The Ultimate Cheap Guy -- Your Frugal Tips?

Yes, if you enjoy nice cold iced coffee, cold brew is the way to go. For me, it has to be hot coffee brewed at 205F and finish the last sip before it cools below 150F.

 

Depending on where one lives/climate a whole house fan is an excellent frugal tool to minimize AC and heater use and associated $$$.

In the summer run it at night and early morning to chill the house. With cold spring and fall nights but warm afternoons, and if you have some mild winter days, run it in the afternoon to warm the house up.

 

Yap, it depends on climate. We use to live in large colonial with a whole house fan on a top floor ceiling above staircase. It worked wonderfully to cool down the house in summer, but in winter, it was like having a window cracked open all the time. It was sucking all of warm air rising to top. During winter, I had to cover it up with layers of quilt and blanket from the attic side.

 

Looked in my iPhone for a pic of our solution, but not there. Will have to place pic later.

We placed Velcro strips to the underside of the whole house fan inlet perimeter in our hallway. To this we affixed a light weight rigid plastic piece cover with air cells cut to size from Home Depot and also placed Velcro strips around the perimeter to make the seal. This prevents air drafts and has some R-value. I have used an IR thermal sensor on it in summer and winter and the temperature difference on the cover and a few feet away on the ceiling is small.

We cover the whole house fan inlet during the coldest parts of the winter. Just takes a step ladder or high chair to access it on the ceiling.

We had our house HERS tested recently and even without the cover on our passive and active testing shows the house still is too “tight” and not drafty enough.

 

Yes, we had that too! It's been over 15 years I almost forgot about the cover. It was not enough insulation, so I had to cover the entire fan from the top in the attic too.

 

New England vs. non-Sierra California winter.

 

Since I prefer cold on an irregular basis, I haven't tried heating the cold brewed coffee, but understand it can be better heated up than hot brewed.

 

Looks about like the beach I was at yesterday:


And it was windy enough for the kids to get the kites up.

 

How many credit cards do you have? How often do you use each one? Make sure you use each one every 6 months.

These are my daily driver credit cards:
Citi Double Cash - 2% cashback, no annual fee, price match, 3 years extended warranty. $150 sign up bonus
Penfed - 5% gas, 3% grocery
Uber - 4% restaurants, phone insurance when used to pay your phone bill, up to $600 coverage. $100 sign up bonus
Chase Freedom - for rotating categories

The dealer I bought my Prime from let me pay for all of it in my credit cards.

Stay away from the latest and greatest phones. I've never owned an iPhone. My previous phone was an LG G5 for $120 from Best Buy. Now I'm using an Essential PH-1 for $220 from Amazon. It's really fast, battery lasts forever, and gets update as fast as the Google Pixel. The camera is pretty bad though, but I don't use it much.

 

If the Citi double cash card had a $150 signing bonus it doesn’t seem to anymore. Still, a must for those who pay off in full since no annual fee.

 

We shop at local grocery store that gives gas reward points at Sunoco. In essence, when we purchase $100 of grocery, we also receive points for 10 cents off per gallon of gas. The points are good for max of 25 gallons of gas. That's $2.50 saving. We use 2% cash back card ($2 cashback) on those purchase. Now, $100 purchase yield is $4.50. Better than most municipal bonds.

 

Something about those cash or points back incentives bugs me. I do take advantage of them, but it rankles; I know they're a sales ploy.

Doesn't paying with plastic bump the cost to the merchant by 2~3 percent, which likely is born by the consumer, one way or another.

 

Yap... eventually all merchants are going to reject point cards and cash back cards.
Shoppers Love Rewards Credit Cards. Retailers Hate Them. - WSJ

But until then, I will use them.

 

You may have to go through a special link like this: Citi® Double Cash Card

 

Looks like an old link that doesn't work any longer. Probably expired in ~June.

 

Visually at least, it seems like there's an incredibly high volume of plastic bags in landfills. Our oceans are filling with tiny plastic chips, ruminating animals have plastic ropes in their guts.

I finished a cereal bag this morning, shook it out, a quick wipe with a damp dish cloth, and stowed in the drawer where we collect plastic bags. Periodically I bundle them and return to Save-On, or Return-It.

Sometimes it's an overwhelming hassle, but every bit helps.

 

Based on some of the consumer fraud scandals scattered across this country back in the 20th Century, I can certainly understand why at least some people refuse to buy the older meats. Certain retailers were caught 'recycling' expired and soon-to-expire meats, repacking with new expiration dates and putting them back out for sale again. If they push this just a few days extra, they may not get caught, but the well publicized cases covered product pushed much further, occasionally causing illness. It is harder to trick or fool customers with product labeled as the very freshest than with stuff labeled as a somewhat older.

While I haven't experienced this in several decades, I certainly did suspect it a few times earlier. And heard numerous people who preferred certain shops over others due to their opinions of meat counter integrity and quality.

 

When frugal living tips are the topic, it's not uncommon to hear "Starbucks" in the responses, as in "stop buying daily coffee at Starbucks, make yur own fur chrisakes".

Around here, that's going the way of the dodo. This morning, about 10:30:


That's a horseshoe-shaped lineup, most of them SUV/CUV, and all idling...

 

If they are going to be wasteful, the least they could do is be patriotic and go to Tim Hortons instead.