Acting frugally can be a drag for some. For me, it’s fun. Every once and awhile something reminds me how much I enjoy finding ways to earn more money, save some money, or eke more value out of something I already own. Here are a few of my favorite (frugal) things from the past few weeks.

• The thrill of rolling change. About twice a year I’ll do a loose-change scavenger hunt around my house, and scrape together enough coins to make the coin-collecting worth my time. I’ll usually roll those coins and bring them to the bank to either make a deposit or get some crisp greenbacks in return. I just discovered that there is a Coinstar machine at my local grocery store, which can benefit me in two ways. One, if I want to convert my loose change to a store gift card, I’ll save myself the Coinstar fee. And, two, I’ll save myself time by not having to roll my coins.
• Turning t-shirts into paper towels. I have to admit it–like my coffee addiction, I’ve been having a hard time giving up my paper towel addiction. I’ve started slowly, by changing which paper towels we buy. We prefer the Marcal Small Steps, which are made from recycled paper and cost the same as “regular” paper towels, so that at least we’re using a greener choice. But to be totally frugal, we should really give up paper towels all together (sorry, Marcal!). Which is why I spent an hour or so this past weekend cutting up old t-shirts into paper towel-sized rags. I hope that the next time I need to wipe something up, I’ll reach for the rag instead of the paper towel.
• Making money on something I would normally give away. I’ve become a HUGE fan of PaperBackSwap and BookMooch for giving away books my kids no longer want–and getting books, for free, that I want to read. However, recently I decided to sell some of my daughter’s books on eBay–mostly because we had an entire set and that set new was selling on Amazon.com for over $100. Well, the eBay sale was a huge success, netting me $57 in my PayPal account, money I almost didn’t earn because I was going to give the books away for free.
• Using elbow grease to save some money. One of the ways that we’re keeping our home renovation project affordable is doing some of the demoing ourselves. This way the contractors don’t have to do the work–and don’t have to charge us for it. This past weekend my husband and I demoed the upstairs bathroom, including taking out a cast-iron tub (we had to smash it to bits with a sledgehammer first to get it out the door), removing the vanity and toilet, and pulling up the floor. We also took out all of the Sheetrock/wallboard, and now the room is down to the studs. When construction is finished, that bathroom will have a new toilet, two sinks, and a shower stall–along with a new floor and new wallboard, natch. But by doing our DIY demo, we saved the contractor’s a day of work and ourselves a couple thousand dollars in labor, I’ll bet.

In a future post I’m sure I can list a few of my other favorite frugal things. But what about you? What are some of your favorite frugal things?