# How cheap are you?



## Chasper (Aug 19, 2008)

I don't cut corners in pen making, I use only quality kits and top quality tools.  But I still can't resist the urge to scrimp now and then.  I grew up with depression era parents and I just can't get over it.

I'd like to know just how thrifty or cheap some of you are.  First let me define the terms with an example.  If you save rubber bands from the newspaper delivery and use them to organize things in your shop, you are thrifty.  If the rubber band breaks and you tie it in a knot so you can keep using it, you are cheap.

So how about some examples of your penny pinching best (or worse).  This might even turn into a contest with cheap prizes if the examples are good enough, but I'm too cheap to commit to that up front.


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## Paul in OKC (Aug 19, 2008)

Reminds me of something I saw on a 'Lavern and Shirley' show once. They were calling this guy cheap. He said he wasn't cheap! They said 'What do you call a guy that re-uses paper plates?' He said, "Thrifty"


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## GoodTurns (Aug 19, 2008)

Our newspapers are rolled and delivered in plastic bags.  Many in the neighborhood use these as their dog waste pickup bag.  I have found they work well as prophylactics as well!  They're a little snug, but they work!


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## hewunch (Aug 19, 2008)

GoodTurns said:


> Our newspapers are rolled and delivered in plastic bags.  Many in the neighborhood use these as their dog waste pickup bag.  I have found they work well as prophylactics as well!  They're a little snug, but they work!



Ah so you live in a small town with only a one page paper too? :biggrin:


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## GoodTurns (Aug 19, 2008)

washington post, my friend...big paper, biiiig paper!


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## THarvey (Aug 19, 2008)

GoodTurns said:


> Our newspapers are rolled and delivered in plastic bags.  Many in the neighborhood use these as their dog waste pickup bag.  I have found they work well as prophylactics as well!  They're a little snug, but they work!





There goes the "G" rating on this thread. :bulgy-eyes:


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## turned_for_good (Aug 19, 2008)

THarvey said:


> There goes the "G" rating on this thread. :bulgy-eyes:


 
And it only took 18 min.


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## randyrls (Aug 19, 2008)

I'm Pennsylvania Dutch!  We think the Yankees are spendthrifts!

I can pinch a nickel until it SCREAMS!!!!!!!!!!

My mother went to buy a car.  She haggled with the salesman until he regretted his profession.  She would pull out her pad and figure out the numbers longhand.  After an hour, they agreed on a price.  The next day mom showed up to pick the car up and the salesman went to give her the financing papers....

Her response, "No, I'll pay cash".  She wrote out a check.  I thought the salesman would cry.


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## Chasper (Aug 19, 2008)

Paul in OKC said:


> Reminds me of something I saw on a 'Lavern and Shirley' show once. They were calling this guy cheap. He said he wasn't cheap! They said 'What do you call a guy that re-uses paper plates?' He said, "Thrifty"



Reuse the paper plate once and you are thrifty, reuse it twice and you are cheap.


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## IPD_Mrs (Aug 19, 2008)

GoodTurns said:


> washington post, my friend...big paper, biiiig paper!


 
Obviously Jon you are putting it over the wrong head!  :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Mike


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## GoodTurns (Aug 19, 2008)

MLKWoodWorking said:


> Obviously Jon you are putting it over the wrong head!  :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
> 
> Mike




oh, you other guys thought I meant.....y'all are nasty:devil:!  Around my house, prophylacsis is practiced by keeping the mouth shut so no words reach the other party, sometimes wrapping a large bag around the head is the only way to accomplish this :doctor:!


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## TBone (Aug 19, 2008)

My father was raised during the depression era also. His father died in 1929 leaving a widow and 11 children. My father would wash the zip lock bags when he purchased meats at the deli counter in the grocery store. After he passed away, I found one in the dish strainer. I keep it in my shaving kit to remind me of him when I travel. It always makes me smile when I see it. I consider myself thrifty. I do save the rubber bands from the newspaper, but I don't tie knots in them. Besides, they don't last long in the 100 degree heat in my shop. I also strip all screws etc out of anything before I throw it away.


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## Jarheaded (Aug 19, 2008)

GoodTurns said:


> Our newspapers are rolled and delivered in plastic bags.  \ I have found they work well as prophylactics as well!  They're a little snug, but they work!



If you are finding them a bit snug, try to untie the knot first.


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## dkarcher (Aug 19, 2008)

Jarheaded said:


> If you are finding them a bit snug, try to untie the knot first.


 
I would guess that the newspaper is on a postit note.:biggrin:


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## Hayseedboy (Aug 19, 2008)

*Soap?*

I used to travel with my job a lot so, lots of motels. Being also born of depression era parents I found it totally useless to use both bars of soap that the hotel staff left. So, I would use the little bar along with an opened bottle of shampoo I used the day before and would save the larger bar and the new bottle of shampoo. Then I would take these home and I used the shampoo for myself (the wife had to use the other stuff) and would tuck the unused hotel bar of soap in a draw (eventually drawers) in our bathroom cabinet that is unless I had fully used the previous bar in our tub. (you can take 4 smaller slivers of almost gone soap and make one better bar by the way)

Longer story short, my wife sneeked... snacked... snuck into the bathroom one night while I was on the road and filled two large paper (we saved those too) grocery bags full of hotel sized bars of soap and threw them into the dumpster. This mortified me... my collection of small bars of soap was gone forever. I had planned to one day either grind them up and use them in my hose end fertilizer sprayer on the lawn or continue to use them myself at home or melt them all down into one large lump to someday turn a piece of artwork on the wood lathe.

She and I still have issues that with her disinthriftized disposal of the soap.  I'm not sure I will ever get over it.

lr


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## greenmtnguy (Aug 19, 2008)

I hope none of you have bags full of "string too short to be saved"! 
Reminds me of the story about about the farmer using the outhouse. As he stood up his wallet fell into the hole. He went into the house and returned and threw money down the hole and then retrieved his wallet. When asked why he replied " you don't think I was going to reach down into that for what little I had in my wallet, do you?"


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## Daniel (Aug 19, 2008)

I grew up with a very "Poor Minded" Family. My father salvaged a huge load of lumber from a remodeling project. the pile filed a 16X32 foot shed wall to wall ceiling to floor. It was my brother and mines job through high school (4 years) to clean all the nails from this lumber. We got in the habit of tossing the nails in a paint can. When my dad saw that can full of nails he decided we should try to straighten them up enough to be reused. The story would be much funnier to me if it where not true. For me I'm cheap enough to want to make it rather than buy it. So far pens have only cost me about $20,000 so I can't afford to be to cheap.


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## IPD_Mrs (Aug 19, 2008)

Hayseedboy said:


> I used to travel with my job a lot so, lots of motels. Being also born of depression era parents I found it totally useless to use both bars of soap that the hotel staff left. So, I would use the little bar along with an opened bottle of shampoo I used the day before and would save the larger bar and the new bottle of shampoo. Then I would take these home and I used the shampoo for myself (the wife had to use the other stuff) and would tuck the unused hotel bar of soap in a draw (eventually drawers) in our bathroom cabinet that is unless I had fully used the previous bar in our tub. (you can take 4 smaller slivers of almost gone soap and make one better bar by the way)
> 
> Longer story short, my wife sneeked... snacked... snuck into the bathroom one night while I was on the road and filled two large paper (we saved those too) grocery bags full of hotel sized bars of soap and threw them into the dumpster. This mortified me... my collection of small bars of soap was gone forever. I had planned to one day either grind them up and use them in my hose end fertilizer sprayer on the lawn or continue to use them myself at home or melt them all down into one large lump to someday turn a piece of artwork on the wood lathe.
> 
> ...


 
My Mother would collect those little bars of soap when she was little.  She still has a box full of old ones that are 60-70 years old with motel names that are no longer around.  Some even have the old three and four digit phone numbers on the wrappers.  I guess it was kind of like collecting matchbooks but more feminine.  One day I will have to decide what to do with them.:frown:

Mike


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## edman2 (Aug 20, 2008)

I once worked for a cheap guy. My first job was in a non-chain hamburger type place.  Every morning the boss would make us go out on the gravel parking lot and pick up the plastic spoons that were not broken and bring them in and wash them in hot water so they could be reused.  To this day, when I use a plastic spoon at a hamburger joint, I break the spoon handle before I put it in the trash.:hammer:


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## edman2 (Aug 20, 2008)

MLKWoodWorking said:


> My Mother would collect those little bars of soap when she was little. She still has a box full of old ones that are 60-70 years old with motel names that are no longer around. Some even have the old three and four digit phone numbers on the wrappers. I guess it was kind of like collecting matchbooks but more feminine. One day I will have to decide what to do with them.:frown:
> 
> Mike


 You need to find somone who works in wood:biggrin: and make a compartment display box to hang on the bathroom wall.  Would make a great little display!


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## Randy_ (Aug 20, 2008)

GoodTurns said:


> Our newspapers are rolled and delivered in plastic bags. Many in the neighborhood use these as their dog waste pickup bag. I have found they work well as prophylactics as well! They're a little snug, but they work!


 
I'm thinking the reason those bags are too small is because folks are using them to pick up all of the BS in the neighborhood rather than the DS.:redface:


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## leehljp (Aug 20, 2008)

My parents grew up during the depression and like the song said -  When Wall Street fell, they were so poor that they couldn't tell. :wink:

Both of my parents grew up on farms sharecropping in which their families learned to bargain and barter for store goods. Both families were fairly good at it - so that during the depression, nobody went without basic food or clothes. 

My dad on Cheap:

In all of this, my father taught me to get a tool worth the job and the next job too! He shook hands with the banker on a loan to buy a 500 acre farm when he was 22. He had no money for farm machinery but bargained for a couple of mules. He also bargained and bartered for broken down machinery and plows and a tractor. He fixed/repaired them until they were as good as or better than new. He taught me the same. He also taught me to analyze a tool to see if it were worth purchasing or fixing. "Cheap" tools and cheap machinery can cost you the farm - he used to say. Have a good backup in emergencies, such as crop planting time or harvest time. Two days late because of cheap tools, poor upkeep on machinery and no backup - and it can cost you the farm.

All in all, "Cheap" didn't inter our vocabulary much - but Making sure we could get the job done - did!


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## railrider1920 (Aug 20, 2008)

Sometimes I'm thrifty, sometimes I'm cheap. I'm a wood "dumpster diver". Unless it needs to be new, I'll get many of my 2x4's and some small pieces of plywood from construction site trash piles. I'll also remove the screws from something before it goes out to the trash. They are still good. Why throw it away? It's a combination of save it, it can still be used and don't put that in the dump. I wanted to try to use the wood from a tennis racket to make a pen. I pulled out the string and it is coiled up waiting to be used. My wife just shakes her head at me sometimes.


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## redfishsc (Aug 20, 2008)

Well, the best way I've found to be cheap is to take on a hobby that required a lot of money and even more time invested to become any sort of decent. And one that has an addictive amount variations, shiny things, cool colors, and I don't know what all. And you get to use (and BUY!) lots of power tools that you like, er, need. And one that can be potentially hazardous to your health if you don't wear the proper gear. 

Yeah, that's how I'm cheap:beat-up:


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## Hosspen (Aug 20, 2008)

Have you heard these "cheap" sayins?
 "He was so cheap he wouldn't pay a nickel to see the statue of liberty take a leak"
"so cheap when he opens his wallet George Washington blinks (hasn't seen light in so long)"


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## bitshird (Aug 20, 2008)

redfishsc said:


> Well, the best way I've found to be cheap is to take on a hobby that required a lot of money and even more time invested to become any sort of decent. And one that has an addictive amount variations, shiny things, cool colors, and I don't know what all. And you get to use (and BUY!) lots of power tools that you like, er, need. And one that can be potentially hazardous to your health if you don't wear the proper gear.
> 
> Yeah, that's how I'm cheap:beat-up:



Matt  I;m with you, but can you tell me where can I but superman gloves??


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## opfoto (Aug 20, 2008)

How about....

He's so cheap, He can squeeze a nickel til the indian rides the buffalo!:embarrassed:


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## btboone (Aug 20, 2008)

Back in college, I rated food in calories per dollar.  Ramen, the big bags of store brand cereal, mac and cheese, spaghetti...  I pretty much lived on those.


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## redfishsc (Aug 20, 2008)

btboone said:


> Back in college, I rated food in calories per dollar.  Ramen, the big bags of store brand cereal, mac and cheese, spaghetti...  I pretty much lived on those.




Going through that right now, amigo! I know exactly what you mean. I'm glad the seminary actually has a "Manna House" which has all the free bread products you want for FREE (and I mean GOOD bread, like Arnold brand). 

What's hilarious is the most common bread they have in there is Jewish Rye (which is one of my FAVORITES!). There's just something ironic about that.


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## gmcnut (Aug 21, 2008)

Hayseedboy said:


> I used to travel with my job a lot so, lots of motels.
> 
> Hayseedboy, I currently travel with my job and infact I am at a Best Western in Idaho Falls as I type this.
> 
> ...


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## randyrls (Aug 21, 2008)

btboone said:


> Back in college, I rated food in calories per dollar.  Ramen, the big bags of store brand cereal, mac and cheese, spaghetti...  I pretty much lived on those.



Aren't those the four food groups????  :biggrin:


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## TellicoTurning (Aug 21, 2008)

leehljp said:


> My parents grew up during the depression and like the song said -  When Wall Street fell, they were so poor that they couldn't tell. :wink:
> 
> Both of my parents grew up on farms sharecropping in which their families learned to bargain and barter for store goods. Both families were fairly good at it - so that during the depression, nobody went without basic food or clothes.
> 
> He had no money for farm machinery but bargained for a couple of mules.




Hank,
My parents grew up in the depression also and I was born just about the end of it, a couple of months before Pearl Harbor.  Matter of fact, I still have some of the ration books from WWII for shoes, sugar and such.. We grew what we ate and didn't really know we were poor.  I wore overalls made from the unworn parts of my dad's, shirts made from feed sacks, underwear made from bleached flour sacks... we made do with what we had.

My dad was a share cropper too and didn't have his own mules.  He would take a pair of young mules and break them to the plow in return for their use for the season.  For a few years, he would have a new pair of green mules every season until we finally moved to west Texas and he worked for a guy that had two tractors... we farmed about 200 acres of cotton that was pulled by hand and some of the fields were half mile or more long.

Dad could make even a cheap tool last for years.. after he left the farms and moved into town in the early '50's he became a rough carpenter and when he died at 75 in 1989, he still had some of the tools he started with.  I was offered some of them by my step mother, but that was before I got interested in woodworking and didn't get them... to my regret and chagrin today.

My folks separated in the mid '55 when I was just 13 and I moved into town with my mother so I didn't get the benefits of a lot of his teachings... still remember some from my earlier years.  My shop is full of pieces of scrap wood that would probably be better served in the burn piles, but always thing I might be able to use that sometime..  I even have a dozen or more pieces of turnings that either I screwed up on, or they don't quite look like I wanted them to, but I keep them thinking I might be able to fix them sometime... they really clutter up the work bench.


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