Thrift Meister - Land of the Frugal and Home of the Thrifty
Tales of Thrift
This section details real life
tales of thrift from the Thrift Meister. These are true accounts
of the TM coming up with a solution to solve a problem without
spending a lot of money. Check back from time to time as new tails of
thrifty daring-do are added.
The Case of the Broken
Lawn Mower Grass Chute
The TM purchased a used $50 lawn mower
last year which runs good (summer 2003, love those Briggs and Stratton
engines) but at the end of last year's grass cutting season the grass
chute broke off of the lawn mower. The chute is the piece of plastic
attached to the mower where grass cuttings are blown out of the mower
and the chute directs them towards the ground instead of having them
fly some distance from the mower. At first the TM didn't think
this would matter much, but when the wind was blowing he found himself
covered in dust and grass so decided maybe he did need a grass chute
on the mower after all.
Checking with suppliers of the item
(spring 2004) it would cost at least $25 to buy another. Since I only
paid $50 for the whole lawn mower paying half that for a plastic part
for it didn't sit quite right with the old TM so I opted to
make my own out of a piece of sheet metal that looked like the type
which would be used for some kind of duct work. See the metal used
by moving your mouse over here.
The TM got out his handy,
dandy dremel (everybody should own a dremel tool) and cut a piece
of metal to fit the grass outlet on the mower then sprayed a rust
preventative coating then sprayed black paint on it. Then got some
latches (3) and attached the metal to the lawn mower. Total cost $4
for the metal, $3 for the latches and basically nothing for the amount
of rust protectant and paint used. You can see the finished product here.
After the first two cuttings of the season it is working like a champ.
A do it myself solution that saved 72%
over the store bought alternative.
** Follow up note spring 2008, the
self-made grass chute is going into its fifth grass cutting season
now and worked even better than expected the first season. No factory
made replacement could have performed better its first season and its
still in great shape going into its fourth year. You can see a picture
of the lawn mower here.
This was taken before its first grass cutting in the 2008 season,
the paint is chipped on the grass chute, but it works good as ever.
Buying the Dremel
Everyone home should have a dremel tool.
It is a small handheld tool which rotates and uses different attachments
to sand, cut, sharpen, and do a multitude of tasks simply by changing
the attachment on the end of the dremel. In order to get the above mentioned
lawn mower ready for the cutting season I needed a dremel to cut the
sheet metal and sharpen the blade on the mower. All the local home supply
stores wanted $70 for the model I needed. Cutting the sheet metal would
require pretty good RPMs from the tool. Dremel has recently come out
with a new cordless model that has the power of a corded dremel. The
cordless models previously out just didn't have the horse power to do
the big jobs. This one gives you 35,000 RPMs and has the new lithium-ion
battery which doesn't build a memory if you charge it before completely
draining the battery.
I took the George Foreman approach to
the purchase that "I'm not going to pay a lot for this dremel."
So I set about to reduce the price from $70. First, I checked Ebay for
gift certificates that were for sale--and Home Depot and Lowe's both
could be found in large denominations, but I didn't want to buy a $100
certificate for $90 or more. So I checked the offers around such web
sites as Search
Cactus.
This proved to be the way to go for
a frugal purchase. I found several offers from various companies who
offered gift certificates at Home Depot as an enticement to sign up
for their service for a 30 or 90 day free trial. They charge $1 to sign
up. Cancel and owe nothing more if you don't want the service before
the trial period is over. Old Thrifty signed up for a couple of services--one
offered a $50 Home Depot gift certificate and the other a $20 certificate--Viola--free
dremel! And, to boot I got $5 added to my Search
Cactus account--when it builds up to $20 they cut me a check.
The one downside to this happy sequence
of events is that these services often take 6 weeks or so to get around
to sending the premiums given for trying their services. No problem
except the grass wasn't on their schedule. Fortunately, Home Depot offered
a 10% discount on all same day purchases for signing up for their credit
card which was the perfect time to get the dremel. I can always use
the gift cards later. The moral to this tale is you don't have to wait
for an item to go on sale--you can often manufacture a discount for
yourself by checking online auctions, checking offers from such places
as Search
Cactus, and looking for company offers for such things as their
credit card. Don't settle for paying the retail price without first
turning over a few rocks and trying to create a discount for yourself.
Here is a look at the dremel and its
box for those of you who are interested in it. It is model 8000-01.
Mouse over the picture of the box to see the actual dremel. 
Buying the Drill --How to Make
a Discount Yourself
When the time came to replace my old
cordless drill and I wanted one of those 12v DeWalt cordless numbers
which cost $129.00 no matter where you looked for it--I had to make
my own discount. You can almost always make yourself a discount.
There are ways you can get a discount
on most purchases of any size that are almost aways available to you.
Most orders over $25 at Amazon don't pay shipping costs.
Another discount is to go to ebay
and do a search on Amazon.com and you will almost always pull up a
number of Amazon.com gift certificates which at this point are usually
selling for around a 9% discount off the face value. Of course discounts
will vary from auction to auction, but getting close to 10% off gift
certificates to major retailers like Amazon, Home Depot, Lowes, JC
Penny, etc is fairly common place. They can be found in a variety of
denominations as well. This lets you make a discount yourself tailored
to wherever you plan to make your purchase.
In the TM's case he got the
$100 gift certificate for $91. You can also combine more than one certificate
for purchases like this, for example, buy a $100 and $25 gift certificate
getting a discount on each. When you start making purchases over $100
the savings can add up nicely on these self-made discounts.
At the time of this writing Amazon
gurantees to match any lower price you can find and beat it by 10% so you can possibly
lower your purchase price even further if you get lucky.
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