I have several locations throughout the garden where I feed the birds and I originally purchased two coconut shells filled with suet/seeds for £1.50 each. Hanging from tree branches the birds will come and eat them clean:
It seemed a waste to keep on throwing out the spent coconut shells and buying new ones so instead I reuse them by placing one and a half suet balls in the microwave for 1 minute (remove wrapped in a towel as it can be hot to the touch) then flatten off with a spoon. The cost of filling the coconut is now only 10p in comparison to £1.50. The birds will eat two fully laden coconuts per week, so over the course of a year I’ve saved myself £145.60. Please feel welcome to share other money saving tips
Buy a dog shock collar, put it around your neck and connect to a GPS then set to give you a shock every time you get within 100 metres of a Naim dealer. Drastic but effective I expect.
I’d use some Google API which triggers the dog collar either on geolocation or online purchases.
Oh what a fun school assignment would this have been. I would have enjoyed creating flow diagrams. But no, all we got were state transition diagram assignments for elevators.
And I thought it was just me. I’ve done this for some time now and don’t find I need to use a microwave. I use the softer suet fat balls (some fat balls are too hard and just crumble) and press two or three into the shell. Like you say, the birds love them but the woodpeckers do leave a mess on the floor which is soon dealt with by the ground feeders.
Here’s my tip. My mother-in-law was all set to replace her composite front door because of the severe unsightly fading after six or seven years of weathering. A quick web search led me to a product called ‘Polytrol’ and the reviews looked positive. I treated the door yesterday and the result was incredible. I reckon a saving of a few hundred pounds for a couple of hours work.
It’s nice to hear that you’re helping out those that are not as informed as yourself. From my understanding, I assume that you applied it to a non-white composite door, did you use brush application or spray can?
I used a brush, left it for 20 minutes then wiped it down with a cloth. And yes, it was a dark brown door. I didn’t take photos but the customer images from the reviews on the river site matched my results.
While I’m here, this is another tip that saves me hundreds £ per year. I’ve been using my local library for ebooks and audiobooks during lockdown. I also found out that they use the ‘Libby’ app for magazines, with a choice of over 1200 (UK) magazines to subscribe to , all for nowt. Every month I get to read the current hifi, music, guitar, motorcycle, computer and science mags of my choice. The only problem is getting the time to fit them all in, but as a recent retiree I think I’m getting there.
Wishing you a lovely retirement. You may also like to consider the advanced offerings from Gtechniq to protect surfaces from exposure to the rays of the sun and the elements
