over.
We have never had a printer with colored ink. We have a Brother laser printer that prints black ink. I bought it for $30.50 in 2011. It was a floor model at Staples. I also print as much as possible on scrap paper. Before DD shreds paperwork I take printable paper and use that. If it has sensitive information I’ll shred it after I use it or cross that information out (I seem to find black Sharpies regularly).
When the Brother printer wants to stop printing because it has deemed the cartridge to be out of ink I trick it by putting a piece of electrical tape over the “eye”. I use a roll of tape I found many years ago.
KD, what ink cartridges does your Brother printer use? Parts of my old Brother wore down until the printer was unusable and couldn’t be repaired and I still have 3 unused TN 450 cartridges. I could turn them in to be recycled but I would rather see them used.
During water rationing one summer, I didn’t want my roses to die — and the 2x a week outdoor watering schedule wasn’t going to be enough in the Florida heat. So I would take a shower with the bathtub plug in, and then bail out the bathwater with a bucket. I poured the water on the roses, and yes, this kept ’em alive. A tip I learned from what my grandma did during the Great Depression (after everyone took a bath in the same bathwater –yuck!)
That same year, I was using reusable cloth feminine napkins and I would soak them in a bucket to make “rosy water”(a better name would be bloody water, but yes it ends up pink) — which is what pioneer women used to pour on roses to water and fertilize them.
Years and years ago, Playtex was introducing tampons and they said if you sent a proof of purchase of any other feminine protection product to them, they’d send you a free box. Never said if it was the box top or bar code or what. So I cut up all the boxes of everything I used and mailed ’em in. Box tops, side panels, labels on the front, bottom of the box, UPC codes — everything I could think of. I sent them to myself using my first/last name, first/middle/last name, first name/middle initial/last name, middle/last name, initials/last name, etc. –all kinds of variations and spellings. I also varied my address: 123 Main St., 123 Main Drive, 123 Main Dr., 123 Main, 0123 Main — you get the idea. I similarly sent them my grandmothers’ addresses, my mom’s, aunties, everyone who’d agree to help me out….and ended up with a couple of years’ supply of free Playtex tampons. Not bad, considering there were only 4 or 5 tampons to a box. (Which I could only use on “light” days bc they weren’t very good.)
And of course, I’ve been a dumpster diver from way back when.
“Rosy water?!” That’s a new one to me!
I take a couple of glass bowls with lids to my Master Gardener potlucks. There are always people saying they don’t want to take home their leftovers. So I have a nice way of taking them home.
I am shameless about curb picking. I currently have a compost tumbler that my neighbors put out for free. I brought it home and have a buyer lined up for today, plus several back up buyers.
My friends know I resell and give me things instead of taking them to goodwill. I have 3 under bed storage boxes listed from that. Today a different friend gave me a brand new pair of Altras and a pair of steel toed boots. Both should sell well.
I take on random work. House sitting. Tutoring. Sewing. Reselling. I just was asked to do voice over work.
What is “voice over work”?
I think voice over work is when someone narrates an animation or a commercial. The voice over is the voice of the actor or character. I am not a voice over expert. This explanation is what I think the term means. Sometimes famous actors like Jack Black or Tom Hanks will narrate. I think Jack Black did voice over in Kung Fu Panda.
Texasilver is correct. The proposal is for educational videos and I would be the narrator. I do youtube videos for a non-profit and this person had seen those and reached out to me. I am always surprised at what work comes my way.
A man at our church used to do voiceover work, not sure if they called it that, but he had a wonderful deep voice and some outfit tape recorded him reading books. The tapes were sent to blind people. This was a volunteer thing he did for them. Now that audio books are so popular, and widely available, not sure if this is done anymore.
Volunteers still do recordings– google search opportunities.
I love that you bring leftover containers, you’ve got game!
I own one dress, underwear and two night gowns that were bought new. Everything else was sourced second-hand. New with tags is haute!
When I worked at the university I was a judicious trash picker. I reuse plastic bags and wrapping. Kerp an eye out for dropped change. It’s rare that anything comes into my house that was not discounted.
My house is the same, which should surprise no one.
I’ve been known to trash pick from my condo building’s communal trash and recycling bin. Every bit of produce gets put to use (a fritatta with chopped up and roasted cauliflower leaves was delicious, and my son raves about the watermelon rind kimchee I make every summer) or added to a bag in the freezer to make broth down the line. I no longer have a compost bin, so I give the cooked vegetable scraps to my son for his pile.
Yes, I love this! Food waste is an abomination.
I guess the one that shocks most people is I dumpster dive. It started with college moveouts. Then I added store closures. Now I have no shame and will do it anywhere. I just wish I had a friend to do it with. My husband and daughter do it with me at the college but they aren’t always around.
I am also a long time dumpster diver, as are my DD’s. When I take recyclables to the depot I always look in first to see if there is anything I need/want.
I have found canning jars, aluminum lunch buckets from the 1940’s and have pulled out useable coupons back in the day when a coupon was a coupon!
I also scope out the area around the container for things people dropped. I like to keep the area clean so they don’t remove the container.
JC
I really enjoyed dumpster diving outside the dorms when my kids were in college. I remember one specific conversation with an Ashland, Oregon townie who told me she hadn’t needed to buy laundry detergent for years!
I haven’t bought detergent in years. And I share with others because I get so much. My daughter cracks up when I see an orange Tide bottle. She knows we aren’t leaving until I have it. Ramen is another thing I never have to buy. I donate so much of it. There will be one or 2 missing from a case and I get several cases.
A maintenance man at my college said he collected the cement blocks dorm students left behind from “bricks and boards” bookshelves for several years. He eventually got enough to build a backyard shed!
When I walk (which is almost every day) I frequently see empty cigarette packages. Lo and behold Marlboro products have a rewards program. I pick up the package & tear off the code on the flap of the cigarette package. I have redeemed codes for an Otterbox power bank & then 25$ in Venmo cash. The offers change frequently. Currently I plan to redeem points for an Uber/Uber Eats gift card. I am a bit conflicted about this. Tobacco products kill people. Am I contributing to this by participating in the offer? Or am I picking up litter of a product that the person addicted to cigarettes would buy anyway?
I think you are taking small profits from a company with a dangerous product, maybe even running their costs up, as well as picking up litter.
I do this too! My husband still wears a Marlboro jacket that he got over a decade ago as his favorite ski jacket. We’ve gotten mugs, headphones, a camping hammock and a lovely cast iron pan over the past couple of years.
Texasilver, since you’re not contributing to more cigarettes being purchased, I think you’re doing good things here: picking up litter and making it valuable.
I think what you’re doing is fine. The person who smoked the cigarettes obviously did not want to use the codes so somebody may as well use them. You’re also picking up litter but why should that be considered a bad thing? I’d be happy if someone did it in my neighborhood!
You are helping the Marlboro company be just the tiniest bit less profitable. Gold star!
I will take just about anything that is free. If my family can’t use it, I will find someone that can use it.
I’m there with you!
I love and adore blackberries especially free!
I always tell myself that I need to pick and freeze more each summer, maybe this year I will!
Just today I picked up two abandoned Winco receipts from the parking lot and scanned them into the Fetch app. Unhinged? Maybe, I don’t care!
1. I save fast food packets and when I am watching a boring program I empty them into our larger ketchup bottles or salt container, etc. People at the food bank are now bringing me their packets from home, which is a good thing in that we seldom go to fast food places.
2. I pick up the frozen vegetables that people leave in the bottom of their grocery carts. This seems to happen only in the winter, so I end up making a lot of applesauce from these frozen apples, and mashed potatoes from frozen spuds.
3. Husband goes out to golf lunch once a week with his two buddies. (They are really much more than that, they are terrific support for not just the husbands but the wives, in that if one is gone out of town, the other two check with the alone wife to see if she is okay or needs something.) They always have leftovers and husband brings them home for the dogs or the chickens next door. Not a morsel goes back to the kitchen to be throw away.
4. When I drain bacon or other greasy things, I drain them on one paper towel that is on top of sheets of newspaper. This keeps our paper towel use to less than one roll every six months. Then I tightly roll up the greasy paper and a friend stops by to pick them up uses these greasy logs to start his stove, which is his only source of heat. Sometime during the summer, he brings over his ashes for my compost heap.
5. I save wax paper inserts from things like crackers or cereal. I put meat or fish into these and them put them in plastic freezer bags. When I use the food, I throw away the bloody wax paper and can still reuse the plastic bag.
6. I use 40 lb. dog food bags for garbage sacks and large rice/bean/flour sacks from the food bank the same way. They were throwing them way so are thrilled to recycle them.
7. In the summer, the husband pees into a bottle and I dilute it with 10 parts water and use it for flowers and non-edibles. (I won’t be this summer, since he is undergoing chemo). Several of the British gardens have willing male employees pee into compost areas to speed up composting and add nutrients. If it is good enough for them. it is good enough for me (female urine is not as good, for some reason no one explains). When I read about this, I researched it more and there are entire books dedicated to the subject. Researchers have also had taste trials and people cannot tell the difference between pee or commercial urine raised vegetables, but I am leery of using it on edibles so just my plants and trees are treated to this special food.
between pee and regular commercial fertilizer raised vegetables, I meant to say.
I also meant to add that my husband wore my former boyfriend’s left behind shoes to our wedding, and for some years after. I took this as a good sign that he was thrifty.
I laughed at Lindsey’s story of the used shoes put to good use!
Love the reuse of shoes!
DH always used to say, and Dr. Bestest Neighbor still does, that one good pee outdoors is worth three indoors. (It’s a guy thing.) But Ms. BN and I always directed them toward our respective compost heaps to do their business.
Lindsey, I love the full-circleness of your #4. And your #5 is bloody brilliant.
@ Lindsey, I watched a couple shows on Prime that showed how things were made back in the day. Urine was featured in some commonly used items. The shows were Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm. In fact, sometimes the recipe called for “stale urine”.
We use paper grocery bags to drain bacon, even sometimes laying it over a metal cooling rack for maximum crispiness. I might save one some time for a fire starter, although we rarely cook bacon.
Not unhinged at all, but it saves a ton of money: I volunteer at a thrift store. I swear the thrift gods provide everything I need. It is also a good source of frugal friendships.
Same here Dicey! Whenever I volunteer at my church’s thrift shop, I usually find something I need. I look forward to working there partly for this reason.
Everything we all need can be found on the secondhand market, as overmanufacture of consumer goods is long past the tipping point.
Just saw an article about how tariffs would make having a child in the U.S. more unlikely, due to high costs. Many larger baby goods are made in China and abroad.
The article, though, started with the premise that the first year of a baby’s life would cost $20,000. Oh, no. H-no.
That is true. I am convinced in particular that no microwaves and no coffee makers of any kind need ever be manufactured again due to the glut of these already in existence.
There were at least a dozen coffee makers at the thrift store today. Some of them were single serve, some were big pots. Plenty of choices to meet everyone’s needs. They rarely have microwaves.
Frugal friendships are so nice! A great way to share tips and help encourage one another in the journey. I’d like to make some more frugal friends – should make that my goal for this year!
Not sure if this counts as unhinged, but a relative was appalled – I paid $20 for my husband’s gold wedding ring. I traded in a gold rope necklace a former boyfriend had gifted me several years before, and it covered most of the cost. I did check with my husband first to be sure he was okay with that, but he’s frugal as well and thought it was hilarious.
Same husband has several pair of sunglasses he has found over the years in various bodies of water, and the middle of the road, and once picked up a soaking wet pair of almost new hiking shoes in a ditch near a hiking trail. Washed and dried, then wore them until they finally fell apart.
I used to dumpster dive for coupon inserts on Monday mornings at a paper recycling dumpster near my house. There would be stacks of unsold Sunday papers in there.
I still curb pick on trash day if I see something good. I love a good free pile.
Michelle, I’d be more appalled by an expensive wedding ring! I’m not aware of a correlation between marital bliss/longevity and amount of money spent. Good for you!
When I was trash picking at an apartment complex, I found a man’s wedding ring in the drawer of a nice end table (Ethan Allen). I gave the end table to my sister. I called the office at the apt. complex to try & return the ring. They were no help. My husband saw the ring & liked it better than the one I bought him at Walmart. He is wearing it now. I haven’t given him any shoes from ex-boyfriends though.
LOVE this!!!! My husband still wears the $30 gold band that we bought in 1993.
And the free piles love you back!
Oooh! I love this question!
Some of the things considered the most out of the ordinary (at least by American standards) that I have done before are:
– Eating rice almost every single day, sometimes multiple meals a day. I’d vary the sauces and how I cooked it, but we ate it a lot for a while.
– Getting out of the car at a red light to grab a coin off the ground….the unfortunate part was that it wasn’t a quarter, but a Chuck-e-Cheese token.
– Okay, this one wasn’t me, but once a family member left a pizza buffet with pizza under their hat.
I was at a long stoplight last month. I saw 3 bags of snack chips on the median. I got out of my car to retrieve them. The man stopped behind me gave me a thumb’s up. Loved it!
Pizza under the hat just killed me. That must have been some hat! Or a very small pizza…
I can see this hat, maybe like a dunce cap, the perfect shape for clandestine pizza!
This thread is wonderful, and I feel like we’re just getting warmed up! Could this be a recurring occasional feature Katy?
Yes!
Cynthia, I second this! Everyone has posted such great stuff, I feel like I could comment on every single one.
My favorite bath towel was picked up run over on my dirt road. I also have a fall/spring jacket I found on a trail, and yes, I hung it on a branch and left it there ten days in case someone would claim it. Then I took it. I also found a pair of barefoot shoes on another road and wore them until they fell apart,
I forage mushrooms, greens in season, herbs for cooking and tonics, berries, pine pollen, and so much more.
I glue the soles of boots and sneakers if they crack or peel off. I have mended gloves with duct tape.
I really want to go dumpster diving but out here in the country there isn’t much action and I’m nervous to try dumpsters outside stores I frequent often, in fear of getting banned.
I’m picking up bottles and cans on my walks; also picking up garbage just to be a good citizen. I think it will take some time for the bottle/can collection to show much profit.
You’re my kind of woman!
Installed a bidet on every toilet. They are about $40 and easy to install. One uses way less toilet paper and we quit buying baby wipes. Just do it! Good for one’s pocketbook and really, really good for the environment.
And for anyone not ready to install a bidet, you can get hand-held ones that work great, you just have to fill them up ahead of time. (Bonus, you can use warm water.) I bought one during the pandemic.
I’m sure an installed bidet is much preferable, just thought I’d add my two cents.
PS I think they are mostly sold for postpartum use but I’m 40 years past that.
My sister bought a bidet at the beginning of the pandemic and never took it out of the box and now lives in a house where it wouldn’t fit. She gave it to us and we get to use it.
I cut my kitchen sponges in half to make a package of them last a long time. I also cut my dryer sheets in half.
Ha! I can top that! When I use dryer sheets, which is rare, I find a quarter sheet does the job nicely. As for sponges, I’ve got quite a collection from a couple of house cleanouts I’ve done.
Last year, we did a huge house and storage unit cleanout on behalf of the thrift shop. However, the donor insisted that the goal was to keep as much as possible out of the landfill and that we were to take anything we could personally use. I now have two Costco packs of TP (there were thirty in the house), and four rolls of paper towels, which will last me for-evah.
I don’t use dryer sheets, but I certainly cut my sponges in half. Always while saying “What am I, a Rockefeller?!” out loud.
I cut my sponges in half as well as my Brillo. I put the Brillo in a baggie in the freezer so it doesn’t rust. When sponges are no longer good enough for washing dishes, I give them to Hubby. He uses them for the car’s wheel wells.
Great tip on freezing the Brillo pad. Never heard of that before. Thanks.
Oh, and after pricing new mattresses in 2018, we got one from someone’s guest room via Freecycle. It had a rip which we place on the underside. We slept on it for a week in the living room to make sure there were no allergens before we moved it up to the bedroom.
So smart!
1) I buy mostly all cotton clothes. When they are worn out, I use them for rags. When the rags begin to fall apart, I rip them into small pieces that I put in my compost pile. 2) I save shower water in buckets to flush the toilet with. 3) After using a Q-tip in my ears, I use it to remove the hair and other gunk collected in the little bathroom sink strainer. 4) To keep my shoes clean on the insides, I make shoe inserts/liners by cutting out the shapes I drew on cardboard using a pattern I made. 5) I made a coat tree from a tall, sturdy tree trunk approximately 8″ in diameter that had a few sturdy smaller branches shooting out its side. Then I secured the trunk in an upright position by the front door. Okay, I am joking. I haven’t done this, but I do want to do this. 6) When I go camping, I make camping pillows by rolling up whatever long pants I wore during the day and securing the roll with a belt. Then I stuff the rolled “pillow” into a worn out pillow case. 7) I made a DIY “raincoats” kit for my car’s emergency bag that includes two things: a couple weathered but clean large black plastic garbage bags and a pair of scissors. 8) Etc.
Nice that your “raincoats” can serve as functional bags until they’re needed as coats.
One of my favorite sweaters was found buried on the ground after a soccer match. I took it home & hand washed it several times & it looks great! I always smile when I wear it.
My sister has a towel she found washed up on the beach that she calls “Gift from the sea” and I know she loves it more than any other of her towels.
We have a few beach towels that we found. We have two we found abandoned on a beach and one I picked up on the road.
Years ago, I trash picked some end tables that were missing their front drawers. I painted them and turned them backwards toward a wall. We used them for 5 years, until up upgraded them with gently used end tables from a consignment shop.
Our neighbors throw out like new furniture all the time. I think many homes are rentals, and people just don’t have a truck or the help needed to move large items. To control my hoarder tendencies, I’ve started playing a “game” where I mentally furnish an imaginary home with items I see curbside. I’m considering printing out a “BINGO” card to help me know when I’ve spied a complete household of furniture. 😉
I love the idea of a bingo card!
This comments thread is EPIC! I agree with an earlier commenter: let’s definitely do this “Your Most Unhinged/Feral Money Saving Hacks” blog post theme again!!
A while back Nivea came out with a shower lotion. I mimic that by using lots of gifted lotion that way. I am not a lotion person so to use up my stash, I have started at the end of my shower filling up to desired height an empty plastic bottle with a few pumps or squirts of lotion and water. Then shake. Turn off water and then pour over my body and rub. Then dry off. My skin is hydrated without that thick lotion feeling.
Hope that makes sense.
I don’t find it strange but friends and coworkers do…I re-home trash. One of my friends scraps, mainly for metal, but he started bringing me stuff he found that he thought I might be able to use at the library where I work, and just got bigger from there. I can’t believe what people throw away! My friend has brought us 20-30 lawn mowers, pressure washers, chainsaws etc that my husband repaired and sold. Tons of food, books, purses bags, art supplies which I take to work and put in our free box in the breakroom. I try to keep it on the down low that the stuff came from the trash because people then imagine its gross and diseased. But honestly most of the stuff is sat at the curb in totes or bags….I think a lot of comes from a love one passing and the family being overwhelmed by the clean out. The trash saves me or someone I know money, and if it’s a lawn mower that just needs a tune up makes me money, but best of all it doesn’t go to the landfill. My scrapping friend is literally my hero for saving all this stuff!
My DH and I had such a good time talking about this – thank you!
Our best contributions are:
1) I have only washed my hair twice in 5.5 years
2) We ended up with a 6-ft couch that smelled like dog pee (long story, sigh), and DH cut it up and gradually threw it away in our regular trash. He also did this with most of a rotted shed, also at least one mattress, and a LazEBoy.