It does sound good in theory, but I've got a feeling the guy at the post office is going to get suspicious of how your letter made it from halfway across the country to your local post office without a stamp or any postmarks. If it's within the same town I could see it working though.
My boss used to do this with local mail. He was pissed after the US mail took 3 weeks to deliver a book 30 miles, and the buyer of the book left him negative feedback on ebay, so he took out a vendetta against them He even once had me try to use a special solvent to remove the postmark from a stamp to reuse it. Oddly enough, the design on the stamp was washed away, but the postmark stayed on the stamp. This guy also hated US Bank so much he kept an account with them that had 1 cent in it, just so they would have to send him a statement every month for 42 cents.
One step further, and I know this makes me a mooch, I don't even bother buying groceries for lunch. I make the short trip, read walking distance, to my parents house for lunch everyday. Before you hate, at least they get to see me everyday. That's truely special at their age (incidentally it doesn't matter what age they are they love to see their children right?).
Funny story related to this slightly. The two upstairs guys that I live with share a bathroom (I've got my own downstairs. *brushes shoulders off*) and I was up there taking a piss about two weeks ago when I noticed there wasn't any toilet paper, only that scratchy brown bathroom hand drying paper, or slightly finer than sandpaper. I asked them, thinking there was no way that they were wiping with this stuff. Guy 1: Yeah, that's how I dry my hands after I wash them. Theres not any toilet paper because I think it's cheaper to just shit at work instead of buying toilet paper. Plus, it's his turn to buy some. Guy 2, with visibly horrified face: I have been waiting for you to buy toiler paper...I've been wiping with the hand drying paper. My ass has been bleeding the last two weeks. Since then I've been keeping my toilet paper in my room, because guy 2 started taking shits downstairs. I think he finally broke and bought some a couple days ago. The ultimate in pinching pennies is letting your asshole bleed instead of spending 5 dollars.
To all of the ziplock bag reusers... do you keep the bag refrigerated all day or better yet in the freezer in between packing a sandwich away in it? If I stick a turkey sandwich in a bag theres a 100% chance that turkey juice, a little mayo, etc is getting on the inside of the bag. If the bag then gets put in my briefcase or bag its festering in at the least, mid-70s temps all day. Then what happens when you get home? Into the freezer with it or? The one item I've stopped buying are paper towels. Those fucking things must be made of gold. An 8-pk of Bounty was $24 the other day on my receipt. $24 for sopping up dog drool and drying my hands?! No thanks.
We've done a thread before where people talked about what they are willing to skimp on to pinch a penny. For a lot of people, it seems they draw the line at toilet paper.
I used to be the most unfrugal son of a bitch on the planet. Dryer broken? Buy a new one. Oil change? Jiffy lube. Car broken? Mechanic. Groceries? Name brands. Now, I fix everything myself. Dryer. Washer. Dishwasher. Car, as long as it's not absolutely major. We're finishing our basement. By "we", I mean me. I framed it, I'm running the electrical, I'm building the subfloor, I'm hanging the drywall, the ceiling. The only thing I'm doing is having a friend help me out with shit like holding up drywall to stick it on the walls. If there's a problem with the car, I take it to my mechanic, he tells me what I need to fix, I get the parts I need and do it myself. I've done shocks and struts, springs, brakes, hubs, oil changes, tune ups, etc. I used to go get the expensive shit for everything. $24 bottle of Tide must be better than the $8 bottle of Purex, right? No. The only thing I won't buy store brand is peanut butter. There actually is a difference between Jif and the store brand. There is a guy I know who goes too far though: He goes to the local supermarket every single day to get coffee. The coffee that says, "Free for our shoppers". One of the local markets actually kicked him out and banned in from the store. He will do every last thing possible to save a penny, and it's really, truly "penny wise, dollar foolish". Expensive isn't always better, but cheap isn't always a bargain. You need to know when to pay the money for the expensive thing. Words of wisdom: If you are changing the hubs on your car, get the expensive ones. The cheap ones wear out quickly, and you end up doing the job multiple times.
When I was collecting unemployment and then eventually lost my unemployment while going to school I found all kinds of ways to save money. I began to cut my own hair[still do], re-used zip lock bags, dropped my garbage service and put my bags in families trash cans or random ones. I ate a lot of Ramen Noodles, put random stuff in them to make the taste different. I bought everything used from people who needed money fast. I picked up an Xbox 360 for $50. Got my 42" 1080p TV for $200. I have two end tables that I got for free off Craigslist. One is next to my free couch that my friend gave me and the other is a bed stand. Craigslist is great for finding deals. I kept my heat at 50 degrees and wore warm clothes. I torrent movies and TV shows. Now that I'm employed I'm slowly improving my situation. The only reason I've had internet and tv the last 9 months is because after my roommate moved out it and stopped paying the bill it just never got shut off.
Depends entirely where you live. There are plenty of places where the tap water is perfectly fine and in some cases better than bottled water. There are also plenty of places where the tap water tastes like shit and filtered water is noticeably better.
Going green is a great way to save cash, so I ride in solar-powered limosines and insist in flying only in an electric private jet. When I watch my 70" 3D HDTV and see the way people spend money these days, I want to rip it off my stacked stone wall, march it down my half-mile cobbled driveway and hurl it over the wrought iron fence next to the Louis Viton twist-tie trash bags. Oh, and hitting up a garage sale sale is the tits. Where else can you buy a Technotronic "Move This" cassingle and rubber dog shit in the same place at the same time?
A few things: 1. Cutting your own hair is cheap. If you're like me, (I just buzz all my hair off) a crappy set of clippers is about ten bucks (a good professional quality one is around 20-30 bucks). Get a small bottle of oil for about a dollar, and you have an infinite source of haircuts for the price of one haircut from a barbershop. If you have a roommate, learn how to cut each other's hair. It's not hard. You just have to be willing to botch a few and buzz all of it off before you get decent at it. 2. Use a double-edge razor instead of multi-blade cartridges. I get 10 blades for $1.59, which lasts me about a month. That's cheaper than getting the cheap-ass Bics. A shaver will cost you around 10 bucks on Ebay. 3. Get a slow cooker. You can use a slow cooker to make enormous hearty dirt-cheap meals. Pulled pork sandwiches are amazing. 4. If you can't stop drinking, brew your own. You can make gallons of the stuff for the price that you bought cases before. 5. Buy stuff used. When you buy new, you pay a premium. When you buy used, you pay what the thing is actually worth.
After realising that I was spending a stupid amount of money on buying a couple of coffee's each work day at around $3 - $4 per coffee (depending on the size), I bought myself a $140 Sunbeam espresso coffee machine that I took in to work and now use the milk that work provides and I provide my own coffee. The coffee machine makes reasonably good coffee and my bank balance is hundreds of dollars better off.
I've said it before; buy quality meat in bulk, slice it up, vacuum pack it, and freeze it. This is one of 4 that I bought from Costco, each was about $18. Spent about an hour tonight processing 4 pork loins, 4 large packages of ground beef, 2 beef tenderloins, and a big rib roast. I have enough meat to BBQ for an army for three months, and it's pennies on the dollar compared to buying smaller cuts fresh from a butcher or supermarket. And I find the quality is, for the most part, way, way better.
You're welcome, everyone. This is the best investment I've made in a long time. Seriously. Tap water where I live tastes like Frylock's asshole, so a reliable filtration system like this is worth it. And unlike Brita or Pur, it actually works.
This thread reminds me to be appreciative of the fact that I live in a place with fantastic drinking water. It tastes exactly the same as bottled water. I've been to places where the water tastes off and that much be horrible to drink on a daily basis and to cook with.
I actually ran out of toilet paper, so it's on to paper towels, which are plentiful and abundant around my apartment. After that, time to dig into the Kleenex stock.
Aren't paper towels and Kleenex more expensive per square inch (legitimate question, I don't do the shopping)? You may save in the short term, but you're losing in the long.
Not only are paper towels and kleenex more expensive but if you don't want to see a flood of biblical proportions, you should buy some tp. Paper towels don't break down the way tp does. Its not supposed to. Its one of paper towel's biggest selling points.