Just an FYI to everyone frustrated with gettting their mailbox destroyed. As sick as I am too with getting my mailbox destroyed (mine by people driving on the shoulder of the road pulling around cars waiting to turn left in front of my house) please heed my warning about making your mailbox post too rigid. If it's within the highway right-of-way it will be considered a "deadly fixed object" (DFO) if anyone ever hits it with their car, motorcycle, or maybe even a bicycle. That is a fact. That's why sign posts and other items in the right of way are legally required to have breakaway posts and shear bolts. I'm a civil engineer and I've designed guardrail for DOT to protect cars from DFO's. If someone hits your super-mega-heavy duty mailbox post or brick structure and gets hurt, you WILL get sued and you will easily lose if it's within the right-of-way, which most mailboxes are. If a good lawyer can show that their client got hurt as a result of hitting your DFO (even though they shouldn't have been off the travelled way), you will be in major trouble. I've seen it. It sucks. It's a sad fact. I too have wanted to drive a concrete-embedded railroad rail into the ground as my mailbox post, but it's just asking for trouble. I'd also be very hesitant about the concrete box-in-a-box. Someone swerves to miss an animal or slides on a slipper road, shears off your wooden post, and your concrete mailbox comes through their windshield and kills them..... not good. Kiss your house goodbye. If you have trouble with baseball bats, drive a wooden post in the ground about a foot "upstream" in the driving direction; they'll hit THAT first and won't be able to get to your mailbox. But if a car hits it, it will break away; no lawsuit. As much as it sucks, be careful. Lawyers will have a field day.

To aswer lynxe's question, for example, making a greeting card is, for me,a creative outlet and fun. It also saves $$, I think $3+ for cards is high and I won't pay it. It also means that I don't have to use gas and time to make the 16 mile round trip to a drugstore to purchase a card. WRT shopping at thrift stores, we happen to have two in the same town that's 8 miles away, and I usually go once a month on a Saturday morning. The closest mall is 40 miles away, but I'm not even sure what stores are there, I've only been there once or twice in the years we have lived here, I'm just not a recreational shopper and I hate paying full price, so if I do go to a retailer, it's TJ Maxx or Marshall's, they have a great selection and good prices. I do think there is a distinction between being frugal and cheap, for instance, I'm not one to skimp on a tip, never ever, and I buy the best, say, turkey breast at the deli counter or 95% lean ground beef because Iike the more expensive cuts of meat. But when it comes to cars, I drive a low end Civic and mr. sandyponder drives a 10 yera old Jeep. I will pay for vacations, dinners out, good quality furniture (retail or, my obvious preference, CL) and recreation, but bring all my potted annuals in every fall and overwinter them in the house, I just can't see paying $200 each year for flowers when I can invest in them once and reuse them. I think some folks here and IRL confuse frugal with cheap, IMO cheap is undertipping the server, or as a former neighbor of my parents did, buying LL Bean clothing at garage sales and returning to LL Bean and asking for a refund because the item was defective. They called that frugal, I call that theft (and *of course* they were fundies who were holier than thou, loudly). I call my quirks frugal, and by not using the dryer, we save about $50 a month. In the summer that's gas for the boat and in the winter for the snowmobile. I said I am a proud tightwad and I am, not ashamed at all, but the conspicious consumption glorified in the MSM makes me sick, so we don't have cable, but we do have Netflix, cuz I do enjoy watching HBO shows, just not paying for them. I would much rather be called cheap than extravagent, to me one is a compliment, the other a slur. sandyponder

Think about what your target audience for these would be -- people who want something for free or very close to it. So altho I'm certain they'd have "value" to many people interested in learning others' tips, I'd think the effort to sell wouldn't give you much in return. (Also, many libraries have some of the books that the creator(s) of the Tightwad Gazettes have compiled)

I looked, but didn't find that at the local library. It sounds interesting. This is OT from your post, but I'll share it here anyway. I'm always on the lookout for new ideas and saving. I googled 'frualities' and came up with this blog. It has some interesting reading and ideas. Some of the ideas are things that we've previously discussed on this website, but with maybe a little spin. I like that she shares some of her recipes. I've always felt that a 'frugal cookbook' of how-to's would work wonders for people. Not everyone has the experience to be able to throw a little of this and a little of that together. Explicit instructions are better. Here is a link that might be useful: Blog