Money and Labour Saving Tips

[mistermack]

Maybe this is a duplicate. I did do a search first but didn't find anything. 

Anyway, if not, why not post any money or labour saving tips you'd like to share? I'm sure everyone has something. 

Just to start it off, I have every kind of coffee maker going, but they all get on my nerves, emptying coffee grinds, cleaning and rinsing etc.  So what I do now is make about ten cups, all in one go, and put the black coffee in a plastic milk bottle in the door of the fridge. So I do the same amount of fiddling for 10 cups, as I used to do for one. So when I want coffee, I just pour and heat, and that's it. Can't tell the difference in taste at all. It's far better than instant anyway. 

And a tip about ballpoints : Ever had a ballpoint refuse to write, even though it's got a full refill? Don't chuck it. Just get a jam jar, put about 5mm of methylated spirit in it. ( or rubbing alcohol or surgical spirit)  Put the pen or refill in it, ball end down, and put the lid on. After a day, it should write fine. At the worst, a few days will do it. 

[exchemist]

Mine is how to preserve wine in good condition after opening a bottle, if you don't have enough people to finish it.

I bought some screw cap half and quarter bottles of wine at the supermarket and kept the empties. Now, when I open a bottle, I decant half into an empty half bottle, making sure to fill it almost to the top so there is negligible oxygen to oxidise the wine, screw the cap on tight enough for an airtight seal and keep it in the fridge to slow down any reactions that may take place. If I'm on my own and only having a quarter bottle with my meal, I put the 3rd quarter into one of the quarter bottles on the same principle. I have found it is certainly possible to keep both red and white wine for a week this way, without noticeable deterioration - and even 2 weeks at a push, though it does tend to get a bit thin.  This method is infinitely superior to those pumps and stoppers you can get e.g."vac-u-vin", which in my experience barely work at all.

I resorted to this due to my tendency to atrial fibrillation, which can be brought on by alcohol. It has enabled me to continue to enjoy modest amounts of wine without getting into medical problems. ( I have just had an ablation, which I am hoping may get rid of the AF, but I need to let my heart settle down for a couple of months and learn the new conduction pathways before putting it to the test.) 

[iNow]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

what I do now is make about ten cups, all in one go, and put the black coffee in a plastic milk bottle in the door of the fridge

Even easier is making cold brew. Get a cheese cloth, soak in water overnight. Tastes better. Wastes less. Can be stored in fridge just like you do now. 

https://twinsandcoffee.com/cold-bew-coffee-with-cheesecloth/

I have a machine that grinds while beans with each brew so I buy 3-lbs bags at Costco for $10 when they go on sale and it lasts forever. 

I save money by focusing my hypercaffeinated energy on to DIY projects that would cost thousands to have others perform. 

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

Even easier is making cold brew.

I might try that. At the moment, to make 10 cups, I boil the water in a stainless saucepan, allow it to cool a bit, and tip the coffee in and stir. Then it sits till it's cold, and I then take a kitchen sieve with a former T shirt cut piece in it, as a filter, and pour the coffee through it into another saucepan. Then I fill the milk bottle and put it in the fridge door till I want a cup.

I have to say, I think it's been tasting better, since I started doing that, and the last cup tastes at least as good as the first.

[iNow]

Cold brew is far less bitter. Tastes much better and is easy to make stronger. ✌🏼

[mistermack]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

Cold brew is far less bitter. Tastes much better and is easy to make stronger. ✌🏼

Sounds nice. My method would lend itself to cold brew, so I'll give it a go. I'll just let the boiled water cool right down, before adding the coffee, and leave it standing overnight. 

[MigL]

Nespresso.
Drop in a pod.
Push the button.
Enjoy your espresso.

[Eise]

6 hours ago, MigL said:

Nespresso.
Drop in a pod.
Push the button.
Enjoy your espresso.

Money saving???

[Intoscience]

Not really a money saving or particularly labour saving, but being right handed I used to operate my PC mouse with my right hand. However at the odd time I needed to multi task I found it a pain. So I learnt to use the mouse with my left hand allowing me to multi task. I soon adjusted and its very useful, it also makes me smile when people who come to use my pc say "I didn't realise you are left handed" When I reply I'm not, they look at me very confused.

Anyway as  a result I try and use my weaker hand for more things, I enjoy the challenge and it tends to be beneficial.  

 

[mistermack]

9 hours ago, MigL said:

Nespresso.
Drop in a pod.
Push the button.
Enjoy your espresso.

Tried it. Had trouble with the last bit. My sister had one. Tasted foul.

43 minutes ago, Intoscience said:

Anyway as  a result I try and use my weaker hand for more things, I enjoy the challenge and it tends to be beneficial.  

 

And it feels sexier, like it's someone else's hand . . . 

.

.

So I'm told !    😆

[Intoscience]

7 minutes ago, mistermack said:

 

And it feels sexier, like it's someone else's hand . . . 

.

.

So I'm told !    😆

Not mastered... everything with my weaker hand as yet, but working on it 😝

[mistermack]

This is another ballpoint tip, for people who like papermate pens. ( a rather specialised market for this one ).

The only refills you can get for papermates are a ludicrous price. (between five to ten pounds each, just for one refill)

I simply refuse to pay that, so what I would normally do is cut down a refill from a mass market pen and use that. But papermate are crafty. Their refills are thinner than all the others at the tip, about 1.8mm so others won't fit through the hole in the end of the pen. So what I did was get a 2.3mm drill bit (cobalt for stainless steel) and opened up the end.

Now I can use cheapo refills in my favourite papermate. About 10p each.

I know it's sad, but that's the lengths I will go to to avoid paying rip-off prices. It's not the money, it's the feeling of being taken for a mug.

[MigL]

4 hours ago, Eise said:

Money saving???

100 espresso pods at CostCo for Can$ 30, comes to 30 cents per espresso.
( as compared to Can$ 2.50 at the coffee shop down the street, never mind Starbucks )
But it's more about time and effort saving.
Isn't that what money is for ?

Personally I prefer the stove-top percolating aluminum espresso makers.
When I was younger my dad would make espresso on Saturday mornings because he didn't have to work.
The aroma would spread through the house and wake me when it started percolating.
Every once in a while, when tme allows, I'll make it that way, just to re-live those memories.

[TheVat]

Wood sticks filled with graphite.  Very cheap, completely reliable, easy to erase mistakes, reduces plastic waste.  Pens I only use for signing documents, or exterior labeling on a box where smudging could happen.  

Coffee bitter and acidity is also reduced by tossing a couple crumbled eggshells in the pot.  Sweetens a mediocre blend.

For tea, loose leaves allows you to get exactly the strength you want, and avoids ingestion of microparticles of polyester from a bag.   Also cheaper because you aren't paying for the bagging process.  Brewing should be brief, 4 minutes or so, because any longer and tannins build up, ruining flavor and irritating the gut.

 

[geordief]

9 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Coffee bitter and acidity is also reduced by tossing a couple crumbled eggshells in the pot.  Sweetens a mediocre blend.

I read that you had to remove the membrane from the shell  and so I gave up on that

No need?

 

14 hours ago, iNow said:

Even easier is making cold brew. Get a cheese cloth, soak in water overnight. Tastes better. Wastes less. Can be stored in fridge just like you do now. 

https://twinsandcoffee.com/cold-bew-coffee-with-cheesecloth/

 

Any good warmed up?

[mistermack]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

100 espresso pods at CostCo for Can$ 30, comes to 30 cents per espresso.

They're more expensive in the UK. My sister bought a Tassimo pod machine, she gave me a cup of coffee from it. I'm not a fussy eater/drinker, but I have to say, that was the worst cup of coffee I've ever had. A cup of instant would have been much better. I didn't finish it, and she ended up putting the machine in the bin.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Personally I prefer the stove-top percolating aluminum espresso makers.

I've got one, had it for years. The coffee is ok, but I prefer stainless steel for everything now, since I read somewhere that the brains of Alzheimer patients show raised levels of aluminium. It might be irrelevant, but it just put me off. 

[Sensei]

You should start saving money by analyzing your expenses. Sort them from largest to lowest. There are regular expenses and one-time expenses. There is little sense in saving pennies (e.g., ballpoint pens, or other things above mentioned) if at the same time you spend thousands more on other, much easier to optimize things..

I used to have a rather high IMHO power consumption. After buying a wattmeter I measured literally all devices. Within a month it went to 40% of the previous consumption. The cost of purchasing a wattmeter paid for itself within 2 weeks. I purchased power splitters with separate on/off buttons for each socket and only have them on when using the device.

 

You should start saving labor time by analyzing your daily schedule. Sort them from the biggest time eater to the smallest. There is little sense in saving time that lasts seconds or minutes when, for example, you have to drive an hour to work and another hour coming back from it..

Buy a high-speed modern computer that has an NVMe drive, instead of an HDD, and it will read/write data 70 times faster than an HDD, or 7 times faster than SSD on SATA, meaning you won't be staring at your monitor all day for a web page to show up, or any other lengthy task completed..

Rearranging the equipment around you can save time (see McDonald's movie "The Founder" with Michael Keaton).

I saw a documentary about some farmer who produced methane from crop residues from his farm. It was used to heat the cow barracks and his house.

Visited neighborhood restaurants to buy used dirty oil from frying dishes and convert it into fuel for his tractor. Restaurateurs had to pay for taking used oil (garbage), so were happy to have someone pick it up from them for free.

[exchemist]

5 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Not really a money saving or particularly labour saving, but being right handed I used to operate my PC mouse with my right hand. However at the odd time I needed to multi task I found it a pain. So I learnt to use the mouse with my left hand allowing me to multi task. I soon adjusted and its very useful, it also makes me smile when people who come to use my pc say "I didn't realise you are left handed" When I reply I'm not, they look at me very confused.

Anyway as  a result I try and use my weaker hand for more things, I enjoy the challenge and it tends to be beneficial.  

 

Yes, I did the same about 20 years ago, since I need to be able to write with my right hand while using the computer. You don’t need much dexterity to operate a mouse.

[Sensei]

16 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Yes, I did the same about 20 years ago, since I need to be able to write with my right hand while using the computer. You don’t need much dexterity to operate a mouse.

Imagine what a time saver it is to buy a second monitor.. you don't have to switch active applications so often..

AutoHotkey https://www.autohotkey.com/ application allows you to create scripts to perform repetitive tasks. It can simulate mouse movement, simulate keystrokes, execute applications, perform simple mathematical operations. It is used e.g. to pull data from websites that have a control whether it is done by a human or a bot.

Instead of going to website X and downloading page by page, thousands of times, you make a script which "clicks"/"enters data" in web browser.

For the casual user: you can create email (or forum message) templates or sentence templates that repeat to multiple recipients, and assign them to different hotkeys.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Sensei

[mistermack]

I have to say, one of the best aids I ever bought was a simple basic shopping trolley on wheels. You know the ones that you see grannies wheeling their shopping home in. I have a big version of that.

The one I have will happily carry thirty or forty pounds of shopping, and it makes all the difference because with that I can walk to the shops, instead of choosing to drive. I like to walk when I can for exercise, but lugging forty pounds of shopping on my back is out of the question. So it gives me much needed exercise, and saves a piddly bit of diesel money.  

[zapatos]

Utilize the free stuff. We regularly make our own syrup by tapping a silver maple and black walnut tree in our yard. Make jelly out of the wild grapes growing on the trees. When they do tree trimming or take down trees in the park we'll collect fire wood to heat our house. Pick pawpaws (and put them in a basket). Collect wild mushrooms. Collect black walnuts and hickory nuts. 

For a relatively small investment we have fruit trees, strawberries, chickens and vegetables that more than pay for themselves. We also can foods and haven't had to buy, for example, tomato products for years. 

On the other hand asparagus and honey have each cost us about $50 per pound and hours of work. 🤪

[mistermack]

4 hours ago, zapatos said:

tapping a silver maple and black walnut tree in our yard.

An old West Country tip on how to improve the crop of walnuts from your tree. You gather together on a certain day, and ceremonially "beat the bark" of all of the walnut trees. It's supposed to dramatically increase the yield of walnuts. I believe it still goes on today.

The old saying goes : " A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat them, the better they be."  

Of course, this bit of wisdom is rather dated now, as  these days, beating dogs is considered cruel. 

[zapatos]

35 minutes ago, mistermack said:

An old West Country tip on how to improve the crop of walnuts from your tree. You gather together on a certain day, and ceremonially "beat the bark" of all of the walnut trees. It's supposed to dramatically increase the yield of walnuts. I believe it still goes on today.

 

Haha. I'll give it a try!

[iNow]

11 hours ago, geordief said:

Any good warmed up?

Definitely. The bitterness comes from the brewing process and is much lower when cold brewed. Warming after doesn’t introduce any bitterness not already present. 

6 hours ago, zapatos said:

Collect wild mushrooms.

We’ve been out hunting morels the past week or two, but getting skunked every time. Hope your luck has been better. 

6 hours ago, zapatos said:

Collect black walnuts

My skin is super reactive to them, and I generally to use a bench vise plus some needle pliers to remove the nut meats. SUPER slow process. Hours of work for a small bag or two. Any tips for dehusking and deshelling?

I do love building things out of their wood, though. One of my faves. 

[StringJunky]

14 hours ago, Intoscience said:

Not really a money saving or particularly labour saving, but being right handed I used to operate my PC mouse with my right hand. However at the odd time I needed to multi task I found it a pain. So I learnt to use the mouse with my left hand allowing me to multi task. I soon adjusted and its very useful, it also makes me smile when people who come to use my pc say "I didn't realise you are left handed" When I reply I'm not, they look at me very confused.

Anyway as  a result I try and use my weaker hand for more things, I enjoy the challenge and it tends to be beneficial.  

 

I've just started doing that and just needed to flip the buttons to preserve symmetry.