More Frugal Tips: My Dad Weighs In!

September 16, 2007 · Filed Under · 4 Comments 

Mr Do-It-YourselfSecure your cats and cover your children’s eyes, my Dad is making his official Internet debut! After the great response from my post My Old Man: Frugal, Cheap, or Just Strange?, I called my Dad and asked him if he would do a guest post talking about more of his great frugal living tips. He graciously agreed, so with no further-ado, I present my Dad. (Insert Applause Here)

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It has come to my attention that considerable gasoline is wasted as my car sits at idle. Our place has a metal farm gate which we open and close each time we leave and return home. I timed it and it takes about 30 seconds to get out of the car, close or open the gate, then return to the car. Since I leave home on the average of twice each day that is four opens/closes of the gate each day. That is 120 seconds or 2 minutes per day. Two times 350 days per year (I am not home every day) is 700 minutes or 11.7 hours that my car idles needlessly. I believe it would require 9 gallons of gas to idle that long. At $3 per gallon that is $27 per year I save by turning the the engine off when opening and closing the gate. My mechanic assures me there is little wear and tear on the starter, certainly not $27 worth. In addition, by fastening seat belts prior to starting the engine rather than the other way around I save about 8 seconds idling time each time I take a trip. My two trips a day is 16 seconds of idling time saved per day. Because I have always been told that seconds, inches, and pennies are important I SAVE all of the above. A huge gas waste is leaving the engine running while waiting in line to buy anything. Especially at gas stations, drive-through windows at fast food spots, or at the land-fill waiting to unload garbage. TURN IT OFF!

Recycling is not only an important method of slowing global warming but is a good frugal technique for saving money. For many years we have fed pigs on our little farm because we enjoy having them and it provided us with economical meat. A friend picks up by-products from a nearby tofu factory and shares the tofu with us. This friend is a 66 year old female farmer who quickly became known in our family as the “Tofu Queen”. The pigs are healthy and gain weight quickly when fed this protein rich tofu. We also pick-up out dated milk and feed it along with the tofu. The problem with this recycling effort is the odor associated with milk that sets around a few days before being consumed by the pigs. Although I am not sure how much money these conservation techniques save I am satisfied they keep tons of Carbon out of the atmosphere.

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Comments

4 Responses to “More Frugal Tips: My Dad Weighs In!”

  1. Kyle on September 16th, 2007 7:16 am

    Thanks Dad! Boy I can sure remember those smells from the farm from all that stuff you would get from the “Queen”. Nasty! It was more than just milk and bread. I remember she would feed her pigs pasta, fruit loops, and pastries. You have not lived until you have seen a pig eat Fruit Loops and crunchy pasta together with a little tofu by-products on top. I even remember the queen would pop a few in here mouth as she fed the swine. Quite a lady!

  2. FourPillars on September 17th, 2007 7:11 pm

    The gas saving/seatbelt tip is hilarious – but your analysis is exactly the kind of thing that I would do.

    Mike

  3. Gates VP on September 17th, 2007 11:00 pm

    Here’s a postback for you. Warning, may contain unusual or controversial opinions :)

  4. Kyle on September 18th, 2007 8:15 am

    Gates VP – AWESOME! – thanks for the well constructed counter argument, I left a comment on your site, I will try to get my Dad online to do the same.

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