A few years ago I bought color changing smart bulbs off Amazon on a whim, maybe $25 for a two-pack.

I mostly use them as a night light now. The last few days it’s been set to a soft pink glow at 5am, and it makes me feel like I’m sitting in some low budget cyberpunk scene. I’m a grown man who gets soothed by a pink light in the corner of his room, and I’ve made my peace with that.

They still work years later. Dimmable, any color, controlled from my phone without getting out of bed.

It’s such a small thing. Changes nothing about my actual life. But it still delivers a little hit of “this is cool” on a random Tuesday morning.

What’s yours?

The classic dilemma/argument against hybrid cars from an economical point of view is that they come with a higher purchase price and thus the natural thing is to see how long fuel savings would "pay back" that difference and use it as a metric to whether paying the hybrid premium is justified.

If you only consider the economics of fuel, this is reasonable, but it's only reasonable if we assume fuel prices remain relatively stable or fall.

I don't have to tell you that this isn't our current reality at all.

The Iran situation has strangled the movement of oil and thus driven up the prices of anything related to it, like gasoline. Rough figures I found are 30% increase of the average price in the US and my personal experience in western Europe is that I'm paying about 20% more now.

Conservative estimates of fuel savings with a hybrid are 40%, but own experience going from a V6 gas engine to a Corolla hybrid is that I'm saving over 50%. While saving money on gas was a consideration when I bought the car a few months ago, I hadn't dug deep into the math and I was surprised by just how much fuel I'm saving.

I definitely paid more up front for the car (secondhand) than what I would have paid for an equivalent gas model, but the expense of buying the car is one time in the life of ownership. Paying for gas is a recurring expense and having a hybrid is saving every mile I drive and it'll compound over the life of the car.

Something to consider if you're in the market.

I have Verizon and my wife has ATT. We pay about 230$ per month for unlimited plans. I saw plans like Visible and Mint Mobile are far cheaper, possibly as low as 200$/year. It seems too good to be true. Is it? I am curious what would I be sacrificing by moving to either of those? Is there a risk of not having data for maps while driving bc of the plan?

We live in a major city and really go to rural areas so I assume coverage wouldn’t be an issue. Thanks!

My wife started working from home a few months ago and now one of our cars barely moves all week. Insurance, registration and maintenance are still there whether we drive it or not. We always assumed we'd need two vehicles forever, but now I'm wondering if we're hanging onto it just because we've always had it. Has anyone downsized and actually been happy about it?

Starting tomorrow, September 1, go to https://everykidoutdoors.gov/index.htm to get your voucher so you and your family can access US national parks and historical sites for free over the next year. Some states, like New York, accept the federal pass for state parks and historical sites as well (check your local jurisdiction). The fourth grader must be present on all trips.

Since obviously literally everything is getting more expensive by the day, I'm trying to figure out creative ways to save money when we buy weekly essential groceries.

I feel like our family already does a decent job saving money by just buying essentials at Aldi and Costco. We usually buy whole, real foods, not pre-packaged meals. I'm a big consumer of coffee, so I'm not giving that up. It's basically a hobby of mine that brings me joy in this daily rat race of survival. I make my own coffee at home by buying coffee beans at Costco when they're on sale or I absolutely am low on supply.

Is there any tips you can give? I'm a little concerned about the price of everything especially for next year, because I have a feeling our health insurance premium is going to have another significant increase. I'm not looking forward to that at all. We rely on our health insurance, and that's been kinda the wild card of how our way of life will be next year. So just trying to get a a head start in shopping habits before regular bills become bigger.

My husband and I each earn a good income, but we are frugal regardless, as that's how we grew up and how we started our lives together. We don't get coffee, we cook all our meals at home, we don't buy anything unnecessary, we thrift or borrow what we need, etc. For most of the year, our only expenditures are food, regular bills, and whatever activity fees the kids need. I read library books and putter in our garden, my husband likes to practice coding and puzzles on the computer.

However, once a year for a week, we go on a really nice vacation, and there is no budget on those trips. We stay in nicer hotels. I get coffee every morning, fancy coffee even! We eat out, we buy what we want. We spend on activities and outings. We get the good seats at shows. The kids get to pick out a tshirt, a sweatshirt, a stuffed animal if they want. We get ice cream.

We are able to do that BECAUSE we are frugal the rest of the year.

Is anyone else like this? What is your "exception" to your frugality?

My dad still says never use credit cards unless it’s an emergency. Meanwhile everyone seems to be chasing points and cash back now.

I get why older generations think that way because credit card debt can get ugly fast. But at the same time using a credit card responsibly seems pretty different from carrying a balance.

Did your parents give you money advice that you completely ignored?

Work required all black shoes. Wore these considering they are black but they pulled me aside saying I needed completely black ones.

They also have to be certified non slip and these are the only non slip shoe my entire family has so there r kinda my only option.

I could buy a new pair for 50 bucks but also money be tight so this is my solution. Dollar store paint which I already had (1.50$). Voila

i wear the same prescribed contacts every month, so refills should be pretty straightforward, but i still manage to forget until i’m already on my last box.

i’ve been looking at a contact lens subscription, but i’m not sure if it’s actually worth it when the prescription and lens type don’t change much. the convenience sounds nice, but i also don’t want extra boxes piling up if i wear glasses more often for a few weeks or have an appointment coming up.

for people who use auto-refill for contacts or similar recurring stuff, does it actually make things easier, or do you still end up checking it as much as a normal reorder reminder?

I don't know if you know this, but cashiers can add or delete items from self-checkout transactions. It's very useful when you accidentally double scan an item. I have had one cashier add my watermelon so I didn't have to lift it, but they yelled over and told me they were doing it.

Last week, I went to Aldi and something showed up on my receipt that I hadn't purchased. I went back over my receipt, and everything I had purchased was on there, plus this item. I took it back to the store and asked them to check and see what it was, because it was exactly the same price as a bag of produce I had bought, which was almost $5. Since produce is weighed, it seemed strange that it would be EXACTLY that same price.

They checked it and gave me a refund, but I will still check my receipts in the future.

In fact, it's not a bad idea to check all of your receipts, because Walmart once double charged me for a $50 item, which I caught immediately. I didn't check out myself, and I know the cashier only rang it up once, so something went wrong somewhere. Anyway, they acted like they didn't want to give me the money back, and said they needed to check the video to see if I had only bought one, and they would get in touch with me. I refused to leave the store until I had my money back. They said it could take hours. I said "I'll wait." Ten minutes later, the store manager came and apologized to me and refunded me the money. I check every single receipt from there now before I leave the store.

I noticed some ice buildup in my freezer and I’d like to give it a good cleaning, so I decided to eat everything in there. While I’m at it, I’m doing the pantry and fridge too. Call it a pantry challenge, if you want. When it’s all gone, I’ll restock with new stuff. I have just taken stock of everything and it looks like dinner is sorted for the next 2 weeks. After that I can get really creative and who knows what kind of dishes I’ll invent or discover.

I’ll buy fresh bread, eggs, fruit and vegetables once I’m out of frozen and tinned stuff, but my ultimate goal is to really finish all the other things. Not buying any sandwich meat until all the hagelslag and peanut butter is gone. And I can bake my own cookies and cake before I buy anything.

I’m curious how much this is gonna save me on groceries. The savings will be short-term because I’ll need to restock at some point, but I don’t need to do it all at once.

Have you ever done something similar? Any tips?

Been a Mint Mobile customer for a long time. Would like to make a switch because signal is getting worse in the past year, (coincide with starlink deal?) . But i like it’s price and prepay nature. Low price, no gimmick

What is its equivalent that uses Verizon network ? Anybody has experience here ? I know Straight Talk has Verizon, but wondering what is the experience there.

Thank you in advance

Right now I’m trying to become much more mindful about my spending, but I’ve realized that I’m not actually that interested in saving money as an end in itself lol. What I really want is to increase the value of what I already have, earn more, invest intelligently and generally build wealth.

I grew up with saving being pretty important. My parents were students when I was born and were trying to establish themselves professionally in a foreign labour market, so being careful with money was just a normal part of life. And obviously I still think having savings, avoiding unnecessary expenses and not wasting money are important.

But I don’t really want my financial goal to be “how little can I spend?” I’d rather ask whether what I’m spending actually adds value to my life, while putting much more energy into increasing my income and assets. I suppose the actual goal is financial growth rather than frugality.

Basically, I want to be rich 😂 Realistically I probably never will be, but that’s much more motivating to me than becoming exceptionally good at saving €3 on groceries.

The problem is that when I’ve focused on “how can I be more frugal?” in the past, frugality itself somehow became the focus. I started thinking about how to spend less when it would have been better to think about how to earn more.

At the same time, when I look at my spending now, there are absolutely unnecessary purchases that I’d like to cut out. Not because I want to deprive myself or maximize my savings rate, but because I’d rather have that money available for investments, experiences, useful purchases or other things I genuinely value.

For people who think similarly: how do you balance those mindsets? How do you use frugality as a tool without letting saving and cost-cutting become the entire financial goal?

And why do I want to be rich: Because I’m also used to having to think about everything. Money is freedom and an ability to invest, even in other people.

I find it ridiculous that almost every source I found and AI claims that you can’t wash memory foam pillows and they’ll break up, etc.

This summer was particularly hot and I sweated a particularly a lot, and it’s only been 3 years on this pillow. Frankly I’m used to 10+ years minimum on bedding stuff.

One got a little yellowed, a little stinky, and even through the pillowcase. I put both my pillows in there, covers taken off, I used Tide powder (a lot), and used the gentle (hand wash) cycle with slow spin, reaching in and inverting with my hands occasionally.

For the dryer I just put it on low and made sure it was with a full load of other stuff so it didn’t get banged around.

It’s like brand new! The color is back to white, and it feels full and smells fresh. No tears, no breakdown of the material at all.

Got these three bad boys for 1 dollar total. Sponge for size as I hate bananas. It was pay a dollar for one, get two free. Been working the past few hours to turn them into zucchini meatballs! I am loving this local farm by me for eggs, fruit and vegetables.
I have been trying to buy local as much as possible with all the food recalls. Plus local is better.
Drop any zucchini recipes you have as I am almost done cutting up the second one and I am feeling the burn.

Hello! My partner and I are dual income, no kids and have become quite lax over the years in terms of how we spend our money, which we'd like to address and improve on. Specifically things like hair care, skin care, and certain grocery items I tend to spend on the moderate-high side. For clothing I'm working toward buying sustainable, long-lasting items, but what I've found is quite expensive, so few & far between.

I'd love to get some brand recommendations (across all things, not just what I mentioned), that are on the lower end of cost compared to their competitors, but that you have found to be reliable/quality products.. Thanks!

Just wanted to share this resource, especially since we are in back to school season!

The Chef Ann Foundation is a US-based non-profit that promotes from-scratch cooking. For folks outside the US, school cafeterias serving mostly ulta-processed foods is an issue in schools. Until a decade or so ago, school cafeterias mainly made food on site but a number of factors have led to cafeteria food being comprised of shipped-in and reheated ulta-processed foods in many places.

The foundation has a resource repository called The Lunch Box, which contains bulk kid-approved recipes that are healthy and affordable. It's a great resource if needing to cook for a crowd or have recipes to share for a big event like a potluck.

General Site: https://www.thelunchbox.org/ and the recipes

I am in no financial state to buy a new pair. And I have only this one less than 10 times. But I have it for a few years. Th shoes frame and stitches are good and strong. How do I fix or cover up those peelings? How do you guys do it? Do I peel all off? Or is there any trick I didn’t know to fix it?

This is a lesson learned for me. I shouldn’t have kept it for so long without wearing it. I wanted to wear it on my husband’s birthday. Now I only have worn out sneakers.

My mattress is still perfectly usable, but summer has made sleeping on it miserable. I wake up hot and sweaty and keep changing the sheets, which isn't helping with the cost of keeping cool either.

A new mattress isn't in the budget, so I'm looking at a topper as a cheaper fix. I don't want to spend a bunch on one that feels cool for 5 minutes and then holds onto body heat all night.

I'm leaning toward something breathable and simple rather than one of those expensive specialty toppers. I don't want to spend a lot on this, just need something that won't make me even hotter at night.

So I have a treadmill, specifically a "Pro-Form 505 CST" which is something like a smart treadmill that is made to pair with your tablet so that it can help you document your exercise progress. It was also made in conjunction with an exercise training company called iFIT which has an app that is meant to be downloaded onto your tablet and then paired via bluetooth with the treadmill.

I have an iPad, but it is very old - a first generation iPad Air that only runs up to 12.5.8 iOS fully updated.

Apparently, the iFIT app requires you have at least 16.0 iOS to be downloaded. When I had posted in other subreddits asking if there was any way for my iPad to be able to download that app without 16.0 iOS everyone agreed that it wasn't possible, and instead suggested that I try to find a new or used tablet specifically to download iFIT on and then pair with the treadmill.

I thought this sounded like a good idea, but I would imagine that tablets - new, used, or otherwise - are always gonna be ridiculous amounts of money, and when they're not I can't help but be doubtful of their quality. On top of that I'm just really not good at knowing the technical ins and outs that would allow me to pick out such a tablet without missing some important piece of information.

So let me ask everyone on this subreddit - Can you give me a recommendation for a tablet that is well-made, has all the specifications that I would need (have at least 16.0 iOS), and that is reasonably cheap (I would prefer it to be 100 dollars or less, but I will overstep that slightly if need be). Keep in mind that my intention is to just have a tablet that will be permanently paired with this treadmill. Its purpose will be to allow me to download and utilize the iFIT app and nothing else. I don't need anything extra.

Lastly, and THIS IS IMPORTANT, I would like a tablet that is somewhat superior to 16.0 iOS condition. My reasoning for that can be best explained by this piece of a conversation I had with someone else in another post -

Me: ...Also, assuming that I get a tablet (android, iPad, or otherwise) specifically so I can utilize the iFIT app for the treadmill, I know that I have to get one that supports 16.0 iOS since that is apparently what the app requires in order to be downloaded. That said, is the software requirements for downloading this app a constant and basically unchanging thing? Or will iFIT at some point require a higher iOS in order to allow for downloads? If so, is there some maximum iOS capabilities that I need to get in order to make it so the device will always (or at least for a very long time) be able to use the iFIT app?

Thank you.

Person who Replied: iPadOS 16 was released in 2022. You probably want a device that has iPadOS 18 (released in 2024) at least. Here are the devices that can't upgrade to iPadOS 18 and should not be purchased. Copied from Google.

Apple dropped support for several older iPad models when releasing iPadOS 18, meaning these devices cannot update past iPadOS 17. Unsupported iPad Models:

iPad (6th generation) (2018) iPad Pro 10.5-inch (2017) iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2nd generation) (2017) All older iPad, iPad Air, iPad mini, and iPad Pro models released prior to these (such as the 5th-gen iPad, older iPad Air models, and 1st-gen iPad Pro).

If you have any questions please ask.

Thank you.

I got this much cream out of the supposedly empty bottle of cream my wife was going to throw away.

I had already gotten an extra 3 days worth of cream from the bottle simply by knocking the cream clinging to the side of the bottle to the bottom.

On the left is an empty bottle bought from Superdrug to decant toiletries into for going on holiday. The pump screws on perfectly and I just had to cut the tube down.

I held the N07 bottle upside down on top of the Superdrug bottle and banged them both on the work surface to move it from one to the other.

I filled 4 of these little bottles with the leftover lotion at the bottom and was able to lotion my whole body.

Please use caution when cutting these bottles open. A trip to the ER is going to cost you way more than a bottle of lotion. If cutting it feels unsafe, just flip it upside down to let it drain into a jar, or throw it away.

As a bonus, the bottles are ones I've saved from hotel stays years ago, and the surface is a $7 thrifted night stand!

Edit:

Why not just flip it over and pour into a jar?

My goal was to fill these tubes! I use them on the go, at my desk, etc. If I just wanted to fill a jar, I would have done that. After they were full, I squeegeed the rest into a big container with my finger.

If you're filling another big container, the syringe is obviously not very efficient!

How do you cut the container?

I used tin snips to chop the corner open and then regular household scissors to cut the rest.