# Cheapest thing you have ever done



## Cal

I figured this thread would be good for a laugh.

Me....In college I would rollerblade to the grocery store, take off my blades, buy my groceries, put the blades back on, and push the cart home, unload the groceries, then put my blades back on and push the cart back to the store so that I would get my quarter from the cart. HA! Then of course I would have to blade home again.... the exercise was good for me.


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## FrugalTrader

Great thread!

When I was younger, I used to always check the telephone booth coin dispenser for quarters left behind! 


Just recently, I went to two separate macdonalds drive through solely for the free coffee.


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## MoneyGal

My sister and I used to hold competitions (in university) about who could feed the household (we had roommates and we shared meal prep) the most cheaply. It was years before I could bring myself to eat brown rice and lentils again.


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## brad

I can't think of anything I've done that's silly enough to be worth mentioning, but I had an acquaintance whose car would routinely run out of fuel (several times a year) because he kept driving around town when his tank was nearly empty, shopping around for the station with the cheapest gas price. 

I'm sure he wasted more money on gas by driving around than he would have if he'd settled on a higher price, and certainly spent a lot more on the occasions when his car had to be towed. And one time he got rear-ended when he ran out of gas in the middle of a busy road, so those expenses need to be added to the picture as well. 

A great example of how extreme cheapness can cost you more in the long run!


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## MoneyGal

Yeah - What economists call the "consumption vs. expenditure puzzle." Yes, you can save on gas by driving around and finding the cheapest gas station...but this only works if you completely discount the input of your *time.* 

Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago, writes about this issue extensively.


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## brad

MoneyGal said:


> Yes, you can save on gas by driving around and finding the cheapest gas station...but this only works if you completely discount the input of your *time.*


Not just your time, but all that time you're driving around you're burning gasoline, and very inefficiently at that, since fuel economy in city driving is so low. So you're losing money every minute you drive around looking for that bargain gasoline.

I actually think from a practical perspective, most of us can safely discount the value of our time unless we're paid by the hour; I take a dim view on this aspect of opportunity cost as it's not relevant to most people. Yes, you could put a dollar value on your time if you could be doing something else that earns you money (or at least doesn't spend it), but most people don't do those kinds of tradeoffs in real life.


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## MoneyGal

What Hurst writes about is "consumption vs. expenditures" and specifically what is called the "retirement consumption puzzle." The puzzle is that people tend to spend much less in retirement than they did when they were working - as much as 30% less. Why is the drop, coincident with retirement, so great? (It isn't that people perfectly time their mortgages to end at retirement, for example.)

The answer economists have come up with is to distinguish between consumption and expenditures. So when you are driving around looking for cheap gas to save on your gas *expenditures*, you are *consuming time* (as an input). (And, as you point out, you are also consuming gas...)

Whether or not you value your time with some kind of imputed hourly rate isn't the issue - it is that time is an input to these kinds of attempts to reduce (money) expenditures. 

I think this is a useful way to think about my expenditures generally - especially given that as a working mom my time is inherently limited and highly in demand. I will sometimes substitute cash for time to get something done.

Coming back to say that it isn't as though I place a (discounted) monetary value on the time I spend "searching for bargains." It's more that I recognize that there are times and circumstances in which, in order to save money, I have to spend time - and I can make the tradeoff once I'm clear about it.


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## brad

MoneyGal said:


> Coming back to say that it isn't as though I place a (discounted) monetary value on the time I spend "searching for bargains." It's more that I recognize that there are times and circumstances in which, in order to save money, I have to spend time - and I can make the tradeoff once I'm clear about it.


Ah, that makes sense, and I agree. If you have more time, you can spend more time focusing on ways to live more frugally.

I think it follows a sort of bell-shaped curve over our lifetimes: when we're young we generally have more time than money (it amazes me that I once was able to live fairly comfortably on an amount equal to one-fifth of what I now pay in income tax every year), but in that case it's mostly a case of "doing without." In our working years, we usually have more money than time. Then in retirement we have more time than money again, but now we have a lifetime of experience (and possessions) so we don't necessarily have to do without, we can just spend more time figuring out how to meet our needs with less money.


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## Ben

I haven't actually done this in earnest, but I walked by a drive-thru the other day and noticed a coin or two on the ground that I picked up. One could make a habit of this I imagine, so long as you were passing by anyway.


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## Dana

I have a relative who scopes parks and schoolyards early on Saturday and Sunday mornings for empties (beer and liquor bottles) that she can return for the deposit. She finds quite a few.


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## Racer

When I was about 9 years old I learned about conservation (reduce, reuse, recycle stuff) at school. I came home and brightly suggested to my father that we should reuse the loose kitty litter that collected in the bottoms of the plastic bags, after cleaning the litter box.

The look he gave me: priceless. (Though I didn't realize it at the time. My mom loves telling this story...mainly to boyfriends and such during my teen years.)


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## Berubeland

I guess the cheapest thing you can do is get things for free.

I use coupons all the time and I also call stores on the Scanning Code of Practice. 

Basically if a store makes a mistake and the price at the register is higher than the shelf price you get 10$ off or if the item is less than $10 you get it for free. 

So this method of shopping has drawbacks, basically you have to remember the price of everything and then be willing to stop the line up at the grocery store while the cashier calls the floor stocker to go check the price and then you usually have to wait for the manager to come to approve you getting the item for free. 

So anyways for several weeks the Metro had baby food jars on sale then when you would go to the register it was higher. So I went there like every day until they changed it. And I every kind of baby food was a new item... So I got tons of free baby food. 

I also made my own baby food but honestly it is nice to have some around for trips or laziness


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## Spidey

Probably the cheapest thing I've ever done is to cut my own hair. 

(I've since given up the practice.)


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## steve_jay33

1. Pick up coins on the road
2. When there are lone shopping carts in the parking lot push them back to get the quarter. 



This post make me laugh


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## Racer

Spidey said:


> Probably the cheapest thing I've ever done is to cut my own hair.
> 
> (I've since given up the practice.)


This is for spidey: http://www.flowbee.com/


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## brad

When I lived in the Boston area, I had a housemate for a few years who kept a map on the wall that showed the garbage collection days for every town within an hour's drive. 

He'd go out early every morning with his pickup truck and troll the streets on garbage day looking for good stuff that people had pitched out. He made some amazing finds: he was a carpenter, and he picked up his table saw, a band saw, and a drill press for free--all in excellent working condition--over the years, plus any number of bedframes, sofas, couches, etc. that he kept in storage for when he eventually bought his own house.


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## Ben

brad said:


> He'd go out early every morning with his pickup truck and troll the streets on garbage day looking for good stuff that people had pitched out. He made some amazing finds: he was a carpenter, and he picked up his table saw, a band saw, and a drill press for free--all in excellent working condition--over the years, plus any number of bedframes, sofas, couches, etc. that he kept in storage for when he eventually bought his own house.


We like to do this too, on a lesser scale. Usually just a walk around our immediate neighbourhood. Large-item pickup day brings a lot of hidden treasures to the curbside. Got a solid wood dresser that I restored, etc, and just 2 days ago an Exersaucer that just needs a wash and a 75cent replacement part. Nice bundle of assorted hardwoods another time.
There's some jesting in the house about getting a nice Honda Ridgeline and installing a jib crane in the back - going pro.


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## humble_pie

some of these practices, like collecting & restoring usable articles from curbs, are near-priceless because they serve so many purposes. On the one hand they provide a new life for an object in a new home. And often, in the case of wooden furniture for example, what is being discarded was built years ago from solid and valuable wood such as maple, pine or walnut, whereas most furniture manufacturing today uses engineered and veneered wood product that can off-gas for years to come. Perhaps most importantly of all, such practices rescue the discarded articles from being tossed into landfills, and so they are a form of husbanding and caring for the earth.

i'm a knowledgeable gatherer of wild edible & medicinal plants from the country. This is not a cheap practice when you factor in the high cost of reaching the country in the first place. I'm also a passionate gardener. My contribution is that the cutoff tops of beets, turnips, radishes, cabbages and other brassicas and roots will grow excellent baby green salad leaves if you plant them in pots. Even in winter, on a sunny kitchen windowsill.

usually the cutoff will generate 3-4 crops of greens before it finally fails (the thing cannot root permanently.) One year, though, i had amazing radish tops that grew into strong healthy green-leaved plants like radiccio and lasted all summer, even producing pale pink clusters of flowers that were highly edible.


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## MoneyGal

Humble! That is exciting news. I *love* radishes and am going to try this now!

By the way, related to your name: "humble pie" apparently refers to a pie made from "humbles," or offal (sometimes called "variety meat" in North America - organs, not muscle meat). Eating "humbles" is a very cost-efficient way to get protein, and I am personally interested in incorporating more organ meats into my diet...I have a beef heart on order at my local butcher. 

I am also a volunteer historic cook for the City of Toronto's museum programs, and spend a lot of time investigating and testing historic (thrifty!) recipes. 

Back when Freecycle was a new thing I was featured on CBC's "Marketplace" talking about giving and receiving via freecycle. A surprising amount of the stuff in our house is freecycled or curbside finds...it helps that my husband is trained as an industrial designer and is often able to fix/restore discarded items. 

A thread after my own heart. Beef heart, that is...


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## brad

MoneyGal said:


> Eating "humbles" is a very cost-efficient way to get protein, and I am personally interested in incorporating more organ meats into my diet...I have a beef heart on order at my local butcher.


True, although avoiding meat in general is even more thrifty. I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but for about 10 years I rarely ate meat (red meat maybe twice a year, chicken once a month, fish every couple of weeks) simply out of habit, no particular motivation for health or ethical reasons. Then I met and moved in with a French woman who likes to eat meat, and my food budget quadrupled. In recent months she has decided to cut back on meat as she finds she feels healthier without it, and I've definitely noticed the effect on my wallet (I buy all the groceries here and do nearly all the cooking).


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## MoneyGal

Yes, avoiding meat would be thriftier (I was raised by vegans and I am raising a vegetarian) - I just personally do better on a diet which includes meat. Chacun a son gout!


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## CuriousReader

Some friends and I were picking up a friend at the airport and the flight was delayed so we were stuck hanging out at the airport.

Guess what we did?

We walk around the parking lot to find those left-behind luggage carts, collect them and push them back in to the machine to get some change ... I think it was like 25 cents per cart.

I think all that effort paid off the parking fee =p


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## the-royal-mail

CuriousReader said:


> Some friends and I were picking up a friend at the airport and the flight was delayed so we were stuck hanging out at the airport.
> 
> Guess what we did?
> 
> We walk around the parking lot to find those left-behind luggage carts, collect them and push them back in to the machine to get some change ... I think it was like 25 cents per cart.
> 
> I think all that effort paid off the parking fee =p



Viktor Navorski did that in The Terminal!


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## montyloree

lol... funny stuff...

When I was young and inexperienced...
In order to save money on purchasing roses for my wife...
I bought her Rose brand toilet bowl cleaner, Red Rose tea, and a package of Blue Rose flour. (the brands all had "rose" in their name)

I'm not sure if this was frugal, or just plain dumb....

I still hear about it 20 years later!


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## humble_pie

great reading your message MG.

speaking of cooking for museums, may i offer the most amazing foodie website i've ever seen.

http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com/foodplay/2009/12/index.html

this link is to a series of blogs she wrote last fall about cooking first nations dishes in a boston museum. Not first nations cuisine today, but historically accurate first nations cuisine as it existed prior to the arrival of any europeans. Just the research is mind-boggling because of course the 15th century northeastern woodlands nations left no recipes ...

she is an astonishing cook, writer and photographer. I think i'd be a bit intimidated to sit at her table, but reading about it is undiluted creativity.


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## Sampson

Wow, this thread is hilarious. I've always considered myself cheap, but not sure if I've done anything worthy of posting here.

I guess I can label myself as officially frugal - not one of you cheapos claiming to be frugal


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## MoneyGal

aaaaah, but nothing beats the "smell sandwich" tip, from one of the Tightwad Gazette books. 

A reader sent this in as a way to save money on lunch (based on a Monday-Friday work week):

1. Sunday night, make this sandwich: mayo (or some other condiment, e.g., mustard), salami, cheese (go crazy), on bread. Lettuce, tomato, etc. are okay, too.

2. Monday morning: Remove the salami and cheese. Spread mayo on two new slices of bread. Put the salami and cheese in between the new slices of bread. Lettuce, tomato, etc. as desired. Wrap this new sandwich and put in fridge. Take the 'smell sandwich' of mayo, bread, lettuce, tomato, etc. to work for lunch. 

3. Tuesday through Thursday mornings: Repeat Monday.

4. Friday: indulge and take the whole sandwich to work for lunch.


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## brad

humble_pie said:


> speaking of cooking for museums, may i offer the most amazing foodie website i've ever seen.
> 
> http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com/foodplay/2009/12/index.html


I'm a musician on the side, and more than once I've played for my supper, but the most unusual case was when a harpist and I got asked to play for a fundraiser supper at a local nature center. Our "payment" was free supper. And the supper turned out to be bugs.

It was an "insect dinner," in which they hired a gourmet chef to come up with interesting recipes that used insects; the guests paid top dollar for the experience and all the funds went to the nature center. I ate bee-larva pate, grasshopper quessadillas, foccaccia with crickets, and ice cream with ant sauce. The only things I couldn't bring myself to eat were the Japanese beetle sushi and the live giant mealworms that people were consuming as appetizers.


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## MoneyGal

uuuuuugh! I feed my kid's gecko mealworms but am personally very freaked out by them. She loves them, though.


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## brad

MoneyGal said:


> uuuuuugh! I feed my kid's gecko mealworms but am personally very freaked out by them. She loves them, though.


You gotta admit, though, as a protein source it's even cheaper than beef hearts!


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## DavidJD

My wife and brother-in-law and I went to Typhoon Lagoon (water park) in Florida and rented lockers. There is a $5US deposit on the key. Late in the afternoon everyone started leaving and we did too. While waiting for our ride I realized that I forgot our key in the locker. I ran back to get it and it was gone - but there was 9 others in other lockers. I turned them all in and got $45US.


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## PoorPablo83

This is great reading!

I roll change. For me, it works as a great (and minor) source of forced savings. I started when I used to work as a server in restaurants. My tips always included loonies and toonies and I got in the habit of using my paycheck for living expenses, savings etc, my bill tips (anything $5 or over) as cash in hand (to pay for food, gas, etc) and I would roll all my change and save it in a separate jar. Believe it or not I paid for an entire 6 week trip to Italy in under 2 years with this method. (That trip was a lesson in frugal living in itself... mamma mia!)

On that trip, I bought a new wallet that didn't have a spot for change. Only card slots, and a bill clip. Now whenever I buy something I take the change from my pockets as soon as I get home and it goes in a giant jar that I pour out and roll ever few months. This has REALLY made me see how much money I was wasting on little things, like going out for coffee, snacks on the go and such. Now whenever I pay for a $2 coffee with a $5 bill I know the other $3 was going to end up in my jar, and now I think a little longer and harder about anything I need tomorrow that I can't get if I break that $20 bill today... (I should add that I only use cash for day to day expenditures... I guess this system wouldn't work too well if one were to pay for everything with a debit card).

It's a bit of work, but it's amazing to see how often I'm going back to the bank with $100 in rolled change! All the bank tellers at the TD I use know me for this (and I'm sure laugh at me for it) but they do keep me well stocked with new rolls!

On an unrelated note, I managed to make a dent in my summer produce bill by keeping a very compact, but awesome little potted veggie garden on my tiny apartment patio. I made a few long, trough shaped planters for herbs out of scrap cedar that I hang over the sides of the hand rails and a couple of bigger pots (again from scrap cedar) for tomatoes and such on the ground.


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## wealthyboomer

DavidJD said:


> My wife and brother-in-law and I went to Typhoon Lagoon (water park) in Florida and rented lockers. There is a $5US deposit on the key. Late in the afternoon everyone started leaving and we did too. While waiting for our ride I realized that I forgot our key in the locker. I ran back to get it and it was gone - but there was 9 others in other lockers. I turned them all in and got $45US.


Sounds more like THEFT to me.


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## DavidJD

wealthyboomer said:


> Sounds more like THEFT to me.


You are right. I should have ran after the 6,000 people with children scrambling to get to their vehicles in North America's 2nd largest parking lot, stuggling with coolers, strollers and bags and scream, "Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! Has anyone forgotten their key in their locker? I have your $5 deposit!" Sure.


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## Berubeland

Kind of like returning an extra cart at the grocery store is stealing.... not


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## msimms

back in the college days (late 1990's), spend 2 months living off $12 a week on food. 

Breakfast: Toast
Lunch: Bologna Sandwich
Dinner: Bologna on spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Rinse and repeat everyday for 2 months.


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## bean438

DavidJD said:


> You are right. I should have ran after the 6,000 people with children scrambling to get to their vehicles in North America's 2nd largest parking lot, stuggling with coolers, strollers and bags and scream, "Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! Has anyone forgotten their key in their locker? I have your $5 deposit!" Sure.


LOL that was awsome.

The cheapest thing I did, (I mean i heard that some guy did this once), was I wanted to order a book from chapters.ca. I needed 39 bucks for free shipping so i ordered a second book to qualify for the free shipping.
Then i took the "shipping" book to the brick and mortar Chapters and told them it was a gift from my mom, and i would like to exchange it, BUT she lost the receipt.
They were glad to help me out, but since there was no bill, I had to take a gift card instead of cash.


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## hboy43

Spidey said:


> Probably the cheapest thing I've ever done is to cut my own hair.
> 
> (I've since given up the practice.)



I've recently started, but only because my wife refuses to cut my hair any more. Nothing fancy, just put on the number 2 and take it down to 1/4 inch.

Of course, I could get my hair done by a barber for a year on what my wife spends every appointment, but this is a problem without a solution.


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## kenwood

go to tim horton's before they close and ask for left over donuts 

bike to work instead of drive to save on gas

charge all your batteries at work rather than at home

repeat lining up for food samples at costco


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## ashby corner

in my hown town...many many moons ago, I used to see this dude go to a newspaper box, put in a quarter. THEN take them all out, and sell them on the corner.

Theft, yes. And no, it wasn't me.


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## CanadianCapitalist

wealthyboomer said:


> Sounds more like THEFT to me.


I dunno. It sounds more like putting that $5 bill you found on the street in your pocket to me.


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## CanadianCapitalist

Speaking of cheap, anybody read this article in The Globe today?

Would you skip a shower to save a buck?

- Not showering everyday
- Not flushing the toilet every time
- Turning underwear inside out


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## brad

CanadianCapitalist said:


> I dunno. It sounds more like putting that $5 bill you found on the street in your pocket to me.


One of the more UNfrugal things I did involved such a bill, but it was bigger than $5.

When I lived in a small town in Vermont, I went to the Post Office one day to mail a parcel. As I walked up to the front door, I saw a bill sitting there on the landing. I picked it up, figuring it was $1, but in fact it was a $100 bill. I looked around, figuring this was some kind of social experiment, because the bill was sitting right there in plain sight, almost as if it had been placed there on purpose to see if someone would pick it up. But I didn't see anyone, so I thought someone might have actually dropped it by mistake, and figured I would give it to the postmaster. I did of course briefly consider keeping it, but this was my town, a village really, and not a wealthy one at that.

I put it in my pocket and stood in line. Eventually, an older gentleman in front of me got to the front of the line and went to the counter. I saw him pull out a bill to buy a money order, but then he started going through all his pockets frantically and looking increasingly distressed. I stepped out and said, "Sir, it looks like you lost something -- if you tell me what it was, I may have found it." He looked at me and said, "It was a picture of Ben Franklin." I laughed and gave him the bill. The look of relief and gratitude he gave me was worth $100.


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## brad

CanadianCapitalist said:


> Speaking of cheap, anybody read this article in The Globe today?
> - Not flushing the toilet every time


I need my daily shower, but we don't flush the toilet every time -- the old phrase I grew up with was "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." A bit graphic, but it works. 

It's silly, because we don't even pay for water use (water is unmetered in my city), but it's mostly driven out of a desire to conserve resources. We also have a rain barrel and use that to water all the plants on the porch in summer; I have another rain barrel in the basement that I fill up with water from the dehumidifier, and use that water all winter long to water our house plants.


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## Sampson

brad said:


> I need my daily shower, but we don't flush the toilet every time -- the old phrase I grew up with was "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." A bit graphic, but it works.
> 
> It's silly, because we don't even pay for water use (water is unmetered in my city), but it's mostly driven out of a desire to conserve resources. We also have a rain barrel and use that to water all the plants on the porch in summer; I have another rain barrel in the basement that I fill up with water from the dehumidifier, and use that water all winter long to water our house plants.


I'm with you here brad.

It's not a money thing, its a conservation thing. And I don't even live on the coast.


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## DavidJD

Being aware of our utility consumption should be a normal part of our lifestyles. Not what I would classify as cheap.

We hang our clothes instead of using the dryer - we also have a front load washer so they come out almost dry, and with much less water. Also the lint trap does not get filled with fibres from our clothes - making them last longer.
I have new shower heads which significantly reduces the amount of water per minute. 
I spray foamed my entire basement with 2lb closed foam AND NOW IT IS TOO WARM! I have a hot-water boiler system and the pipes in the basement would radiate heat on the way to various radiators in the 1st and 2nd floor. I had to wrap most of my hot water boiler pipes with insulation to bring the temperature down to a comfortable level. I can't even begin to calculate the savings in energy.

This may not be the cheapest thing I have ever done bur my wife thinks it may be one of the smartest


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## brad

DavidJD said:


> We hang our clothes instead of using the dryer


Ditto here. In fact I lived without a dryer for almost 30 years; it's only since we moved to our new house two years ago (which doesn't have any good place for drying racks, at least no place that is acceptable on the domestic tranquility front) that I've started using a dryer, and at that we only use it in winter. Not only does it save a lot of money, but your clothes last a lot longer (which also saves money). I still wear some nice "timeless fashion" shirts that I bought in the 1980s; I don't think they would have lasted more than 10 years if I used a dryer.



DavidJD said:


> I have new shower heads which significantly reduces the amount of water per minute.


These are also very smart and pay for themselves quickly. When people hear "low flow showerhead" they figure they're in for a pathetically weak shower but in fact the opposite is true. Although if you have a lot of hair (not an issue for me), it can take a bit more time to rinse out after shampooing. But the savings in water and heating energy add up. When I lived in apartments, I had a low-flow showerhead that I used for nearly 20 years, taking it with me from apartment to apartment. My ultimate return on investment was something like 800 percent.


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## Jon202

I take the stamps off of envelopes of letters mailed to the house that aren't post-marked and reuse them.


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## DavidJD

brad said:


> Ditto here. In fact I lived without a dryer for almost 30 years;


Oh yeah - one more tip - on my dryer vent pipe/tubing, I have a plastic box i picked up from walmart that allows me to divert the heated air back into the basement rather than directly outside. It has a small screen to catch more lint that needs to be cleared avery 2nd or 3rd use so i keep it accessible. In the warmer season I pull a small lever and the shield opens the airflow to the outside. When we gotta use the dryer in the winter we recover a lot of the energy/heat.


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## FrugalTrader

DavidJD said:


> Oh yeah - one more tip - on my dryer vent pipe/tubing, I have a plastic box i picked up from walmart that allows me to divert the heated air back into the basement rather than directly outside. It has a small screen to catch more lint that needs to be cleared avery 2nd or 3rd use so i keep it accessible. In the warmer season I pull a small lever and the shield opens the airflow to the outside. When we gotta use the dryer in the winter we recover a lot of the energy/heat.



But wouldn't that put all the moisture into your basement during the winter?


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## MoneyGal

Yes, which is where you want it. Free humidification!


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## Ben

DavidJD said:


> Oh yeah - one more tip - on my dryer vent pipe/tubing, I have a plastic box i picked up from walmart that allows me to divert the heated air back into the basement rather than directly outside. It has a small screen to catch more lint that needs to be cleared avery 2nd or 3rd use so i keep it accessible. In the warmer season I pull a small lever and the shield opens the airflow to the outside. When we gotta use the dryer in the winter we recover a lot of the energy/heat.


Seems not a bad idea to me overall.

You'd probably want to have a humidity metre in the basement to make sure you don't over-humidify and grow mold and mildew.

With an over-humidity control valve to automatically divert the dryer exhaust outside...if you were a controls engineer.


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## brad

MoneyGal said:


> Yes, which is where you want it. Free humidification!


That may or may not be useful. There's quite a bit of information online from NRCAN and other resources about the need to avoid excessive humidity in your house in winter. As long as the humidity in the basement stays in the 30s or so, it's okay, but if it starts climbing much higher than that you could be causing larger problems down the road.

Case in point is our house, where none of the previous owners ever ran a dehumidifier in the basement and our beams and sills are full of dry rot. We will have to get them replaced in the next five years or so, which will cost a lot of money (probably at least $20K).


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## MoneyGal

I'm very mold-aware.  I actually hang my clothes to dry, which produces less intense humidification over time. I also hang them in my upstairs hallway, not in the basement; using a cool space-saving, ceiling-mounted hanger from Lee Valley. (I live in a small downtown house where space is at a premium.)


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## groceryalerts

steve_jay33 said:


> 1. Pick up coins on the road
> 2. When there are lone shopping carts in the parking lot push them back to get the quarter.
> 
> 
> 
> This post make me laugh



I love to do this (Everyday I walk by a grocery store and I enjoy the habit!)

It is weird.


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## Andrej

I laminate my small bar soap onto the new large soap. Haha! I noticed that my girlfriend did this one Sunday morning before she found out that I did it as well. We had a good laugh and I realized I was in love.


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## Happyvdubber

I traded my hockey elbow pads to settle a bar bill ($20).


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## swoop_ds

One time when I was buying pizza for a group of people, I got out the calculator and figured out the cost of a pizza per square inch (using the area of a circle equation) based on size (large vs extra large). Obviously the extra large was cheaper by the square inch but I wanted to make sure...

I dono why I did that but it is definitely the cheapest thing I've ever done.

-Dave


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## kenwood

CanadianCapitalist said:


> Speaking of cheap, anybody read this article in The Globe today?
> 
> Would you skip a shower to save a buck?
> 
> - Not showering everyday
> - Not flushing the toilet every time
> - Turning underwear inside out


shower at the gym
brush teeth and use toilet in the office
don't wear underwear


----------



## hboy43

CanadianCapitalist said:


> Speaking of cheap, anybody read this article in The Globe today?
> 
> Would you skip a shower to save a buck?
> 
> - Not showering everyday
> - Not flushing the toilet every time
> - Turning underwear inside out


I don't shower every day, not to save money so much as to save time. 10 minutes is 10 minutes.

Toilet? On 28 acres, I usually mark my territory somewhere.

I don't see how turning underwear inside out would help.

hboy43


----------



## Jungle

Lately I have been picking up pennies, nickels or dimes, if I find them laying around. (I won't hunt for them, only if it's in my path) 

In the last little while, I accumulated $0.97 worth. I also received a two dollar tip the other day too, so I put that in my wallet. In total, I had $2.97

So then the other day, I forgot my metro pass as it was the start of the month. I had no other money and one fare is $3.00. I needed to get home. 

I asked the TTC teller if he would accept $2.97 for a fare. He said yes, so I used the money that I found $0.97 and the two dollar tip to get me home.


----------



## DavidJD

Gotta share this one...

I was a kitchen and bath show and there was a booth by Shaw signing up new customers with new deals. I have always been satisfied with Shaw and really annoyed with MTS (local competition). I said that existing and loyal customers should be offered an incentive. The guy said absolutely give us a call and we will look after you.

I called and they did. My bill was $135/m with taxes. They dropped a new PVR for free for 3 years, added some channels, increased my internet speed and download amount, added free long distance to my phone and removed the fees for the extras. For the next year I get all this for $85/month.

That works out to be $600/year for making one phone call and I get more services. Oh yeah the PVR is free for two years after this deal expires.


----------



## groceryalerts

DavidJD said:


> Gotta share this one...
> 
> I was a kitchen and bath show and there was a booth by Shaw signing up new customers with new deals. I have always been satisfied with Shaw and really annoyed with MTS (local competition). I said that existing and loyal customers should be offered an incentive. The guy said absolutely give us a call and we will look after you.
> 
> I called and they did. My bill was $135/m with taxes. They dropped a new PVR for free for 3 years, added some channels, increased my internet speed and download amount, added free long distance to my phone and removed the fees for the extras. For the next year I get all this for $85/month.
> 
> That works out to be $600/year for making one phone call and I get more services. Oh yeah the PVR is free for two years after this deal expires.


David this is smart.

Do you have Telus in Manitoba yet?

You can compare the price and get your bill down even lower.


----------



## spp_24

a few $$ saving tips gleaned from my (cheap) uncle:

- when finished with a shower, wipe yourself down with a facecloth. This will prevent most of the soap/skin/hair from accumulating in your towels. You will have less towels to wash and dry (but more facecloths which are cheaper to wash/dry)

- if you live in the city never fill your car more than 1/4 full of gas. Why lose fuel economy to haul around gas when there is a station on every corner?


----------



## Addy

spp_24 said:


> a few $$ saving tips gleaned from my (cheap) uncle:
> 
> - when finished with a shower, wipe yourself down with a facecloth. This will prevent most of the soap/skin/hair from accumulating in your towels. You will have less towels to wash and dry (but more facecloths which are cheaper to wash/dry)
> 
> - if you live in the city never fill your car more than 1/4 full of gas. Why lose fuel economy to haul around gas when there is a station on every corner?


This sounds like a good idea, but if you plan on keeping your vehicle for many years this isn't good for your fuel tank, and your pump if you let it drift down to near empty often enough.


----------



## Racer

All right. Confession time...but ONLY because I have had 3 beers and am a sad lonely soul trolling the forums...

When I was in first year university and greatly under-stimulated at my cashier job, I got this great idea to switch out all of the American pennies for Canadian pennies, and then conduct my own little small-scale arbitrage business. 

Well, a little bit of due diligence soon confirmed that banks wouldn't bite. LOL

So I spent countless hours teaching myself to count cards. Hour after hour, flipping cards and muttering, "Negative one, zero, one, two, one, zero, negative one, negative two..."

Imagine my heartbreak when I discovered that most casinos work with a six-deck shoe, thus requiring me to calculate fractions. 

Common sense now tells me I should have tried to find a better-paying job. But my more adventurous side still tries to calculate the odds at the blackjack table...


----------



## the-royal-mail

Addy said:


> This sounds like a good idea, but if you plan on keeping your vehicle for many years this isn't good for your fuel tank, and your pump if you let it drift down to near empty often enough.



Also, the payment fees (debit) or credit (interest if you don't pay on time) plus 4x as much time spent sitting in line road raging with the other people in line at the gas station. 4x greater chance of being there/affected if a robbery occurs etc. The list goes on. Time is money.


----------



## DavidJD

groceryalerts said:


> David this is smart.
> 
> Do you have Telus in Manitoba yet?
> 
> You can compare the price and get your bill down even lower.


I am not sure if it is available yet or soon - of course I will look into it.

Another thing that would be 'cheap' behaviour is my parking situation. I own a home meters from the downtown and the offices where my wife and I work. Our home is also very near an international corporate head office with hundreds of employees so we rent three parking stalls for $65/month - which pays for our property taxes. We still have a parking stall for ourselves. The City offers a yearly, street parking pass for $25 that allows us to park in 'our neighbourhood' without worry about 1 or 2hr parking limits. The best part is that 'our neighbourhood' is considered by the parking folks as 75% of the downtown!

We live so close to our offices that it is silly not to walk - even on the coldest of days. So I also rent out my subsidized parking stall at work to an employee in my office.


----------



## Addy

That is smart David! If we lived closer to downtown I would do that in a heartbeat. We do rent out our spare room and that brings in a tidy sum, helping pay the bills. Plus I like having someone in the house for security reasons... the more people in a house (that you can trust!) the better I figure (as far as security goes).


----------



## the-royal-mail

I don't like downtown. Too much crime, too many bums, panhandlers and noisy fire engines every 5 minutes. 

But I've lived in cities where being 2KM from work still meant living in a nice part of town. It was great, didn't need a car. Saved a ton on insurance, gas, repairs and parking. Walk everywhere, sidewalks.


----------



## DavidJD

Addy said:


> That is smart David! If we lived closer to downtown I would do that in a heartbeat.


Oh yeah mileage! Hardly any


----------



## Larry6417

I shop at Costco and have a Costco Amex card. I originally got the card just for convenience and rarely use it. It provides a cashback reward. Since I rarely use it (it's a no-fee card) the cashback coupon was only 26 cents. The last time I was at Costco I spent about $600 - and cashed in my coupon for 26 cents.


----------



## high octane

DavidJD said:


> Gotta share this one...
> 
> I was a kitchen and bath show and there was a booth by Shaw signing up new customers with new deals. I have always been satisfied with Shaw and really annoyed with MTS (local competition). I said that existing and loyal customers should be offered an incentive. The guy said absolutely give us a call and we will look after you.


Yea I was quite impressed with Shaw while I was out west. Everything from the customer service, install, internet quality and billing was a breath of fresh air compared to the pain and suffering any other time I deal with telcos in Canada


Cheapest thing I have ever done? Hmm.. When I bought my home theater from a sleazy salesman I accepted all kinds of overpriced cables, wires, accessories and warranties so that I could negotiate a dirt low price on the hardware. Then I took it all back and ordered the wires I needed online instead.


----------



## Y&T2010

spp_24 said:


> a few $$ saving tips gleaned from my (cheap) uncle:
> 
> - when finished with a shower, wipe yourself down with a facecloth. This will prevent most of the soap/skin/hair from accumulating in your towels. You will have less towels to wash and dry (but more facecloths which are cheaper to wash/dry)
> 
> - if you live in the city never fill your car more than 1/4 full of gas. Why lose fuel economy to haul around gas when there is a station on every corner?


LOL! Wow, losing fuel economy to haul around gas, now that is a cheap cheap idea! =)

But wouldn't that be bad for your engine? Running on <1/4 tank of gas all the time? Maybe compromise and do 1/2 tank. =)


----------



## Y&T2010

Jon202 said:


> I take the stamps off of envelopes of letters mailed to the house that aren't post-marked and reuse them.


I do that too! =) It's an acquired skill to make sure the stamp doesn't look too wrinkly or torn =)


----------



## Addy

Y&T2010 said:


> I do that too! =) It's an acquired skill to make sure the stamp doesn't look too wrinkly or torn =)


This is one of the reasons I don't mind opening the mail at work  Free stamps! One time a large parcel was mailed to us and not cancelled, so I had about 6 or 7 bucks in free postage stamps! I just reused the envelope it came in and put a new sticker over the mailing address when I sent it out again.


----------



## the-royal-mail

Back in 1997 when striking postal workers were legislated back to work, they went on the CBC National news and said in retaliation they would be accepting mail without postage. Since then they've started to forget, though, as I've had some stuff returned with insufficient postage in more recent times.


----------



## clark_danger

Scavenge recycling bins for empties!
I would figure out which zone in the city had recycling pickup the next morning and walk across the city to that zone with 2 large baseball equipment bags that I acquired for free. I would fill the bags and walk home. Sometimes the bags would be about 70 lbs each. The glass wine and liquor bottles have a deposit of 20 cents and weigh a lot. Beer cans and bottles are 10 cents. if I was almost full I would swap out the heavier bottles for cans so that I would burn less of those costly calories. I made about $50 one night after thanksgiving! I would uselly only make about $10 for a couple hours of serious labour.
Right now I only pick up empties when out walking my dog. The dog has to be walked anyway and it keeps the bottles off the streets (kids like to smash them, I don't want my dog to cut his feet)
There is a bylaw that forbids scavenging but no police have ever said anything to me about it.

Food costs too much. once in awhile I will fast for a few days to save money and reset my body.

I just traded my airmiles in for chapters gift cards and bought 3 books about "Earthships". Earthships seem like one of the cheapest ways to exist and I would love to build one.


----------



## peterk

I pulled up to a stop sign next to a grocery store. I saw two apples sitting in the gutter at the side of the road, and got my passenger to hop out and grab them. We enjoyed a delicious free apple treat that afternoon!


----------



## Four Pillars

Wow, these last two posters are a real inspiration!


----------



## hystat

years ago i drove a 1992 Hyundai Excel (Howdy Eggshell)

when I did the brakes, I found out the rotors were part of the hub and had to be pressed off by the dealer to be turned.

so, I tied the caliper out of the way, started the engine, put the trans in 5th gear, let the clutch out and let the rotor spin while I dressed it with my angle grinder.

the next 3 or 4 brake jobs I repeated this and the car went over 400,000km on the original brake rotors.


----------



## Jungle

hystat said:


> years ago i drove a 1992 Hyundai Excel (Howdy Eggshell)
> 
> when I did the brakes, I found out the rotors were part of the hub and had to be pressed off by the dealer to be turned.
> 
> so, I tied the caliper out of the way, started the engine, put the trans in 5th gear, let the clutch out and let the rotor spin while I dressed it with my angle grinder.
> 
> the next 3 or 4 brake jobs I repeated this and the car went over 400,000km on the original brake rotors.


I love that one. 

How about this one? A guy I know works security night shift and kicks homeless people off the property at night time. After work, (off duty), he puts on a rough looking lumber jacket, hood up and stands in line at the salvation army truck, with the same homeless people he kicks out during the night. The salvation army truck gives out free food for the homeless..


----------



## Cal

Jungle said:


> A guy I know works security night shift and kicks homeless people off the property at night time. After work, (off duty), he puts on a rough looking lumber jacket, hood up and stands in line at the salvation army truck, with the same homeless people he kicks out during the night. The salvation army truck gives out free food for the homeless..


That sure would beat having to pack a lunch every day!


----------



## DavidJD

I quit drinking. When my second baby came along (the first was only 13 months) I realized I had way less time (and sleep) in the future and decided that booze was not going to give me more time or energy and thought, what the hell. Some friends quit because they had to and I could spend more time with them. What I never realized was that I would lose weight (pants too loose) and have WAY MORE CASH.

I know the latte factor is always bandied about as the invisible sinkhole in personal budgets, but if you deduct drinks it from your meals in restaurants or on patios (and the liquor store on you visa!) you would be surprised.

12 pack of beer every 1.5 weeks or so, 2-5 times for 'drinks with the guys/month(+tips) and you are looking at $200+/month - easy.

Try it for a couple of months and see if you notice as big a difference.

I will let you know in 25 years what impact it had on my health.


----------



## kcowan

Are you worried about the claimed beneficial effects of moderate drinking?


----------



## HaroldCrump

kcowan said:


> Are you worried about the claimed beneficial effects of moderate drinking?


Like Your Drinking = Dividends for Me = Better Health for Me


----------



## DavidJD

I am sure a glass of cranberry juice is as beneficial.


----------



## Financial Cents

*Cheapest thing ever?*

Like others, I used to cut my own hair (for a few years) in university. Ballcaps came in handy, often. 

A bunch of us were low on cash one fall in university (too much money spent at the pubs), so we bought about 40 lbs. of potatoes from a farmer and used them for every other meal for about half a month between 4 guys. Mashed potatoes, homefries, french fries, baked potatoes, BBQ'ed potatoes; you name it, we made with potatoes. 

Scurvy never had a chance in our house.


----------



## Jungle

Glued the soles of my shoes with contact cement (at work of course) and continue to wear them with holes. My co-worker's and I laugh hard at this stuff.


----------



## MoneyGal

ha! My husband's fave shoes (Keens) have a hole. We have a friend who is an actual shoemaker (used to work with the Canadian Opera Company; now works at a hospital making custom shoes for people who require custom shoes, like with artificial limbs). We were at her house on Saturday and he asked her how to fix the shoe - she said...contact cement!


----------



## kcowan

Black felt pen covers up wear spots. I have used it for sofas, clothes, and the boxcutter cuts in my bathroom sink (caused by a sloppy contractor). It can also be used on some shoe soles especially around the heel.


----------



## Cal

I know this is an old thread....but when I read this article...I think we would have a winner.

2 articles on Hetty Green:

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/02/25/etfs-for-the-penny-pincher/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetty_Green


I mean...at least I pay for heat and hot water.


----------



## atrp2biz

Waited nine hours in line for a free buffet dinner at the Mandarin a couple of Canada Day's ago.

Never again.


----------



## LBCfan

No-name beer. Never again.


----------



## humble_pie

somewhere back in this thread i have an old post about planting radish tops, beet tops, turnip tops, cabbage tops, etc in flower pots so as to gather their new plantlets & baby leaves for salads.

i wrote about planting 6 radish tops & growing gorgeous 2-foot plants all summer long, with flavourful dark green leaves like arugula & even sprays of pale pink flowers with a zippy radish flavour.

but i guess karma got me, because all my efforts since then have failed. The cutoff tops do indeed start to grow new plantlets, but then it seems the organism fails to root itself, because these efforts mostly die before they have produced any significant amount of baby salad growth.

oh, well. It was a nice green frugal thought.


----------



## Plugging Along

LBCfan said:


> No-name beer. Never again.


I totally agree with this one... we actually had to put a ban on our softball team that no-name was not allowed especially on overnight tournaments. When it came out the other end in gas format, it was most awful


----------



## Plugging Along

I'm thinking that my family and I must be really cheap, or we've done some just weird things... 

Some things my parents did:

Would take us to free pancake breakfasts (like 3 in a day) and save it for lunch and dinner. - I couldn't eat pancakes until close to my 30s

There was one year it was Mcd's anniversary, and there were 20 cent hamburgers. There was a 5 limit/person. Somehow my mom kept going through the drive through, and we ended up with around 80 of them. She then froze them. The hamburgers are gross when fresh, frozen is much worse. I just recently had one for the first time. 

Things we've done.

Saving bath water from the kids bath, and put a bucket in the shower to catch the water, and then would fill up the toilets.

Saving all the vegetables peelings/scraps (washed off course) in a bag in the freezer, and then making a vegetable broth (still do this sometimes)

I've put extra sushi in a container for all you can eat places that charge for uneaten food (not intentionally, but because we ended up ordering too much and would be charged per piece). I've also put the rice in the tea pot so I didn't have to eat it all. 


For Valentines this year, we went to a pub that we had a 2-1 coupon, then went to the movies using coupons we got from the cereal boxes, used a giftcard given to us by our FA to pay for the difference for IMAX 3D, and then brought our own popcorn and drinks. Total cost for dinner and movie for 2 was under $20 including tax and tip. My spouse and I laughed at what we would have thought years ago when we first started dating and tried that. 

We usually bring snacks and food to restaurants when out with the kids in case of poor service, or menu selection. We went to a really expensive fondue restaurant for spouses birthday, and looked at the menu ahead of time, there was no kids options, and an adult option was small and about $60 per kid. Instead of paying an extra $120 for a 2 & 5 year old, we also packed cut up raw chicken and steak in our snack bag, and threw it in the fondue for the kids when they weren't looking. 

The cheapest I could think of by a relative was they wanted us to move our set monthly family dinner night (4 busy families) to the follow weekend because their credit cut off would be on just after our planned date. They NEVER carry a balance and have cash, but we just being frugal, and wanted the cashflow on $150 (max) of groceries for the extra 29 days. After a large effort in trying to reschedule and find out why they wanted to move it, I gave them a quarter to offset their financial lost. I'm cheap, but I think this one was one of the tops.


----------



## hystat

Plugging Along said:


> Saving bath water from the kids bath, and put a bucket in the shower to catch the water, and then would fill up the toilets.


I always wonder why these aren't popular


----------



## marina628

Jungle said:


> Glued the soles of my shoes with contact cement (at work of course) and continue to wear them with holes. My co-worker's and I laugh hard at this stuff.


I have done this too!


----------



## marina628

humble_pie said:


> somewhere back in this thread i have an old post about planting radish tops, beet tops, turnip tops, cabbage tops, etc in flower pots so as to gather their new plantlets & baby leaves for salads.
> 
> i wrote about planting 6 radish tops & growing gorgeous 2-foot plants all summer long, with flavourful dark green leaves like arugula & even sprays of pale pink flowers with a zippy radish flavour.
> 
> but i guess karma got me, because all my efforts since then have failed. The cutoff tops do indeed start to grow new plantlets, but then it seems the organism fails to root itself, because these efforts mostly die before they have produced any significant amount of baby salad growth.
> 
> oh, well. It was a nice green frugal thought.


OMG I love turnip tops ,we Newfies cook them with Newfie dinner and salt beef.I go to my local grocery to get the green leaves off cabbage ,I could never figure why in ontario none of the outside big leaves were on cabbage.So one day i see the produce clerk there pulling all the leafs off and throwing them in a box.Since then i go every Thursday and get them for free! When you steam them they are quite a bit like spinach!Of course we have to crack the butter and salt on them too lol


----------



## humble_pie

marina you are SO right.

isn't newfie the best !

sometimes when i'm in the supermarkets & i see the staff trimming off outer leaves of veggies & slicing off the bottoms & throwing everything into cartons ... and i know that those boxes of totally compostable fresh vegetable material are instead going Into.The.Landfill.Garbage.Stream ... well, i just have to avert my eyes it looks so awful ... when i think how hard i work to compost & all.

there is an excellent "recipes" thread under the general tab. It's got a whole cookbook from brad & an excellent recent recipe from spidey for a sweet potato/beans combo with plenty herbs & spices.

marina do you think you could find a typical newfie recipe & post it there ? i'd love to have one. If you have time. Thank you.


----------



## marina628

Before i start sharing recipes I better find out if you got any heart conditions lol.I will try my best over the weekend.Growing up in Newfoundland around the bay we usually eat the things home grown or things people hunt or fish.My grandfather was a fisherman so always had lobster,salmon and cod fish.I can remember complaining to my parents about lobster.When i moved here and realized how expensive that was I could not believe I was complaining lol.Nothing like getting fresh caught fish and throwing it in the pan.
Typical Sunday dinner is cooking a roast or a full chicken in the oven with lots of onions and home made gravy and it is also served with salt beef dinner and vegetables.You cook the beef by boiling it in a big pot then adding carrots ,turnip,cabbage ,potato the last 45 minutes or so.
Some like using the liquid from the pot with the veggies ,others like it with gravy others is plain.My parents are in their 70s now so more concerned on health so they soak the meat to get the salt removed before they cook it.Easy on the butter and try not to put the salt on the food .So now there are modified recipes which have lower salt/fat content.
You have not lived until you had homemade partridge berry tarts!I know there are couple more newfies on forum we may be up all night cooking now lol


----------



## humble_pie

partridge berry pie ...

would you put whipped cream or ice cream on that ...

my heart's fine but i think i may be about to swoon anyhow ...


----------



## Toronto.gal

Some stories here were interesting, others were funny and a few actually saddened me.

Lol at the no-name beer; I don't drink beer at all, but for some reason LBCfan's post made me giggle. 

*Marina dear:* after you post a recipe for humble, do you think you could post a newfie rhubarb pie for me as well? 

I think the most frugal thing I do is go to sales that advertise 70% plus an additional 30%; I know it's not 100% off, but close enough.  [You see a lot of these in the US, not so much here].


----------



## twowheeled

most embarassing, as a kid going to the bottle depot with my mom, emptying out the beer and pop cans that had been sitting for 4 months or more (awful smell), and mom KEPT the garbage bags, put them back in the car to reuse, godawful smell, stickiness and all. I looked over and even the homeless guys were throwing their used trash bags in the trash!!


----------



## travelgeek

On some occasions where I forgot to bring the reusable bags, I have brought the cart with the groceries to my car from the checkout sans bags to avoid paying the plastic bag fee.

Yet I don't think twice when deciding whether or not to drop $1-2K on a plane ticket


----------



## carverman

Dana said:


> I have a relative who scopes parks and schoolyards early on Saturday and Sunday mornings for empties (beer and liquor bottles) that she can return for the deposit.


I still do that.....and stoop to pick up a penny on the parking lot. A penny earned
is a penny saved..look after your pennies and the dollars will look after
themselves...old sayings but still hold water today.

Now about the cheapest thing I have ever done, was to sleep in the lobby
of the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal while on business. We were working
pretty much the entire night on switching gear in a central office for Bell.

Although we were on daily expenses, by 6am in the morning, we discussed
whether to check in..or just wing it for rest of the day until the appropriate
checkin time. When we inquired at front desk, the clerk told us that there
were no rooms available, because of some convention and we didn't reserve
ahead, expecting that in Montreal of all places, lots of rooms were available.

So we wandered around in the morning downtown looking for a hotel of some
sort to rest our weary heads. Found this run down seedy looking hotel
which could double as a flop house nearby and we were so tired by then,
that we just paid cash ($20 or $25 for the day) and crashed. When I
got up to my simple closet sized room, the bed wasn't even made up..
the sheets were crumpled by the previous occupant.

Ok, so no mints on the pillow..but it was only$20 and by then I was too
tired to argue with the "proprietor" downstairs. Started to doze off and then
the jackhammers started! Couldn't get any sleep that day and we still
had to work the next night which we did... and then got on the next VIA Rail train in
the morning, to head home. 

When we got back to my employer (N*rtel), my boss asked how we made 
out? Ok, we said, but we had problems finding a decent room, So where
did you end up staying???....um...in this seedy run down "hotel", after we got kicked
out of the QE lobby by the CN police, (who told us.."get out of here, ya bums,
you can't sleep here!" ) .

He looked at us sternly and said.."listen guys!..don't ever do this again.
Make reservations the next time..ok!


----------



## KaeJS

I once walked 45 minutes to get home when it was freezing outside with the snow coming down like crazy. I was only wearing a sweater, jeans and regular shoes.

But there was no way in hell I was paying $2.50 to take the bus.

I quickly decided it would be beneficial to run, since it would keep me warm and get me home faster.


----------



## financialnoob

KaeJS said:


> I once walked 45 minutes to get home when it was freezing outside with the snow coming down like crazy. I was only wearing a sweater, jeans and regular shoes.
> 
> But there was no way in hell I was paying $2.50 to take the bus.
> 
> I quickly decided it would be beneficial to run, since it would keep me warm and get me home faster.


Sometimes there are situations where we save a few cents now at the expense of dollars later. I find myself guilty of things like this as well, but I'm trying to factor in time when it comes to my cost justifications. 

If the bus ride saves you a half hour, isn't it worth the $2.50? Even if you run and it saves you only 15 minutes, that's still only a savings of say $10/hour, or minimum wage.

That half hour could be spent on cutting coupons which would save you more. Or surfing for a better deal on a purchase. Or you could spend it on bigger things like researching an investment you're considering. Or calculating the difference between several different types of bank savings accounts or cell phone companies.

Not trying to pick on you, as I'm guilty of this as well. I once begged my wife to go pick up cheese at a far-away grocery store simply because it was on sale. The money spent on getting there equaled the amount of money saved on the cheese, but she wasted an extra half hour. Boy did I hear about that for a while...


----------



## Toronto.gal

financialnoob said:


> I once begged my wife to go pick up cheese at a far-away grocery store simply because it was on sale.


Lol, why didn't you get the cheese? But I agree, in certain situations, time is money.

*Kaejs* was killing 2 birds with one stone; he was frugal & getting exercise at the same time, which apparently we don't do enough these days thanks to the wonder of technology. 

Time is investment as well, that's why we're on this forum, right?


----------



## financialnoob

Toronto.gal said:


> Lol, why didn't you get the cheese? But I agree, in certain situations, time is money.
> 
> *Kaejs* was killing 2 birds with one stone; he was frugal & getting exercise at the same time, which apparently we don't do enough these days thanks to the wonder of technology.
> 
> Time is investment as well, that's why we're on this forum, right?


You sound exactly like my wife 

I was about to insert some lame excuse here, but that's all it really was. It was stupid on numerous levels, and I have taken my lumps and bruises (literally and figuratively j/k) and learned from it.

The exercise is important. I hadn't factored that into the equation. Kaejs probably saved some money on a gym membership that month so that should also be factored in and maybe then it makes more financial sense.


----------



## bmckay

I stopped spending $53.00/month on my bus pass, and have been riding my bike to work. It's a win-win-win situation. 1) I save $636/year 2) I stay in shape 3) Instead of burning fuel and contributing to a deteriorating environment/remaining dependent on oil, I burn any extra excess fat on my body instead.


----------



## fersure

*Re-using bus transfers in Victoria*

http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Riders+duck+paying+fares+with+transfer+tricks+Twitter+posts/4406466/story.html

The funny thing is, Victoria's fareboxes are the most advanced in the province (in that they take bills and have swipe capability for monthly passes), yet they still issue undated newsprint transfers!


----------



## Plugging Along

financialnoob said:


> Sometimes there are situations where we save a few cents now at the expense of dollars later...


I know my spouse and I have done it too. Sometimes its just on principle. I remember my spouse didn't want spend the money hiring a plumber for a really old dishwasher, so spent hours trying to fix it instead of working a billable consulting job. We saved about $150, but lost well over $1K in lost consulting wages. For my spouse, it was a matter of pride and principle.

Other times, when we were both not working, and there was no income coming in, time was what we did have, so did some of the strangest things to save money. 

Now, we're both working with two young kids, so time is more valuable than money to us right now.

I guess it's all depends on what your situation is, and what you are trying to optimize at the time. It's difficult to have it all at the same time.


----------



## financialnoob

Plugging Along said:


> I know my spouse and I have done it too. Sometimes its just on principle. I remember my spouse didn't want spend the money hiring a plumber for a really old dishwasher, so spent hours trying to fix it instead of working a billable consulting job. We saved about $150, but lost well over $1K in lost consulting wages. For my spouse, it was a matter of pride and principle.
> 
> Other times, when we were both not working, and there was no income coming in, time was what we did have, so did some of the strangest things to save money.
> 
> Now, we're both working with two young kids, so time is more valuable than money to us right now.
> 
> I guess it's all depends on what your situation is, and what you are trying to optimize at the time. It's difficult to have it all at the same time.


 My wife dreads the moment something breaks and I say, "Let me look at it..."


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## Addy

cccfree said:


> This is a little tongue in cheek but what all the extra food you're going to eat because of the excess calories you're going to burn while biking.
> 
> Just a thought...



I always eat less when I am healthy and active. It's higher quality food mind you, so it may work out to be roughly the same, but definitely less food consumed.


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## GeniusBoy27

Does falling on a park bench count? I tend to do that lots and it's free.


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## mrbizi

at home, my wife and I usually just share a can of soda, and I mean drink from the same can without using glasses. we do this not just to save money but because we find the contents of one can of soda a bit too much. Maybe visiting relatives have found this disgusting but hey it's our home and we'll do as we please!


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## Addy

mrbizi said:


> at home, my wife and I usually just share a can of soda, and I mean drink from the same can without using glasses.


Hahaha your comment was so funny when I had it in my head you meant reading glasses!


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## Jungle

Turned the shower off to lather up with soap. (saves heating and water use) 
Turned the shower fan off to save electricity. 
Peed after my wife went too, to save a flush. (saves water)


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## crazyjackcsa

Jungle said:


> Peed after my wife went too, to save a flush. (saves water)


Ever Crunch the numbers on the savings? Rough estimate was 1.5 cents savings on that little manuver. That covers water and waste water @ 8 litres a flush.

That's pretty cheap...


----------



## kcowan

crazyjackcsa said:


> Ever Crunch the numbers on the savings? Rough estimate was 1.5 cents savings on that little manuver. That covers water and waste water @ 8 litres a flush.
> 
> That's pretty cheap...


If its yellow, let it mellow...


----------



## Barwelle

Jungle said:


> Turned the shower fan off to save electricity.


Those shower fans are there for a reason: to pull moisture out of your bathroom so that mould/mildew doesn't build up when the moist air from your shower condenses on the walls and ceiling of your bathroom.

So they are there for health reasons. Not saying that you HAVE to use the fan, but it's something to think about... you might not want to cheap out on something like this. I rented a 75-year-old house that had been retrofitted with a fan, but it didn't work. After 6 months, there was mould growing on the ceiling. We cleaned it every couple months to prevent that from happening again. I'm glad I don't live there anymore. Newer houses are a little more susceptible to mould because they are more air tight, that's why it's code to put a fan in every bathroom for new construction.

If you still don't want to use the fan, consider leaving the door open to lower the humidity level in the bathroom in the winter, and opening the bathroom window in the summer if possible.


----------



## Jungle

crazyjackcsa said:


> Ever Crunch the numbers on the savings? Rough estimate was 1.5 cents savings on that little manuver. That covers water and waste water @ 8 litres a flush.
> 
> That's pretty cheap...


Interesting. I never knew it cost that much. Sounds like peanuts, but I guess it could add up. I actually rarely do this, as the gross factor is just too much. 

But a penny saved is a penny earned. Or penny wise pound foolish.. 

I also pick up pennies, dimes or any money I see them on the ground. Read back thread, I accumilated so much one day, I was able to use it for transit fare when I forgot my transit pass. I buy coffees at Starbucks doing this method. 




Barwelle said:


> Those shower fans are there for a reason: to pull moisture out of your bathroom so that mould/mildew doesn't build up when the moist air from your shower condenses on the walls and ceiling of your bathroom.


Yea I know. I leave the door open when I do this. However the house I rent out does not even have a fan, it was built in early mid 1900's.


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## kcowan

Mold inside interior drywall walls can cause severe alergic reactions among selected members of the population. One woman rented an RV to avoid the problem until it was diagnosed properly and corrected.

Less serious reactions are hard to pinpoint.


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## Jungle

I had the house inspected with a moisture meter aka mold detector and the bathroom walls were fine. House is dry and mold free. 

Proper paint for the bathroom , such as oil paints, help protect this as well. 

In the winter, the condo is so dry that our lips chap and my knuckles bleed. A little bit of humidity makes it more comfortable. 

And if you leave the bathroom door open, I think it's fine.


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## m3s

This reminds me of when I rented a basement. The old lady upstairs would unhook the dryer exhaust in the winter because she said it saved heat, and she liked the moisture. It was pretty dry there


----------



## carverman

Jon202 said:


> I take the stamps off of envelopes of letters mailed to the house that aren't post-marked and reuse them.


Sounds like "cheating"the post office/gov't, but these days, since they are
cheating us and spending our tax dollars like drunken sailors, why not?

I have to admit, I've done that on a couple of occasions. I figure that it
they can't be bothered to cancel the stamp, it's their loss..similar to
stooping to pick up a coin that someone lost on the parking lot that fell
out of their pocket, while getting into their vehicle.


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## carverman

mode3sour said:


> This reminds me of when I rented a basement. The old lady upstairs would *unhook the dryer exhaust in the winter because she said it saved heat,* and she liked the moisture. It was pretty dry there


I've been doing that for a few years. Put some kind of screen over the end
to avoid having lint blown all over the place..works for me and you humidify
the lower part of the house as well.

To save electricity with the furnance running in the winter months, I paralleled
a second thermostat in the basement area to let the furnace come on only
if the basement temperature drops below 58 F. Saves electricity and gas
as I heat the upstairs portion with a insert gas fireplace with a mini-fan that
is much more efficient on electricity.


----------



## carverman

Jungle said:


> Interesting. I never knew it cost that much. Sounds like peanuts, but I guess it could add up. I actually rarely do this, as the gross factor is just too much.
> 
> But a penny saved is a penny earned. *Or penny wise pound foolish*..


Old english expression..but it has nothing to do with frugality like the first
expression you mentioned. What it meant was that one goes around nitpicking and trying to get the best deal on something and then going out
on a saturday night to a pub and blowing the bankroll celebrating the savings....or something to that effect. 



> I also pick up pennies, dimes or any money I see them on the ground. Read back thread, I accumilated so much one day,* I was able to use it for transit fare when I forgot my transit pass*. I buy coffees at Starbucks doing this method.


I also stoop to pick up a penny and it's difficult for me these days to stoop as
well. I guess, you don't live in Ottawa, as dumping over $2.250 worth of pennies into the fare bin would just freak out the driver and I'm sure he would ask you to prove that you put in the right amount or ask you to get off..

They(OC Transpo bus drivers) are quite "militant" here...lambasting one guy that reeked of cigarette smoke, ("you stink!!")
in a very recent incident..and there have been others where some refused to even take on mothers with baby carriages.


----------



## carverman

crazyjackcsa said:


> Ever Crunch the numbers on the savings? Rough estimate was 1.5 cents savings on that little manuver. That covers water and waste water @ 8 litres a flush.
> 
> That's pretty cheap...


 In Ottawa, an older style toilet (like mine) will use 12 litres to flush whether it's #1 or #2. 
Ottawa charges $1.27per cu meter (1000 liters) of water and $1.16 sewer charge to dispose and treat that 12 liters of water.
so ...lets see..(pulling out calculator)

Water: 1.27/1000 x 12liters = .015 or 1.5 cents
Sewer: 1.16 /1000 x 12 liters= .0139 or 1.4 cents

2.9 cents by my calculations

Yow! what a ripoff! I'll have to complain to the City of Ottawa water dept
.. maybe stop using the toilets...or contemplate it going "brown" or put in a water displacement thingy at the bottom of the tank to
save 2 liters per flush, thereby saving me .002 cents each flush..LOL!

Note to self: Drive around in local parking lots looking for pennies to pick up.


----------



## carverman

financialnoob said:


> Sometimes there are situations where we *save a few cents now at the expense of dollars later*.


That's human nature..like the old CBC Marketplace song-Stompin' Tom
Connors song goes..

"the consumer, they call us,
runnin' in the race,
snappin' up the bargains,
in the old marketplace.

Another sale on something,
we'll grab it while it's hot,
and save a lot of money..
money we ain't got!"



> *That half hour could be spent on cutting coupons which would save you more. *


You know..I never really got into this coupon clipping thing, I find it hard enough to pay for my groceries by credit card these days. I mean, I do take advantage of a stores mail in rebate.....even though it costs me a stamp... and 7 cents to photo copy the bill at Staples.. but....if I can reuse a used stamp that the Post office forgot to cancel..I feel so much better at mailing it in. 



> Or surfing for a better deal on a purchase.


I do that all the time. Just bought an energy efficient fridge from Leon's recently. Surfed all the big box stores (H-D, Lowes, Sears, etc) and found the lowest price and best deal and free delivery and removal of my old energy hog fridge as well.



> Or calculating the difference between several different types of bank savings accounts or cell phone companies.


I do that as a process of living during the waking hours. Use PC Financial (no fee acct) and their MC, Pay it off at the end of the month and they haven't earned a penny off me in interest in years.

Cell phones..don't get me started! I've broken off my long term relationship with Bell, who wouldn't budge on some excess
air time usage charges (20c a min) on phone calls to them..so after a few years with them, it was an emotional parting with
them to cross over to WIND.
No tears shed for "Ma Bell"..just fuming with spittle at the corners of my mouth for allowing them to rip me off like that,
after taking my money for so many years! 



> I once begged my wife to go pick up cheese at a far-away grocery store simply because it was on sale. The money spent on getting there equaled the amount of money saved on the cheese, but she wasted an extra half hour.


I would NEVER do that because of the cost of gas. My 13 yr old v8 truck just loves to guzzle gas in the city..about 5kms to the liter in the city.
So at a cost of $1.25 per liter of gas to drive that 5km, that cheese bar, which is on sale for $1 or $2.00 off, 
negates any savings I would enjoy. And I would have to drive to the LCBO for some "whine" with my cheese too!

The old english saying..penny wise/pound foolish would certainly apply in this case...
unless you thumb a ride and get there and back on someone elses coin..LOL!


----------



## the-royal-mail

carverman said:


> in a very recent incident..and there have been others where some refused to even take on mothers with baby carriages.


The rule says strollers are supposed to be small and foldable. Buses are like sardine cans these days. Why should 10 people give up their seats and stand 1 inch from a bunch of strangers just so one person can board with an SUV size stroller that doesn't fold? Strollers are a convenience device for the user. The driver was simply enforcing the rules.


----------



## Addy

the-royal-mail said:


> The rule says strollers are supposed to be small and foldable. Buses are like sardine cans these days. Why should 10 people give up their seats and stand 1 inch from a bunch of strangers just so one person can board with an SUV size stroller that doesn't fold? Strollers are a convenience device for the user. The driver was simply enforcing the rules.


Interesting. Here in Winnipeg, a transit driver once tried to get me to fold my stroller (which by no means is an 'SUV of a stroller') while my daughter was sleeping.... I was rather ticked off and pointed out that the sticker showing the particular seats meant for wheelchairs and strollers shows the stroller fully open.... which I find rather misleading. I woke up my then six month old, attempted to juggle her on one arm while folding the stroller in the other, as the bus driver takes off, not at all concerned for my safety or the safety of my six month old as we jossled around, bumping into people, metal bars, etc.

I phoned the transit service for a copy of their stroller policy and was told there's no policy stating you must fold up strollers.

I much preferred to carry my daughter in a wrap vs use a stroller; I found it much more convenient, but there were times it was necessary to take a stroller on the bus.


----------



## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> The rule says strollers are supposed to be small and foldable. Buses are like sardine cans these days. Why should 10 people give up their seats and stand 1 inch from a bunch of strangers just so one person can board with an SUV size stroller that doesn't fold? Strollers are a convenience device for the user. The driver was simply enforcing the rules.


Yes, the rules may state that, but mothers trying to get on the bus in morning rush hour show up sometimes with a tandem stroller , which is a bit much.
But I agree that if space permits in the front seating area, it shouldn't be a problem, but some mothers seem to ignore any inconvenience to other users and those large strollers cause problems for people trying to get by them, by blocking the isle. 

When I was still using OC Transpo to go to the hospital f or treatment, I used a walker and was careful to fold it up, so others could get by..but that's just me.


----------



## financialnoob

carverman said:


> I would NEVER do that because of the cost of gas. My 13 yr old v8 truck just loves to guzzle gas in the city..about 5kms to the liter in the city.
> So at a cost of $1.25 per liter of gas to drive that 5km, that cheese bar, which is on sale for $1 or $2.00 off,
> negates any savings I would enjoy. And I would have to drive to the LCBO for some "whine" with my cheese too!
> 
> The old english saying..penny wise/pound foolish would certainly apply in this case...
> unless you thumb a ride and get there and back on someone elses coin..LOL!


You're absolutely correct, except it was more than a pound foolish 

But it's one of the things I'm trying to be better about.


----------



## jmalias

*cheap way to make a buck*

Its sad, but most of these comments dont seem too out of the ordinary for me.
Here is mine. 3rd year starving university kid.
At the end of the 750ml glass returnable bottles era. The store was getting rid of stock (making room for 2L plastic bottle), had them for 10cents each. There was a stack of coupons for 40cents off which paid for the deposit. I used the entire stack of coupons to purchase 4 carts full. My room mates freaked, but it was the start of many new to me drinks, the debate over fresca and gin versus wink and gin, rootbeer and peach snapps with or without the float. There was at least 150 bottles. Till this day was the weirdest $50 I have made.


----------



## carverman

jmalias said:


> Here is mine. 3rd year starving university kid.
> My room mates freaked, but it was the *start of many new to me drinks, the debate over fresca and gin versus wink and gin, rootbeer and peach snapps *with or without the float. There was at least 150 bottles. Till this day was the weirdest $50 I have made.


Uh?...you claim you were a "starving" 3rd year university student and you
somehow managed to find money for "gin" and "peach snapps"?
Well sounds to me like your student priorities were not quite aligned with
a starving student?


Like the Bare Naked Ladies song goes..

" if I had a million dollars ..er...<substitute>
( If I was a starving student )
we wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner"
"..but we would..we would just put some of those fancy Diijon ketchups on it"


----------



## carverman

financialnoob said:


> But it's one of the things I'm trying to be better about.


One of the cheapest things I've have done in the past..and still doing it,
is to reuse the plastic milk bags. Wash them out and store other food in
them..why buy zip loc bags? Even at the dollar store (where I like to shop)
a box of zip locks still cost a dollar + tax.

I fully subscribe to the 3 "R"s 
Reuse, Recycle and Return (bottles/cans for deposit)


----------



## HaroldCrump

carverman said:


> I fully subscribe to the 3 "R"s
> Reuse, Recycle and Return (bottles/cans for deposit)


Actually, I believe, the other R is for Reduce.
I like reducing consumption.
We look around our household and find so many things that we can do without.
Consider each purchase in this light - why do I need this particular item?
Can I do without this?
Can I instead re-use something else? Can I borrow from friends/neighbors?

Think about all the garbage electronics that get dumped after every 6 months of use in favor of the latest models and end up as toxic stuff in our landfills.
Reducing consumption not only saves you money but overall helps the environment and society.

And, of course, we can always depend on our latest forum member to keep the economy stimulated with spending.


----------



## humble_pie

kudos to carverman. I also refuse to accept plastic bags in grocery stores, place my produce picks raw in the grocery cart, even bring my own recycled small plastic produce bags. My neighbours have gotten used to the sight of a tiny washed bag or 2 drying on my clothesline every day, although at least one neighbour has never forgiven me for having the outdoor clothesline in the first place.

re the celeries, apples, melons, oranges & lemons w no plastic bags, etc, i was astonished when somebody said using free grocery store baggies practice prevents cashiers from "handling" the produce. What are they talking about. All produce has already been handled to death by pickers, packers, store staff, other shoppers. The thing is to wash it scrupulously after one gets it home.

re-using baggies is really an enviro practice, not a cheapio practice.

in france we used to shop the food markets w good-looking sturdy straw baskets. All produce was sold en vrac, unwrapped. One learned pretty quickly to buy the potatoes first as these were always muddy. They had to be placed in the bottom of the basket.


----------



## the-royal-mail

I reuse plastic bags all the time. For instance, right now I have about 10 of them in the cabinet. This is too many for my needs, so the next 2-3 times I go to the store I will bring 4-5 with me. After these next 2-3 visits I should have used the bags for garbage by then and will need to replenish the supply. The next visit to a store will be to one that supplies free bags. I use all the bags I receive at stores. None of them are wasted. 

I also use normal grocery bags for fruits and veggies too. They hold more capacity. No need to use the smaller clear ones that are only really good for one tomato or piece of garlic. I pick apples out of the bin and fill a normal, sturdier bag half full. Way stronger than the cheap clear bags that aren't as versatile to use in my garbage cans etc.

I think this whole bag obsessesion the greenies have latched onto is nonsense. There will always be a need for bags in apartment chutes and other applications. Whether I approach a retail store and pay MSRP for a bag, or a store supplies one for free, I still use the same number of bags. It's just that the merchant selling them lines his pockets, that makes the greenies happy. Not too well thought out.

I actually see more tim hortons cups blowing around as litter than I do plastic grocery bags. Yet I never hear anywhere near the # of complaints to ban those as plastic bags.


----------



## the-royal-mail

HaroldCrump said:


> Actually, I believe, the other R is for Reduce.
> I like reducing consumption.
> We look around our household and find so many things that we can do without.
> Consider each purchase in this light - why do I need this particular item?
> Can I do without this?
> Can I instead re-use something else? Can I borrow from friends/neighbors?
> 
> Think about all the garbage electronics that get dumped after every 6 months of use in favor of the latest models and end up as toxic stuff in our landfills.
> Reducing consumption not only saves you money but overall helps the environment and society.
> 
> And, of course, we can always depend on our latest forum member to keep the economy stimulated with spending.



I agree 100%. In my own case, I am continually resisting new technology on many fronts. My phone dates from the late 1970s and has a ringer that can wake the dead. I only upgrade computer, TV and DVD player when they break. I don't believe in cell phones (which are one of the most damaging things to the environment) and I stay away from all the latest expense gadgets like palm pilots and the like. They love coming out with newer versions to keep our wallets empty and the garbage dumps full. I see the game and refuse to take part. Side effect: full bank account.


----------



## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> I reuse plastic bags all the time. For instance, right now I have about 10 of them in the cabinet. This is too many for my needs, so the next 2-3 times I go to the store I will bring 4-5 with me. After these next 2-3 visits I should have used the bags for garbage by then and will need to replenish the supply. The next visit to a store will be to one that supplies free bags. I use all the bags I receive at stores. None of them are wasted.


I used to do that but those new "green bags" that Loblaws (and others) sell you for 5c (and have the nerve to add gst onto that!) are real garbage these days. The plastic is so thin that if you put anything with sharp corners or heavy jars, you run the risk of having your expensive groceries drop out of the bags while loading your vehicle from the store cart. This almost happened to me and I would have lost about $5 worth of glass containers on the parking lot. After that "near incident", I refuse to pay a nickel for
bags that you can only really use once and in some cases double up to be on the safe side.

Some stores used to offer paper bags and for some reason have given up on that. Paper bags make a lot of sense to me since paper can be tossed into the recycle box or even throw in some vegetable peelings and then into the green bin. 

I bought the reusable good shopping bags from Lee Valley for a $1 and those are well made. 
These should last a long time. Besides, the City of Ottawa won't recycle any plastic bags..so they go into the garbage and
then end up in landfill. 



> I also use normal grocery bags for fruits and veggies too. They hold more capacity. No need to use the smaller clear ones that are only really good for one tomato or piece of garlic. I pick apples out of the bin and fill a normal, sturdier bag half full. Way stronger than the cheap clear bags that aren't as versatile to use in my garbage cans etc.


I don't understand the NA obsession with plastic..plastic on everything, all food wrapped in plastic even the fruit and veggies that are prepacked at the store. Years ago, when you went to buy a pound of potatoes..you hand picked them and put them into your shopping bag. Now you can still buy them by the pound, but then the store offers free clear plastic bags
for them to ring in at the cashier...convenience for the store to weigh the produce, but then more plastic to hit the landfill. 



> It's just that the merchant selling them lines his pockets, that makes the greenies happy. Not too well thought out.


Well maybe so, but the stores are not going to make a huge profit on the sale of their plastic bags..more and more people now bring their own reusable bags.



> I actually see more tim hortons cups blowing around as litter than I do plastic grocery bags. Yet I never hear anywhere near the # of complaints to ban those as plastic bags.


Well perhaps, the Ont gov't should put a 5c "eco fee" on the sale of each T.H. coffee cup..that will put a stop to that "double-double wastefullness"! People seem to just toss them out the window of their vehicle as they drink them..however, the paper cup (not the lid) is biodegrable eventually..not as bad as the old styrofoam ones.


----------



## the-royal-mail

Hi carverman

>I used to do that but those new "green bags" that Loblaws (and others) sell you for 5c (and have the nerve to add gst onto that!) are real garbage these days. The plastic is so thin that if you put anything with sharp corners or heavy jars, you run the risk of having your expensive groceries drop out of the bags while loading your vehicle from the store cart. This almost happened to me and I would have lost about $5 worth of glass containers on the parking lot. After that "near incident", I refuse to pay a nickel for
bags that you can only really use once and in some cases double up to be on the safe side.

I completely agree. Those bags are useless. I ALWAYS bring my own bags when I shop at Super Value. Stores still providing GOOD plastic bags for free at Sobeys and Giant Tiger. They get most of my business. They even have baggers at the end of the till. Those guys and gals are way faster than me at bagging my own. I'm so slow at it, I hate holding up the line by trying to do it myself. The bags I reuse have to be quality ones.

>Some stores used to offer paper bags and for some reason have given up on that. Paper bags make a lot of sense to me since paper can be tossed into the recycle box or even throw in some vegetable peelings and then into the green bin. 

That's true. The trouble with the old paper bags is they never had carrying handles on them, so they had to be carried on my arms which limited the amount of stuff I could take. Oddly, TV shows still almost always show paper bags.

>I bought the reusable good shopping bags from Lee Valley for a $1 and those are well made. 

Ah but see then they're getting a $1 from you. And those bags don't last forever and they are usually too small. You need several when you buy $20-30 worth of groceries as I usually do.

>I don't understand the NA obsession with plastic..plastic on everything, all food wrapped in plastic even the fruit and veggies that are prepacked at the store. Years ago, when you went to buy a pound of potatoes..you hand picked them and put them into your shopping bag. Now you can still buy them by the pound, but then the store offers free clear plastic bags
for them to ring in at the cashier...convenience for the store to weigh the produce, but then more plastic to hit the landfill. 

I know. That's why I use regular bags for produce. I don't have much reuse potential for the smaller clear bags. As far as plastic, google plastic ocean and see the albatross carcass on the beach with all sorts of plastic bits inside its body. There is a LOT of plastic floating around in the ocean, but plastic grocery bags are the least of the problems. Look at how ketchup and most soft drinks are sold these days. Gone are the days of bringing back your 750 ml glass bottle of 7UP for refund. Nobody wants to give money back to consumers these days, so they fill our oceans with billions of plastic bottles and containers. I'm with you. Way too much plastic is used for packaging.

>Well maybe so, but the stores are not going to make a huge profit on the sale of their plastic bags..more and more people now bring their own reusable bags.

Are there stats available on this? I'm certain this is a profit center for the stores. I don't think those cheap bags cost them 5 cents a piece. And everytime I'm in line at Super Value, one or more of the other customers are indeed buying those bags, meaning nothing is really solved from an environment perspective.

>Well perhaps, the Ont gov't should put a 5c "eco fee" on the sale of each T.H. coffee cup..that will put a stop to that "double-double wastefullness"! People seem to just toss them out the window of their vehicle as they drink them..however, the paper cup (not the lid) is biodegrable eventually..not as bad as the old styrofoam ones.

I agree with your feelings on this but cannot support yet another fee. This isn't on the consumer to solve. The consumer wants coffee. The vendor needs to supply a container for it. Therefore it is upon the vendor to be pressured to produce a more eco friendly container. In this case, I toss those cups into my recycle box when I get home. Only the lid gets thrown in the garbage.

Although no one will admit to eating at McDonalds (I stopped a couple of years ago, only their coffee passes muster for me now), take a look at how their combos are packaged. Big mac, fries, drink cup and carry bag are ALL made of recycled/recyclable paper. After a meal, the ONLY thing that should end up in the trash is the lid from the drink and the straw. Yet how many people throw the whole shot in the garbage? Most of it can be recycled!


----------



## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> The bags I reuse have to be quality ones.
> 
> Ah but see then they're getting a $1 from you. And those bags don't last forever and they are usually too small. You need several when you buy $20-30 worth of groceries as I usually do.


Ok, the bags that Lee Valley sells for a nickel are the thicker plastic with their logo on them. These can be reused several times and the nice thing about Lee Valley (I met Leonard Lee once there), is that IF your bring your own
bag into the store, they will donate 10cents to the wildlife fund..and I like that! 

Loblaws now starting to give you 1 point for each bag you bring in on your PC Financial card, but 1 point doesn't go far with them since it takes 20.000 points to get $20,00 worth of groceries from them and you need to spend $2,000 on their PC M/C to get that.

Actually, the $1 Lee Valley bags are very nice and reinforced with a mesh inside and good quality cloth handles. They have either a nature scene or a tool scene on them and since I am a woodworker/carver and a bit of an antique myself now,,(hence the online moniker "carverman", 

I chose the antique tool scene bag. It is quite spacious and today I bought well over $20 worth of groceries in it and I've reused it many times...I have a cloth bag as well......and a bunch of those crappy plastic bags in the truck for any overflow groceries...once
they are full of holes, I will not be using them anymore, as I refuse to pay money for something that will end up in a landfill eventually. 




> I know. That's why I use regular bags for produce. I don't have much reuse potential for the smaller clear bags. As far as plastic, google plastic ocean and see the albatross carcass on the beach with all sorts of plastic bits inside its body. There is a LOT of plastic floating around in the ocean, but plastic grocery bags are the least of the problems. Look at how ketchup and most soft drinks are sold these days. Gone are the days of bringing back your 750 ml glass bottle of 7UP for refund. Nobody wants to give money back to consumers these days, so they fill our oceans with billions of plastic bottles and containers. I'm with you. Way too much plastic is used for packaging.


Yes, I agree. I buy the larger quantity of mustard/relish/mayo at Costco and refill the old containers as I use up the product.

Again the Ontario ECo fee (tax) is not well thought out. I was charged 5c per pint of varathane finish, yet one can buy a 12 or 24 pack of water bottles (is there an eco fee on them?) and lots of plastic there to dispose of. The recycle doesn't really want them because of the type of plastic they are made from, and since there is no money in recycling them, they probably get just crushed and end up in landfill, not to mention ditches,...and just about anywhere else as you mentioned.

Also, (in some cases, depending on the source), the water isn't much better for you than city water..except it doesn't have traces of all the drugs that are flushed down the toilets from people on legitimate drugs..and that worries me, as the city filtration doesn't completely filter out trace chemicals/drugs in the sewage treatment and some of these drugs and chemical end up in the river
ecology. 



> Are there stats available on this? I'm certain this is a profit center for the stores. I don't think those cheap bags cost them 5 cents a piece. And everytime I'm in line at Super Value, one or more of the other customers are indeed buying those bags, meaning nothing is really solved from an environment perspective.


Well, I suppiose really it depends on how savvy the shoppers are in your area,. It's not going to be a big money maker for
the stores compared to the profit on the food. 
I have noticed that more and more, shoppers are bringing in their own reusable bags..either the nickel bags to be reused, or their own reusable bags, so that idea is catching on... slowly. 

The city does not ( and will not recycle) those plastic bags..so regardless of whether it costs a nickel per bag..the bags end up in
landfill, and landfill as we all know, becomes more and more expensive each decade, to dispose our collective garbage 
as nobody really wants a stinky landfill with seagulls flocking around it in their "own backyard". 
I'm glad that at least there is a program to recycle old unusable electronics/tvs as those should have been designed to be recycled. 

I believe now, there is an ECo fee charged on any new ones, even if people still toss the small electronics into the garbage
bin, rather than take them to a designated recycle place. Same with disposable batteries. 



> I agree with your feelings on this but cannot support yet another fee. This isn't on the consumer to solve. *The consumer wants coffee*. The vendor needs to supply a container for it. *Therefore it is upon the vendor to be pressured to produce a more eco friendly container.* In this case, I toss those cups into my recycle box when I get home. *Only the lid gets thrown in the garbage.*


Well that's up to the provincial gov't in each part of Canada to come up with new rules to prevent this kind of litter from happening. Regardless of whether the paper cup can be shredded and mulched, the plastic lid is a problem and will continue to be a problem, if it has to go into the landfill. 
They need to come up with either a bio-degradable plastic lid or some kind of lid that can be shredded with the cup at the recycle place..or better still..Tim Hortons should offer a discount (5 -10c) if you buy one of their reusable and insulated auto
friendly cups and stop offering their coffe in paper cups.

And I suppose, one has to ask..What happened to society and the consumer making their own coffee at home? Are we so addicted or ingrained as a modern society to Timmy's coffee that we have forgotten how to make it?



> Although no one will admit to eating at McDonalds (I stopped a couple of years ago, only their coffee passes muster for me now), take a look at how their combos are packaged. Big mac, fries, drink cup and carry bag are ALL made of recycled/recyclable paper. After a meal, the ONLY thing that should end up in the trash is the lid from the drink and the straw. Yet how many people throw the whole shot in the garbage? Most of it can be recycled!


Well, at least McD's is attempting to be a good corporate citizen in recognize that preserving the ecology and reducing waste, is now a very important thing for everyone to do. At least they are trying to make their packaging as green as possible. 
I haven't bought anything there in years, but the plastic lid issue there is still the same as with Timmys..and there has to be a better solution available.

Years ago, I visited the Toronto zoo (or was it Disney World?..I forget, but anyway), the McD's at the Animal Kingdom only had *paper straws in their drinks and a "special paper top" for the paper drink container,*that managed to keep your drink from spilling..because they said that some animals could die or get very sick from ingesting the plastic straws...like ostriches,
which are really stupid when it comes to eating things. 
I thought that was great..here a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise is actually caring about the animals, not just profit,
although I'm sure the Toronto Zoo or Disney put a lot of pressure on them, if they wanted to operate within their parks.


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## the-royal-mail

I agree with most of your points, esp that about McD's being a good corp citizen here. It's just a shame that consumers aren't smart enough to see what has been done and properly recycle the packaging. As well, McD's ought to have recycle areas instead of just garbage cans. For all the people who eat in, their recyclable paper waste hits the same landfill as the small plastic lid and straw. I feel a lot better about just adding a small lid and a straw to the landfill and recycling the rest. Why can't other consumers see the good thing this corp has done?

As for the coffee, yes, they must put some sort of addictive drug in that coffee because look at how hooked TH's drinkers are. These people "gotta have their coffee" in the morning. WTH? It was never that way before. And if they need it so badly, buy the cans of TH coffee and make it at home.

Are you a fan of Corner Gas? Do you remember that episode where Lacy encouraged people to bring their own travel mugs for coffee? They were huge! One of them almost consumed the entire pot of coffee LOL. As with vehicles and strollers, people can't be trusted to buy SMALL things, they gotta have the bigger SUV size things all the time.


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## Addy

the-royal-mail said:


> I agree 100%. In my own case, I am continually resisting new technology on many fronts. My phone dates from the late 1970s and has a ringer that can wake the dead. I only upgrade computer, TV and DVD player when they break. I don't believe in cell phones (which are one of the most damaging things to the environment) and I stay away from all the latest expense gadgets like palm pilots and the like. They love coming out with newer versions to keep our wallets empty and the garbage dumps full. I see the game and refuse to take part. Side effect: full bank account.


My husband and I argue (if you can call our arguements that, it's more of a teasing conversation) about technology often. He has a surround sound system that is about 10 years old and he saw a Bose system at Costco that he wants... $1700! I told him to wait and (we're moving) once we've bought a new house if we can afford it then it will be a housewarming present for us. But I'm hoping he will forget about it.... or the price will go down...

Interestingly enough, I saw a thread on another canadian forum about a person complaining they bought a cordless phone set and it crapped out after only 18 months. It was shocking how many people replied essentially that he should be happy he got 18 months out of the phone, and what does he expect. I expect a heck of a lot more than a year and a half out of a phone I buy! I expect at least 10 years use. Same for cars, and televisions..... 

It irritates me that many people think they have the right to insult others who actually want the goods they purchase to last a long time.


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## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> I agree with most of your points, esp that about McD's being a good corp citizen here.


Well I did say "attempting"...



> It's just a shame that consumers aren't smart enough to see what has been done and properly recycle the packaging. As well, McD's ought to have recycle areas instead of just garbage cans.


It's hard to see what is behind those garbage enclosers with the industrial size bins. I thought that at least they were send the french fry oil to the recyclers. 



> For all the people who eat in, their recyclable paper waste hits the same landfill as the small plastic lid and straw. I feel a lot better about just adding a small lid and a straw to the landfill and recycling the rest. Why can't other consumers see the good thing this corp has done?


Because most of their customers don't really care what happens to the wrappers and coffee cups after disposing them in the store bins. 



> As for the coffee, yes, they must put some sort of addictive drug in that coffee because look at how hooked TH's drinkers are. These people "gotta have their coffee" in the morning. WTH? It was never that way before. And if they need it so badly, buy the cans of TH coffee and make it at home.


Maybe it's the coffee blend they use? I remember reading the story about Tim Horton, his wife and their partner at the time when
they were trying to come up with a winner. They went through several re-iterations of their "secret blend "of coffee beans to come up with the present formula, taste and caffeine content..it's a trade secret similar to the KFC "11 herbs and spices". That and
their donuts led to a multi-million (billion?) empire. So as the story goes, come up with the right stuff and the world will beat
a path to your door..or drive-in as the case may be.


I have bought their small cans on occasion as a treat and yes..it definitely tastes better than the run-of-the -mill supermarket 
coffees..and they know it, and charge accordingly for it. 

But coffee (caffeine), is a stimulant and it can cause cravings, like nicotine for smokers, or chocolate for those addicts. 
It depends on what blend of coffees and where the coffee is grown.

read this about coffee and caffeine addiction..and it's legal, like tobacco products.
http://www.coffeeaddiction.net/content/causes-coffee-addiction



> Are you a fan of Corner Gas? Do you remember that episode where Lacy encouraged people to bring their own travel mugs for coffee? They were huge! One of them almost consumed the entire pot of coffee LOL. As with vehicles and strollers, people can't be trusted to buy SMALL things, they gotta have the bigger SUV size things all the time.


Some people..well most people just can't get "Jump Started" in the morning without their morning cupa java.
I remember the TH inside at the former Nortel research center, where I used to work. 
Employees would show up for work, check into their desk and then ask co-workers, if they were up to taking the walking trip
(1/2 kilometer or more to the other labs to get their morning "fix".

Some had huge refillable insulated mugs that would hold a liter or more of coffee, and the TH there would give them a small discount for bringing their own refillable mug,


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## carverman

Addy said:


> My husband and I argue (if you can call our arguements that, it's more of a teasing conversation) about technology often. He has a surround sound system that is about 10 years old and he saw a *Bose system at Costco that he wants... $1700!* But I'm hoping he will forget about it.... or the price will go down...


Obviously, he doesn't subscribe to concept of frugality, and is always looking for the latest techno marvel..manufacturers like these people . Look at 3D TV.. do we really need 3-D TV?..no! Are we conditioned by advertising to want it..yes!



> Interestingly enough, I saw a thread on another canadian forum about a person complaining they bought a cordless phone set and it crapped out after only 18 months. It was shocking how many people replied essentially that he should be happy he got 18 months out of the phone, and what does he expect. I expect a heck of a lot more than a year and a half out of a phone I buy! I expect at least 10 years use. Same for cars, and televisions.....


Ten years if you are lucky. Most consumer products are made in China, designed to last a bit longer than the manufacturers warranty in some cases..but cheap to buy. Of course the store where you buy these will alway offer to sell you an extended warranty
for 2-3 years for a "few dollars more". 
So if you go for it (extended warranty) and your set breaks down. They just toss yours into the recycle and give you a new one.
Nobody fixes consumer electronics anymore..not at the current labour rate $80-$100 an hour + hst. 

Cars..well at one time, you could expect them to last up to 10 years, but now with so many sensors and computer modules all over the vehicle, (average 5 years), and those modules are very expensive to replace. If it becomes an expensive repair.. say..
$1000 or more, (and it doesn't take a big job to cost that much these days), they just trade it in (read give it back for free) to the dealer, and continue making payments on a new one..because these payments are fixed costs and made to be
attractive. 
Dealers win, gov't win on taxes collected, and the consumer is happy driving a new vehicle with at least 1 yr warranty..or more in some cases, and it keeps the economy going.


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## DavidJD

Okay, I know a bit about McDs.

There are plenty of things to complain about but the bottom line they are trying to give us what the most of us want and will pay for. Having said that they have some very good points that we are unaware of.

They insist that animals are treated well by producers - and the producers respond. This was brought about by animal lobby groups. Same cannot be said for KFC etc.

They donate tons o'cash to Ronald McDonald House. Many celebrities and pro athletes associate themselves with MCD because of this (fundraisers etc). In some cities they have an RV that is a dental clinic on wheels for inner city kids. X-rays, labs, pharmacies etc.

Coffee. They have tested coffee with Tims and found that the coffee preferred is often a draw. Taste is similar enough that it competes and for some MCD's java is chosen. Marketing this to a cult-like following of Tims cannot succeed. If tims put burnt coffee in a cup some people will still prefer it because it is in a Tim's cup - sooo loyal that marketing to them would be a waste and even backfire. So, free coffee from time to time to have people realize that it is as good a product (not better, which will get people to become more brand loyal) and an option to a 30 vehicle line up.

I have to admit that little is known about McD as a corporate citizen. Most of what we hear/know is from No Logo and Supersize me.


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## the-royal-mail

Actually David, I am not a coffee drinker but have grown to appreciate McD's coffee. Have you tried it? Look around. A LOT of people have tried it and it is growing quickly in popularity. I've even seen gatherings where EVERYONE has a McD coffee and no one has a TH. One group of friends I hang out with, 2 of us prefer McD's and 1 insists on TH. My friend and I once tried TH and found it a little sharper, more bitter while the McD coffee is a much nicer taste and there's usually no lineup in the drive through.


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## Dana

humble_pie said:


> re the celeries, apples, melons, oranges & lemons w no plastic bags, etc, i was astonished when somebody said using free grocery store baggies practice prevents cashiers from "handling" the produce. What are they talking about. All produce has already been handled to death by pickers, packers, store staff, other shoppers. The thing is to wash it scrupulously after one gets it home.


When I purchase meat/cheese from the deli at Loblaws I usually put into tupperware as soon as I get home. Their version of 'ziploc' bags have gotten so cheap over the past few years that I find they don't re-zip properly (especially if it's the kids doing the re-zipping). So a couple of years ago I decided to cut out the middleman and took my tupperware to Loblaws. I handed it to the deli person and asked for sliced havarti. She looked at my tupperware like she didn't know what it was. I explained my plan to not use their plastic bags. Fist she confabed with the deli manager and then the store manager and then the store manager told me there is no way they would use my tupperware because if the meat/cheese turns out to be contaminated with listeria or some other bug there would be no way of knowing if it was contaminated at the store or because of my tupperware. I thought this was a stupid argument. 

Then a few months ago I put a red pepper in my cart - sans produce bag - and the cashier put a plastic baggie on her hand to pick it up and put in on the scale. I told her not to worry since I was going to wash it anyway, but she said the cashiers are not allowed to touch unpackaged food. I guess since they touch dirty money, and share pens with people all day that makes more sense than the deli department's tupperware policy. 

Bulk barn however will let you bring your own tupperware. They will even weigh it for you before you fill it and deduct that weight from the filled weight so you don't pay for being environmentally conscious - not a recipe for making friends with the people waiting behind you in line, though.


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## the-royal-mail

Dana said:


> So a couple of years ago I decided to cut out the middleman and took my tupperware to Loblaws. I handed it to the deli person and asked for sliced havarti. She looked at my tupperware like she didn't know what it was. I explained my plan to not use their plastic bags. Fist she confabed with the deli manager and then the store manager and then the store manager told me there is no way they would use my tupperware because if the meat/cheese turns out to be contaminated with listeria or some other bug there would be no way of knowing if it was contaminated at the store or because of my tupperware. I thought this was a stupid argument.


Sorry Dana, gotta disagree with you on this one. I think their argument is rock solid. I also think they are taking a health risk by accepting your container. How do they know you washed and sanitized it properly? Your container can encourage the spread of germs or other bacteria behind the counter, on her hands etc.

It's sort of the same reasoning for why when you go to a buffet you should not take your used plate back when you go for additional helpings, but leave used plate on table and take a new plate. They don't want people going back up to the buffet with used plates near new food. That's why there's always such a huge stack of plates.


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## humble_pie

dana you are a pioneer.
it's always difficult being the pioneer.
but others will come after.

i've had no probs not using produce baggies in grocery stores.
everything has to be washed at home anyhow.
what is surprising is how well produce survives with no wrappings whatsoever. 
i happily place unwrapped broccolis or swiss chards on the top of a grocery bag or box & it always gets home OK.
i'd think twice about a specialty romaine or oakleaf lettuce.
i'd put grapes in baggies that hopefully i'd remmbered to bring myself.

about one's own containers, it's probably not a good idea. There could be cross-contamination issues. Not from you, of course; but please remember the store would be opening the practice to the general public & plastic cannot be sterilized.

the health food stores i patronize used to encourage people to bring their own containers. But the municipal health department has been on their back quite a few times, so gradually they've moved to prepacks.

excellent small japanese grocery in my neighbourhood still sells tofu en vrac. They will put the squares in a box or bag for the customer, or the customer can bring their own container. But the proprietor tells me the health inspector has recently visited, so perhaps this bring-your-own-container practice will end.

a longtime postdoc acquaintance is working at a national research institute on recycled & enviro-friendly plastics. Working currently on biodegradable corn-based new composites. He says Every Corporation eagerly wants to know if his team can produce these for sterile food packaging. He tells me this is the most challenging application of all. He says that corn retains its hydrophilic (water-loving) properties, therefore corn-based plastics are weak & break down easily.

so the best consumer behaviour at present is to strictly reduce consumption imho ...


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## brad

For things like milk and yogurt, glass containers are easily sterilized, and I remember as a kid we got our milk in bottles from "the milk man" and we set out the empty bottles for him to pick up each week; they were sterilized and reused.

I buy our yogurt from Pinehedge Farms in Ontario, widely available in my city; it's sold in glass jars, you pay a deposit for the jar and bring it (and its top) back for reuse.

Another area where reusing containers makes sense is laundry detergents, dishwashing soap, and shampoos. I have a big plastic bottle for each that I refill at one of several stores in town that offer bulk refills; I bought a year's supply of shampoo yesterday for about $25.


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## humble_pie

the critical zone i believe is plastic + food packaging, because plastic cannot be sterilized.

glass, even certain metal can be sterilized by the food processor at its proper facility but should not be accepted merely "washed" by a consumer as good-enough-to-go.

re-used plastic cannot really be sterilized properly by a food processor. But i wonder, though, about those huge clear plastic multi-gallon water bottles. The kind upended on drinking fountains. The kind too heavy to carry out of grocery stores except by musclemen. Those are returned to the company for refill so i am wondering how a company sterilizes them.

they are probably polycarbonate, an extra-strong durable composite.

still, they can't really be boiled ...


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## Addy

brad said:


> For things like milk and yogurt, glass containers are easily sterilized, and I remember as a kid we got our milk in bottles from "the milk man" and we set out the empty bottles for him to pick up each week; they were sterilized and reused.
> 
> I buy our yogurt from Pinehedge Farms in Ontario, widely available in my city; it's sold in glass jars, you pay a deposit for the jar and bring it (and its top) back for reuse.


Thats awesome about Pinhedge Farms yogurt! 

When you mentioned glass bottles... as a kid we used to go out "beer bottle hunting" with my dad and his brothers/brother in laws.... they collected the bottles and, once a year, went on a fishing trip with the proceeds. As a 7 or 8 year old, it was a lot of fun. It was amazing how many dead moles we found in beer bottles dumped in the ditches along roads though... and the even more gross part is, at least when they used stubbies as the norm, the odd time a beer would be purchased still WITH that mole in it... *puke*

My dad got a few cases of free beer for a bottle he bought that had a mole in it (he took it back still with the cap on it).


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## jamesbe

humble_pie said:


> snip.. The kind too heavy to carry out of grocery stores except by musclemen. Those are returned to the company for refill so i am wondering how a company sterilizes them.
> 
> they are probably polycarbonate, an extra-strong durable composite.
> 
> still, they can't really be boiled ...


They rinse and refill them, there are stores around that sell water in bottles, you bring your bottle to them, they refill them in front of you after a quick rinse of water.


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## humble_pie

but there's a difference, public-health-wise, between refilling a water bottle that a customer brings in & handing it back immediately to the same customer ...

vs

accepting back all used empty plastic water bottles from all customers at the plant, and mixing these together, and re-filling these bottles unsterilized, and then selling them onwards to other customers in other parts of a city or province.

i would not like the latter practice, if all they do at the plant is give these bottles a rinse. It's mostly around the exterior neck of such bottles that bacteria from human hands would accumulate imho. A mere rinse would not be sufficient to treat this.

the way i see it, they can't autoclave these big polycarbonate water bottles; while rinsing won't cut the biscuit.

so i can't imagine what they actually do with the used bottle collect back at the plant.


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## jamesbe

Not sure, but I was also given different bottles at said filling store...


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## DavidJD

the-royal-mail said:


> Actually David, I am not a coffee drinker but have grown to appreciate McD's coffee. Have you tried it? Look around. A LOT of people have tried it and it is growing quickly in popularity. I've even seen gatherings where EVERYONE has a McD coffee and no one has a TH. One group of friends I hang out with, 2 of us prefer McD's and 1 insists on TH. My friend and I once tried TH and found it a little sharper, more bitter while the McD coffee is a much nicer taste and there's usually no lineup in the drive through.


That was my message. McD spends bazillions (maybe less) on research and taste tests. I heard they tried 50 different mustards...coffee is a critical beverage in their industry and tims took a huge market share away because of their coffee. My point is the offer as good a cup of coffee, some say better, but if they market it that way, the results would not be good. An add war with tims would not work, free coffees has been effective and people are becoming converts to McDs coffee. I was told it is the same source as Tims.


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## Kim

Cool brad that you can take back your soap jugs and have them re-filled! What a great idea - not available in small rural town by me yet.
I try and make that soap stretch stretch stretch - I even get a measuring cup to make sure I never over soap and get my full # of loads it states on the label.

I was hardcore TH coffee addict for over 15 years - in the last couple years I feel they have taken a business path I am not comfortable with and when MCD offered free coffees I tried them and now they are my #1 choice when on the road. Plus I own a few shares.


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## brad

Addy said:


> the odd time a beer would be purchased still WITH that mole in it... *puke*


While we're puking, I had a friend who worked at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in the 1960s, and at one point he accidentally put the his thumb over the top of a bottle just as the capping machine was coming down...it chopped off the tip of his thumb, which went into the bottle of Coke and he was in such a state of shock (and pain) that he didn't have the presence of mind to take the bottle off the line. Someone had a bad surprise. He told me about it (and showed me his shortened thumb) in the 1970s and I haven't been able to drink a bottle of Coke ever since.


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## Kim

Gross! But I bet by the time that bottle was opened to drink the caustic contents of a Coca Cola would have eaten up any bits of keratin / fat / protein that had been lopped off into the bottle.......still gross.


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## smihaila

the-royal-mail said:


> As for the coffee, yes, they must put some sort of addictive drug in that coffee because look at how hooked TH's drinkers are. These people "gotta have their coffee" in the morning. WTH? It was never that way before. And if they need it so badly, buy the cans of TH coffee and make it at home.


Are you referring to coffee in general, or to TH?
Because coffee, especially for people working a lot with the mind, its a necessary evil. It's addictive a bit, but it helps the nervous system in focusing. And that's not a recent discovery. You can keep it under control if you are rigorous and respect a 1cofee/day program.

Perhaps the commercial retailers put something in it to make it more addictive that it should be. I personally prefer to have it made at home. I also don't drink the one offered at workplace (for free) because it's too strong, makes me dizzy and its effect doesn't last long.

This and the alcohol is a necessary evil - for men at least.


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## financialnoob

On McDonald's trying to be a good corporate citizen, they're like any company in that they'll do whatever they have to in order to profit.

McDonald's stopped using styrofoam packaging in North America in the early 1990s, yet even 15 years later, continued to use styrofoam in the Phillipines. Why? Because they could. 

As for food safety/humane animal treatment, those changes were brought about by protests and activist groups. In 1982, McDonald's burgers were linked with an e. coli breakout that made dozens of children sick, but they did not introduce mandatory food testing for e. coli. The US government did nothing either, even after a Jack In The Box e. coli epidemic in 1993 which killed 4 children. But after continued public pressure, McDonald's finally implemented the testing program (which is still more stringent than the US government demands).

As for the zoo, I don't know the details, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a mandatory thing for food vendors for the safety of animals, and not a feel-good gesture. 

This isn't meant to pick on McDonald's as a corporate client. Just that they do what they are forced to do. If they concluded styrofoam was bad in the 1990s, why use it for over a decade in other places? Because they could.

Man I love their fries...


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## travelgeek

I also prefer MCD coffee over TH. TH must have changed the blend recently because I can't stand its bitter taste.

Also at MCD, you can get a muffin with your coffee for only 12 cents more.


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## Jungle

I heard that Tim Hortons uses low quality beans and uses a smoothing chemical to take the bitterness away. That's way it tastes so different than real coffee. 

We get Dunkin Donuts when visiting the states. There coffee is really good.


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## Addy

travelgeek said:


> Also at MCD, you can get a muffin with your coffee for only 12 cents more.


12 cents for a muffin. This alone should point to the quality of food. I'm not saying TH is any better, to me they both sell "food" that is a mix of sugar, white flour and various chemicals. Do you know their blueberry muffins don't actually have blueberries in them? They have "blueberry flavoured" bits.


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## the-royal-mail

LOL addy. True. Most food these days is processed, best to stick with whole wheat and home made stuff as much as possible. Coffee is the only reason I go to McD's these days. If I do go to TH it's because a gang of friends are going there for whatever reason. I'll usually just get their chili, which I like but likely has too much salt.

It's pretty hard to avoid harmful food these days. Home made is ideal but even many of my recipes used canned food as a base. Fruits and veggies come from factory farms too. Don't fret though, summer's coming and you can go out into the country for roadside berries and such. And I'm sure you've got a good local butcher. But even then we all get busy and often grab some takeout etc. As I say it's pretty hard to stay clean -- watch Food Inc and you will see that so much stuff starts from cheap corn.


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## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> How do they know you washed and sanitized it properly? Your container can encourage the spread of germs or other bacteria behind the counter, on her hands etc.


Ok and by the same argument, what is stopping a store employee at the food counter from contaminating the container? 
True that I've seen the deli counter employees wear disposable plastic gloves to pick up sliced meat and put it
on the weigh scale..THEN put it into a baggie. The germs can come from anywhere, even the food, not just the handling of it.

I'm not the most fastidious (sp?) person when it comes to sanitizing the dishes at home, and containers that store my food..but I don't recall a time where I got sick from the containers themselves..it's usually contaminated food which is contaminated at the source where the food is made..not at the store or in the customers containers. My opinion, of course.




> It's sort of the same reasoning for why when you go to a buffet you should not take your used plate back when you go for additional helpings, but leave used plate on table and take a new plate. They don't want people going back up to the buffet with used plates near new food. That's why there's always such a huge stack of plates.


Well, that kinda makes sense..especially if the person eating the food at the buffet has some kind of communicable disease..virus/flu etc.
The fork/spoon that the buffet goer with the disease will go from the mouth and touch the plate/food and if they go back to the buffet again with the same dish and touch their plate with the serving spoon from the food tray, then there is some chance that the germs/virus can spread to the food tray and infect others..but again..what about the food preparers and what is going on in the
kitchen in the back? More chances of having something get into the food from preparation/temperature in storage..that sort of thing.

There are many arguments in how "tainted food" can be tainted, probably just as many as how and where the food
actually got tainted. 

Most stores because of possible bad publicity will just refund your money and hope you go away..unless you are violently sick/hospitalized , or there are enough people affected for a class action law suit..like the listeria in
the meat at Maple Leaf Foods a couple of years back. Improper sanitizing of slicing machines is all it took.


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## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> I *Fruits and veggies come from factory farms too.*



Yes..remember the infected carrots or was it carrot juice? a couple of years back, infected spinach, a few months back and there may be other commericially grown veggies imported from Mexico during the winter months that contain questionable organizisms and CHEMICALS, because the fields are irrigated with liquid manure or somesuch. 

If Ecoli get into the water chain, it can end up anywhere, even
on the surface of veggies, such as lettuce. It's a chance we take when
we buy imported veggies for the months when we can't grow our own.


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## the-royal-mail

great post, carver, everything you say makes perfect sense. I think too some of these things could be health code violations if the store is not careful. Inspectors come around, and will shut down restaurants if they aren't doing things right. But I understand what you're saying...I did see War of the Worlds, after all.


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## the-royal-mail

Good point about the veggies - apparently Japan is having those sorts of problems now with radiation on some veggies like spinach. And then the rain washes radiation into the water supply etc.


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## Dana

*Frugal Veggie Wash*

Here is a recipe for veggie wash. It is the same as the veggie wash that Loblaws sells in their organic aisle, but much cheaper:

1 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs baking soda
1 cup water

Put ingredients in spray bottle. Shake well, spray on veg and leave for 30 seconds then rinse well. The lemon and baking soda are suppose to help wash off any stubborn residue. I have used both the store bought version ($4.99/bottle) and home made version and I have no preference other than price.


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## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> Good point about the veggies - apparently Japan is having those sorts of problems now with radiation on some veggies like spinach. And then the rain washes radiation into the water supply etc.


Just heard on the news, that Japan has detected significant radiation in the sea water as far as 30km from the shore. 
This is likely due to runoff while using seawater to cool the reactor cores and possibly other farming/industrial operations.
A very serious situation getting more serious by the day. Because of the contamination on locally grown vegetables and MILK, those products have to be discarded.(some may even end up on black market or people will shrug and eat them anyway rather
than suffer financial losses. Now even the tap water is afffected because people are taking iodine+(?) pills to counter
the effects of radiation, too much of that chemical from the medication is ending up in the sanitary sewers and of course
like most commercial drugs, the water treatment/filtration plans can't effectively eliminate those chemical.
Probably hundreds of thousands of people are taking "iodine" because they are worried about the long term effects
on their health.

A situation under control..possibly not, but I hope for their sake that things
don't get any worse than they are now.


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## carverman

Dana said:


> Here is a recipe for veggie wash. It is the same as the veggie wash that Loblaws sells in their organic aisle, but much cheaper:
> 
> 1 tbs lemon juice
> 2 tbs baking soda
> 1 cup water
> 
> Put ingredients in spray bottle. Shake well, spray on veg and leave for 30 seconds then rinse well. The lemon and baking soda are suppose to help wash off any stubborn residue. I have used both the store bought version ($4.99/bottle) and home made version and I have no preference other than price.


Thanks for the good info, but will your " eco-wash" get rid of Ecoli or other biological contaminants on the veggies? 
This is what I'm more concerned with.
I buy a head of leaf lettuce and wash it under the tap and make a salad out of it..gets rid of the surface dirt, 
but probably not enough these days.


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## carverman

Dana said:


> Here is a recipe for veggie wash. It is the same as the veggie wash that Loblaws sells in their organic aisle, but much cheaper:
> 
> 1 tbs lemon juice
> 2 tbs baking soda
> 1 cup water
> 
> Put ingredients in spray bottle. Shake well, spray on veg and leave for 30 seconds then rinse well. The lemon and baking soda are suppose to help wash off any stubborn residue. I have used both the store bought version ($4.99/bottle) and home made version and I have no preference other than price.


GAWD! I wuz making some chinese this weekend and learned from CBC news that the bean sprouts all over Canada were found to be high in EColi and other types of bacteria...I panicked and toss the whole package (minus plastic wrapper of course), into the green recycle bin! I'll never buy them again!

One woman (somewheres in Canada) was very sick after eating some. When I think of EColi..I think of the Walkerton water disaster, how many actually died and how many got so sick from EColi that they STILL have health problems (due to organ damage) many years later. 
Now I know that the Walkerton Ecoli strain was a very nasty type that got into the drinking water from
the manure pile runoff, and the water treatment was not functioning at the time.

At first I thought about running the bean sprouts through *your cleansing solution*.. but a thought then struck me that if the EColi is inside the bean spout..that wouldn't help much and if you fully cook a bean sprout..well it's just mush!


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## Dana

carverman said:


> GAWD! I wuz making some chinese this weekend and learned from CBC news that the bean sprouts all over Canada were found to be high in EColi and other types of bacteria...I panicked and toss the whole package (minus plastic wrapper of course), into the green recycle bin! I'll never buy them again!
> 
> One woman (somewheres in Canada) was very sick after eating some. When I think of EColi..I think of the Walkerton water disaster, how many actually died and how many got so sick from EColi that they STILL have health problems (due to organ damage) many years later.
> Now I know that the Walkerton Ecoli strain was a very nasty type that got into the drinking water from
> the manure pile runoff, and the water treatment was not functioning at the time.
> 
> At first I thought about running the bean sprouts through *your cleansing solution*.. but a thought then struck me that if the EColi is inside the bean spout..that wouldn't help much and if you fully cook a bean sprout..well it's just mush!


I saw the same CBC report. I scared me too. We tend to eat a lot of sprouts. I like them in sandwiches instead of lettuce. I also use them a lot in stir-frys. I don't think veggie wash will wash awa e-coli. I think e-coli has to be cooked away at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. 

I haven't brought sprouts into the house since I saw that story. E-coli can be very serious. It can cause kidney failure. I don't want to risk doing that to my kids, so we just won't be buying sprouts anymore.


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## DavidJD

When I went camping a lot I used to make my own sprouts and bring them along. Some I started in nalgene bottles days in advance and timed them so my sprouts would be ready about 4-5 days in a trip when fresh green things were worth $40 a cup to us. 

Any kind of sprouts with raisins, nuts or seeds (sesame/sunflour), grated carrots, some oil & vinegar are devine in the bush.

You can sprout all kinds of seeds too - some are quick.

If I can do this on the trail - do so at home! Safest source of sprouts.


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## the-royal-mail

While I completely agree with what Dana and carver are saying (I have never been a big fan of sprouts) and do not have any, it just seems there is always something to attract our attention. A couple of years back it was Maple Leaf with all the lysteria. Now some of the leafy stuff from Japan has radiation on it. A while back, foreign poisonous spiders were coming through the fruits and veggies at the stores. Seems there is always some sort of issue that causes us to question how safe our food is. If we were to react by not eating everything that has some sort of a problem, we wouldn't eat or drink anything. 

Besides, haven't you folks seen War of the Worlds? How were humans saved in the end?


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## carverman

DavidJD said:


> When I went camping a lot I used to make my own sprouts and bring them along. Some I started in nalgene bottles days in advance and timed them so my sprouts would be ready about 4-5 days in a trip when fresh green things were worth $40 a cup to us.
> 
> Any kind of sprouts with raisins, nuts or seeds (sesame/sunflour), grated carrots, some oil & vinegar are devine in the bush.
> 
> You can sprout all kinds of seeds too - some are quick.
> 
> If I can do this on the trail - do so at home! Safest source of sprouts.


Yes, the way things are going these days..we are almost forced to grow our
own..."grow ops"..but for veggies..because you just can't trust the food sources any more in this global economy..melamine from China. contaminated foods from Mexico or SA..

*latest thing to be infected with EColi I heard is walnut pieces*..
fer chrissakes!..how does Ecoli get into walnuts? They grow on walnut trees!
So if the tree doesn't harbor EColi..then it has to be the handling of the walnuts?

This is starting to get ridiculous..never mind the Walkerton drinking water
that everyone trusted and left up to a couple of yahoos that had the IQ of
about 10 between them...
but lately Ecoli on meats, veggies, bean sprouts, now walnuts......what's next?


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## carverman

Dana said:


> I haven't brought sprouts into the house since I saw that story. E-coli can be very serious. It can cause kidney failure. I don't want to risk doing that to my kids, so we just won't be buying sprouts anymore.


Same here. I only bought one sealed package when I was cooking up some
shrimp chow mein. I was going to use it this weekend, but after hearing that
CBC report that the bean sprouts (apparently) were contaminated across
Canada..that was it! Tossed them into the green bin..I should have taken
them back to the store..in the interest of frugality..but decided not to in
this case. Maybe they were ok..but from a peace of mind standpoint and
feeding them to my friends..I decided to be safe now..than sorry later.


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## carverman

the-royal-mail said:


> how safe our food is. If we were to react by not eating everything that has some sort of a problem, we wouldn't eat or drink anything.
> 
> Besides, haven't you folks seen War of the Worlds? How were humans saved in the end?


The bacteria in our environment? Yes, I saw that..but here's the thing TRM..
food we buy in our modern supermarkets is SUPPOSED to be inspected and safe? , such as the meats and veggies and fruit..
so there is an assumption of trust that what we bring home to our families will be safe (if prepared as directed).

Now if we buy some infected meat, such as raw chicken (salmonela) and chop that up on the chopping board, then chop up raw veggies on the same chopping board..... without first disinfecting it..then we have nobody to blame but our own lack of kitchen hygiene...

But... opening up a pre-packaged bunch of veggies or juice is another thing entirely...other than rinse the dirt off,
there shouldn't be anything else we need to do.

Am I supposed to have to microwave everything first now to be safe..or buy a disinfecting autoclave? 
This is getting ridiculous..just like the carrot juice with EColi a couple of years back (that was sold in Toronto),
everal people got infected drinking it..(forget the brand name).. but juice is one food that we assume is sealed and sanitary!


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## carverman

ameliawalker said:


> *That works yes*.


??????





> Some places old papers are being sold for recycling. Newspapers, magazines, old phone directories... etc. I'm just not sure where exactly they send it. But if so, in any place, would be some help.


Up here there isn't much of a market for recycled newspaper.

The de-inking and "de-colouring" -bleaching process make it very expensive per ton...more expensive that getting the new
product from the paper mills. Handling, storage, transportation costs to the mill..then and expensive process to get it back
to actual fiber..that will NOT comprimise the finished product. Newspaper fibers are special long wood pulp fibers that
serve to hold the paper sheet together under tension in a newspaper web (printing) press...any weakness and the paper
tears and the presses have to be stopped to put on another roll...this impacts delivery times and most daily papers will
not use too much recycled pulp papers because the wood fibers are all mixed up and that could comprimise the
integrity of the full roll. 

Some papers, such as Christmas wrap (not the tubes) are simply shredded and put into
landfill as compost. 

There are certain products that use a percentage of "post consumer fiber".. (box board),
and I don't know if it's the toilet paper after its used and sent down to the sewer treatment plant...I wouldn't think so...but there is a LOT of toilet paper used everyday and it has to go SOMEWHERE...
...and not back into our river systems. Maybe some farmers use the sludge to grow veggies?

If so, watch out for chemicals and drugs inside our veggies in the future!

These days, everything works on a profit basis, even the blue/black box and maybe even the green box..but it just takes too much bleach to get the colouring and ink out...and that bleach would have to go somewhere or be recovered..


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## jmalias

carverman said:


> Uh?...you claim you were a "starving" 3rd year university student and you
> somehow managed to find money for "gin" and "peach snapps"?
> Well sounds to me like your student priorities were not quite aligned with
> a starving student?
> 
> 
> Like the Bare Naked Ladies song goes..
> 
> " if I had a million dollars ..er...<substitute>
> ( If I was a starving student )
> we wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner"
> "..but we would..we would just put some of those fancy Diijon ketchups on it"


I said starving, I did not say anything about being thirsty


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## jmalias

jmalias said:


> I said starving, I did not say anything about being thirsty


But I did like to buy lunch meat ends at a reduced price, it was a cheap way to get an assorted sub if i bought buns on stale.


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## carverman

jmalias said:


> But I did like to buy lunch meat ends at a reduced price, it was a cheap way to get an assorted sub if i bought buns on stale.


You were very brave to buy lunch meats (ends) at reduced prices. 

I used to do that until Loblaws had a class action lawsuit (back a few years) with listeria getting into their "pre-prepared" 
(now is that a word?) Ziggy's coleslaw ,
... and after the Maple Leaf luncheon meat listeria fiasco..I will not buy any prepackaged meats (even Schneiders Bologna), because I don't know how long that meat has been "hanging around" after being sliced..prepackaged or loose in tubs.

I used to do that, but after bring some smoked meat home from these pre-sliced tubs and having it turning slimy in my fridge 
in a couple of days..then having to run to the bathroom..well you know what I'm talking about...
I don't buy any meat that is not kosher fresh..and that isn't always easy to find. 

And hotdogs..well lets say, that just about any part of the animal that is not fit for selling otherwise is ground up, seasoned
and used in stuffing weiners...as somebody once said..they use the "best parts" of the cow.. the lips and "as*holes" 

Listeria is bad enough, but it only makes you very sick...EColi can be fatal.

Stale bread/buns..no problem there.


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## chaudi

You's be amazed how cheap things are in India, Nepal or Thailand. I've had many good rooms with view for $5 per night and many excellent meals for $2 or less.


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