An Alternative Way To Prepping… For The Frugal Minded Many of us want to be prepared as much as possible when the crap hits the fan. A favorite and another practical method of obtaining items that may of be of such interest, is visiting your local recycling center. I have been making frequent visits (every 7-14 days)to a local recycling center for the last 5 plus years. I was and still am amazed at what items end up there. Some of these items can be very useful and others you may want to just to pick them up for a resale.I have I have found by selling a few of my finds it is a good way to help subsidize your other purchases. Or just hang on to them for bartering items down the road. Scrap prices do fluctuate and depending what the item is made out of, will be a factor when purchasing. But typically all my purchases are around five to ten cents on the dollar of what the item would cost elsewhere. Except for scrap, I pay around twice what they pay out. Keeping in mind that this article is more about acquiring and not on construction or refurbishing items. Continue Reading...
I don't live too far from the scrap yard and when I am home I go there a lot. I buy tons of new wire still on spools, 00 gauge down to 18 gauge. This is good because I do a lot of electrical work. One day I found a 50lb, two 25lb CO2, a 40cf helium cylinders there, had them checked and filled by the local welding supply and use them on my mig welder now, 2 pressurized water fire extinguishers, barbed wire, lots of stainless steel for making stuff, infinitely useful microwave oven transformers, new copper pipe and copper fittings, brass fittings, brass and stainless valves. Chain link fence and fence posts. Air compressors came from the scrap yard working and non working and made them work for minimal cost. My clothes dryer came from the scrap yard. My stainless steel kitchen sink came from there too. Anderson connectors. I get stuff, build stuff and refurbish stuff from the scrap yards.
My local scrap yard, goes strictly by weight. (Unless i ask for something specific. ) if i am dropping off #500 of scrap, and see something of value to me, it goes back into the truck, and the finished weight as i leave is altered by that much, so i get it for the raw scrap rate. As long as they don't object to you swapping scrap material, this is your cheapest method.
Another good find was a whole roll of brass screen. Already have started using it to upgrade RFI and EMI shielding in some of my gear.
I would caution you all that accumulate , some day some one will have to come after you and deal with all that stuff. I am as guilty as the rest believe me, but my dad left me a giant mess to deal with and it's been years trying to deal with it all. Not every one has the same love/appreciation for antiques and other odds and ends . it's especially hard for me because I can see the value of it all.
