Frugal Friday
Apr. 11th, 2025 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.Rule #1: this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #2: this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #3: please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about. Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.
Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.
With that said, have at it!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-11 05:57 pm (UTC)After looking around for domestic manufacturers, several people discovered that the Amish are the only ones still making furniture and other goods without a need for chinese imports. Maybe JMG's Retrotopia will come in 2030, and not 2070.
https://x.com/search?q=Amish&src=trend_click&vertical=trends
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-11 07:54 pm (UTC)Our of curiosity I looked at the prices of our local furniture and Amish furniture in the Midwest and shockingly, our local furniture was cheaper. I've always thought of it as too expensive but it was at least 25% cheaper than Amish on a spot check.
local furniture
Date: 2025-04-12 01:04 am (UTC)My Daughters tell me their upholstered sectional couches were manufactured in Oregon, they live in Oregon. That is what you get from teh local furniture store, you see the displays, put in your order and it gets made.
If you have a local framer or carpenter that needs work, there are plenty of DIY books at the library, well maybe not, but at used books stores anyways, with basic plans for DIY making of tables, chairs, bedsteads just using good plywood and regular dimensional 2x4's, so if you dont have the tools or want the learning curve, hire a guy by the hour to make you some. That is how I got my shelf made years ago, the bookshelves I used to have, tall ones, my brother made about 40 years ago out of the plywood that has oak veneer, one of my daughters has those now, they are still in service. This kind of DIY furniture can realy last. Much more than IKEA. The same guy that made me the low shelf made a toddler bed for my kids, just out of dimensional lumber, but I did have hime use oak for that. It takes a regular crib mattress, it is in my attic waiting for the next grandchild to borrow it, and the cradle made from black walnut for my youngest child is up there too, that was made by a parent at my older childrens school, so a more advanced DIY hobiest. I won a raffle for a doll cradle, and he made me an offer to have him keep the doll sized and upgrade me to a real sized as I was expecting. He kept the doll one for his childs doll.
So, even for the stuff that we cant get commercially made in the USA, there is no reason to not just have made. Get a 1970's DIY furniture book and hire a carpenter and its ok to just use Doug Fir 2x4 and 2x6s from the lumberyard, I love doug Fir look.
Atmospheric River
made in USA souces
Date: 2025-04-12 01:32 am (UTC)Atmospheric River