Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday!  This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which have changed as we've proceeded. (As things have settled down to a nice steady conversational pace, for example, I've deleted the rules about only one tip per person per week and about limiting the length of comments; I was worried early on about people flooding the forum with too much too fast, but I think we're past that risk.)

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

Plant Pests

[prayergardens]

We had a bit of a fungus gnat outbreak on the houseplants, starts and microgreens. I initially thought they were aphids, which I've never had before, but they are definitely tiny flies and the internet says they are fungus gnats.

I can confirm that a plate with maple syrup or honey next to the infected areas will draw them in and stick them. The maple syrup seems to be outperforming the honey but they are both working! Oddly, my half boiled maple sap is outperforming both honey and full maple syrup, I don't know why!

Re: Plant Pests

[(Anonymous)]

With houseplants, putting sand on the surface of the soil works well for me. (Seedlings are too small for that to be effective for them.)

Ochre Shabby Sea Serpent

Load Shedding

[degringolade]

I think that folks here ought to take time to develop a plan/system for frugality in energy sources. I am going through the process of developing a minimalist approach when looking at my electricity uses.

While collapse is not in the cards anytime soon (IMHO) I think that the costs of energy will be skyrocketing in the none-too distant future. Most everyone who reads this section of our gracious host’s online presence are already on the path of reduction, but I think that the costs of your electrical energy is going to be going up in the none-too-distant future.

Most of your electrical use can be evaluated pretty easily with your electrical bill. I am making an attempt to drop my use to below 200 kWH per month. That is simple enough, but thus far I haven’t succeeded.

I am also using the time to work out the means of keeping things together in the unlikely (but increasingly worrisome) possibility that there will be more demand than supply of utility-type electricity in our future here in the land of the free. Now, should this kind of thing occur, one of the standard tactics of the powers that be is “load shedding”. This is the polite phrase for “rolling blackouts”.

I am in the process of figuring out a backup to the wall plugs that power the bulk of my day-to-day. Low power LED lamps, some rechargeable battery packs, a small solar cell. It doesn’t have to be much to provide a basic tier of needs (Cell Phone, led lights, a cheap laptop, etc) I think that you will find that will get you by.

A lot of frugality is about changing your threshold for comfort and convenience. It is my thought that the wall plug is, for many things, a means of providing comfort and convenience and when you talk about frugality, it is the reduction of those very things.

I don’t have a twitter account. But one of the aggregator sites that I read during my morning coffee had this post highlighted today. It is worth a read and a thought.

https://twitter.com/shagbark_hick/status/1783472105142530508?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1783472105142530508%7Ctwgr%5E26c4211d36bc98d185fa6e50ac2ec77705742739%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F04%2Flinks-4-26-2024.html

Re: Load Shedding

[claire_58]

I couldn't agree more.

I just bought myself a Cobb cooker. https://www.cobbgrillamerica.com/products/cobb-premier-air-kitchen-in-a-box or https://mycobb.ca/products/kitchen-in-a-box (Not frugal, sorry, but I will be reducing my dependance on the electric stove and increasing our comfort since cooking outdoors keeps the house cooler.)

It's a charcoal "grill" that was developed in Africa and it can be used to grill, fry, bake, stew, roast and steam and . . .(did I leave anything out?)

We have started making our own charcoal/bio-char in our wood stove. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxBUqk2M3Y8&t=294s
Although I did buy some briquettes to get me through the learning curve.

Charcoal cooking is relatively smokeless. Charcoal is a stable, non-volatile, renewable solid fuel that is easy to store and briquettes are still relatively affordable. There are lots of YouTube videos of people cooking on the Cobb and a few clever people have figured out ways to quench the briquettes to reduce fuel consumption.

Since it just arrived I can't give a proper review. I'm making corn bread and chili con carne tonight. Wish me luck.

Re: Load Shedding

[michele7]

Wow! You are super ambitious with 200 kWh a month usage. I live in Florida and my summer goal is always less than 1000 kWh per billing period. We have our own well, so no water bill but the pump uses electricity. You have me thinking how I can reduce our electric use even more. In the summer, I check our daily electric usage and adjust what we do that uses electricity accordingly. What gets me is almost 35% of our electric bill is all the surcharges and tacked on fees.

Re: Load Shedding

[(Anonymous)]

Well, what types of things are you running off of electricity ? Is it your hot water and also space heat ? Heating things is the most energy consumptive use of electricity. Also, how big is your place and how many people ? My student renter, in her unit, never uses as much electricity as that and all her hot water and space heating is electric. Well, on average. She had one month of 178kWh, and one of 260kWH, the rest are all under 100kWh. Her unit is well insulated and of modest size, which helps alot if you have to heat with electricity.

My usage is much lower than hers, but I heat with wood for space heat. I cook food and heat hot water with electric. It turns out the electric hot water usage stays low if you dont use a bunch with showering. I take a hot shower once a week and clean in a sink bath daily. I do hand wash dishes with hot water, but washing dishes by hand does not use much hot water realy.

So, my used, standard energy star refrigerator is rated at under 365Kwh a year, so lets say 1kWh a day, 30kWh a month, on average, higher in summer, lower in winter in reality as my house is warmer than 70'F inside in summer ! I got rid of the air conditioners when I bought the place and just get hot in the summer, that cut alot of electricity useage.

Anyways, there are lots of tips but you need to say what things in your house run off of electricity. In general, it isnt such a big deal of type of computer or light so much as how much they are used. But sometimes that is easy to change of course. You realy need to look at if you use electric to heat house, water and if you use airconditioning. ANd if your cook stove is electric, there are lots of tips that have been written about here to keep that usage down ( I also have an electric stove)(

Atmospheric River

Re: Load Shedding

[mistyfriday]

Most of the load shedding schemes I've seen talk about 15 minute to 2 hour outages, though in a utility's first run usually ends up being longer.

The first thing I worry about in a blackout is my refrigerator and freezer. There are several strategies I use to mitigate the occasional power outage.

1) Fill the bottom of the freezer with water bottles to help regulate temperature. The added thermal mass will reduce cold loss when the door is opened (lower power usage overall) and help keep everything frozen during outages.

2) Keep both the fridge and freezer mostly full, use water bottles to fill unused space (same thermal mass idea.) This provides the added bonus of having emergency water on hand in case of boil notices that often accompany pump station power loss.

3) Create a thaw Guage for the freezer. Freeze water in an airtight vessel and place a heavy object, like a coin, on top of the frozen water. The airtightness is necessary to remove evaporative loss. Place it somewhere visible when the door is opened. This way you'll have an easy indication if your freezer items have thawed.

Re: Load Shedding

[(Anonymous)]

a lot of people tend to overlook some of the big (and important) users of electricity in the house.
Fridge/freezer, warm water, heating and cooking. You can put in all the LED lighting you want, but it is not going to make a difference.
There are alternatives for warm water, heating and cooking (see JMG's reply), of course, fridge/freezer is trickier and actually hard/not easy to run off something other than line power (motor startup is the problem here).
It might be worth investing in a small power meter (they are maybe $20?) to see which items in your household how much power. Some like microwave and hair dryer can use quite a bit of power in a relatively short time. Only matters if you use them often enough though :-)
Good habits can make a difference, turn off lights and heating you don't need, items you don't use (search "power vampires")

Battery Disconnect for an Old Electrically Leaky Vehicle

[dr_coyote]

My 25 yo pickup truck developed a “leak” in its electrical system. Not a lot, only about an amp of draw. Not enough that you’d notice if driven every day, but if it sat for a week it’d have a dead battery. Pretty much impossible to track this little draw down. Discussing with the guy at the auto parts store, he recommended a battery disconnect ($8) over a new wiring harness ($1000+, plus installation). It’s two lead lugs that hook together with a single screw knob. One lug goes on the battery’s positive terminal, the other lug goes on the battery cable. Hook it together to drive, unhook it to let the truck sit.

Is it perfect? No, I have to manually tune the radio every time I re-connect the battery because it’s forgotten the station I left it on. That’s about the only side-effect. After that one little quibble, it helps to keep a wire “toothbrush” around to dust the oxide coating off every month or so — otherwise, starting can be a little balky. For $8 vs. $1000+ it’s an affordable solution.

Re: Battery Disconnect for an Old Electrically Leaky Vehicle

[(Anonymous)]

Another option is a small battery-keeper that has a solar cell. It keeps a trickle of power going into the battery to keep it topped off, but not a lot so shouldn't overcharge it. I guess the disadvantage is needing to hook it up to the battery each time you leave the truck. Search for "solar battery maintainer". The upside is that for a modern car, you might need to constantly enter a code to unlock the radio with the battery disconnect approach.

Just 2cents.

Boston

Re: Battery Disconnect for an Old Electrically Leaky Vehicle

[(Anonymous)]

That radio is one of your "leaks". Try pulling the radio fuse and see if your problem goes away. There could also be a clock, an on star type gizmo drawing power. Do youbhave a good battery?

Re: Battery Disconnect for an Old Electrically Leaky Vehicle

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. Your other option is to pay someone to diagnose it and the number of mechanics that can do that competently aren't that many. And there's a very good chance an incompetent mechanic will screw it up even worse. So, yeah, if you don't know anyone with a reputation for being competent, pay the $8 and live with it.

Even if you can get it diagnosed accurately, it could very well turn out to be some computer module that's failing and to get it replaced can get either difficult to find or expensive or both. Bonus if the module is really buried in the dash and he has to spend 8 hours to take the dash apart and put it back together.

Look on the bright side, cars have gotten hopelessly more complicated than they were 25 years ago.

Do you live in road salt country?

Re: Battery Disconnect for an Old Electrically Leaky Vehicle

[(Anonymous)]

Another term for a "leak" is a high impedance fault. One way to try to track it down is to turn the truck off, disconnect the battery, pull a fuse and test with a electrical meter for continuity between the fuse contacts and the frame of the vehicle. Replace the fuse, move to the next one, and repeat the process until you've gone through all of them. If you find any circuits that have continuity write down which one it was and the ohm reading. Now you have a list of which circuits to investigate.

It is likely being caused by a wire with a damaged jacket that is laying or pressed against something conductive, but it could also be caused by a component that has failed. The way to verify that the wiring is good is to disconnect the device from the circuit and verify that the positive wire is electrically isolated from the frame and that the negative wire has a low impedance path to the vehicle frame.

If you find a positive wire with continuity to the frame you'll need to trace it back to locate the fault. Tracing the wire back is a tedious task. There is a device called a tone generator that can help, but with a high impedance fault all it will really do is help you identify the correct wire as you do a visual inspection.

When you locate where the wire is damaged try to figure out how that damaged occurred. This will help you decide the best way to repair it. Example if it was heat or road debris that damaged it you may want to extend the wire to take a safer path, if the damage was caused by a failed bushing you'll want to replace the bushing, if it was pinched by too tight of a zip tie make sure to avoid over tightening the new one. After you have repaired the wire retest the circuit from the fuse box to verify the fault is cleared.

A fault in a device is beyond a simple write-up and I would recommend either just pulling the fuse for a non-vital component or replacing the device.

Good luck.

Psoriasis

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Frugalistas,
I know a young lady in our village. She has a bright smile and is a good worker so I was very surprised to find she has a back injury that is so painful that she only gets two or three hours of sleep a day. I gave her some Saint John's Wort cream to try on the nerve pain. I went to check on her a week later and she was delighted with the Saint John's Wort cream I made for her. She said her psoriasis, which she was born with, was 50% better after a couple of applications of the cream.

Rosemary Gladstar does say Saint John's Wort is sovereign for every injury to the skin. My young lady added that the cream had made her back pain go from unmanageable to manageable.

Now, she has a friend who has recently developed psoriasis and gave her some of the cream to try and she loves it too. It had a profound healing effect on her psoriasis.

We are in Canada where both women have access to Doctors and prescription medication. The medication is very expensive. My young lady has tried all the medical treatments available for her psoriasis and nothing has helped. The steroid cream just made her skin thinner while having
no effect at all on the psoriasis.

To make this cream, I harvest Saint John's wort flowers just before they open and grind them up. I add some to olive oil and some to alcohol such as vodka. I let both steep in a warm, sunny place for 4 to 6 weeks. Then, I put a cup of the oil in a double boiler with 1/4 cup grated beeswax and melt the wax. I cool the bowl of oil overnight and the next day, use the eggbeater to whip a cup of the tincture into the oil. I add nine drops of bitter orange essential oil and that is it.

I really like Rosemary Gladstar's book Herbal Medicine, a Beginner's Guide but I am sure there are lots of good books out there.

Maxine

Re: Psoriasis

[milkyway1]

Hi Maxine,

Thanks for this! Do you have a rough idea how much flowers you add to how much oil/alcohol?

And do you grind up the flowers while they are still fresh, or do you grind them dried?

Thanks,

Milkyway

Re: Psoriasis

[claire_58]

This is perfect Maxine. Thank you.
I've been wanting to make salves. I'm going to try it with calendula and maybe plantain. I have an abundance of both growing here. I'll have to get out to collect some St. John's wort in June too. It's a wonderful herb.

Re: Psoriasis

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for this! I used to get St. John's Wort for my back injury pain and it really helped, but the seller went out of business. (The other thing that has really helped my back pain is the exercises in the Pain Free series of books. I have the one called "Pain Free at Your PC," but they're a series and libraries often have one of them. The books have a section called "Exercises for people in pain," which are good core-strengthening exercises. I found them surprisingly difficult at first, but over time they really helped.)

Do you (or anyone reading) have any advice for growing St. John's Wort? I got some seeds for a nice variety, but I read you need to start them in the fall. Any other tips?

Ochre Shabby Sea Serpent

cat pee, the epilogue

[mskrieger]

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with tips about removing teenage male cat pee stench.

It turns out that the smell is not as impossible to remove as I had thought...the real issue was that we had misidentified the perpetrator. A cat we thought was female was actually a boy. He was so fuzzy we could not see his balls.

(Go ahead and judge me.)

Everything (and the cat) has been fixed.

--Ms. Krieger

PS Nature's Miracle added to laundry or a carpet shampooer is great. I don't care about shelling out. Highly recommended.

Dish scrubbies

[michele7]

Back in the 90s, I was living in Japan. There was a fad of crocheting your own dish scrubby from polyester yarn. IIRC this was supposed to be more sustainable as the scrubbies were long lasting and supposedly you didn't need dish soap to get your dishes clean. Fast forward a few decades, my Scotch Brite like generic dish sponge kicked the bucket and I just didn't feel like buying anymore. I dug out some scrubbies I had crocheted ages ago and was pleasantly surprised how nice they were to use. I splurged and bought some scrubby special yarn from Red Heart and made a bunch more. This yarn has a rougher texture. They are so nice to use! Soft and wash up well in the washing machine. You could use cotton yarn also, but the cotton yarn washcloths I knitted stretch out upon getting wet. Here is the pattern I used. I crocheted two and stitched them together to make a sturdier scrubby. Am I saving money? Not sure. I got 9 scrubbies out of 1 1/2 skeins of Red Heart Scrubby yarn. Can you use any polyester yarn? Yes!

https://www.yarnspirations.com/products/red-heart-circle-scrubby?_pos=5&_psq=scrubb&_ss=e&_v=1.0

Re: Dish scrubbies

[(Anonymous)]

Well, there's a use for that 70s acrylic yarn - so scratchy you can't wear it, but so hardy it'll survive the apocalypse!

On cats and their many uses

[gnosticlombe]

Been having trouble with a skunk bedding down against my house my house for warmth then getting spooked and spraying in the middle of the night.

I’d had luck with some a small bit of waste litter as a mice deterrent and can happily report the same cleared up the skunk issue. (Only a small amount is needed-the predator scent will make them try to avoid the area)

Tortilla making revisited, with pictures

[open_space]

I've been making a lot of things with dough. Thanks JMG and forumistas!

Of course being me, tortillas and related products are my favorite so here are a few tips to make them soft and spongy on one side and crispy on the other as well as how to store them properly. I shared a way of doing them before, but I have changed a few things.

And and huge thank you to the commenter that told me about other types of masa harina. Not having a "molino" close by and Maseca being my only alternative (don't buy their blue masa harina, it's not blue corn, it's blue dye. You can tell if you squeeze a few drops of lime on a tortilla, if it's real, in a few minutes it should change colors to a pink/purple tone, if it doesn't, its fake.) it is a huge improvement.

I found a brand called Masienda and they have all the classic four types of maize: red, white, blue and yellow and works very well.

On to the procedure. To make 10 tortillas put a cup of flour on a bowl. Fill a cup of warm water and add it to the mix bit by bit and knead it on the bowl until it stops being sticky and feels a little bit like playdough. Make a small of dough and press it, if the edges don't crack too much then it is properly hydrated. Then let it rest for at least 20 minutes covered, use a damp cloth if its hot where you live.

Make small golf balls of dough and press them thin with a press or two pans or so. With a pan on medium high seer each side for about 15 seconds or so when the color starts changing as the picture and flip it for 15 seconds and flip it again until it rises or for about 45 seconds to a minute.

To store them let them cool a little bit and wrap them on a cloth and put them inside a baggie on the fridge, they should last for a week. The inside of the tortilla is the one that is charred and a little rugged.

I'll put the picture in the comments

Re: Tortilla making revisited, with pictures

[degringolade]

I just started using masa harina. So far I am just experimenting with it in cornbread and I like it better than cornmeal for that.

But, back to tortillas, can you use instant for this kind of thing?

Making Masa from Posole

[(Anonymous)]

I recommend Bob's Red Mill for masa harina.

To make your own masa from dry corn kernels, you will need:
Dry field corn kernels, which can be found in many colors and heritage varieties.
Alakli. I use Mrs. Wage's Pickling Lime, but baking soda also works.
Water.

Weigh out one pound of corn kernels into a large pot of water. Add one level tablespoon of pickling lime. Simmer on low for an hour, cover and let sit over night.

Drain and rinse well under running water for several minutes. Or, fill the pot with water, swirl the kernels to rinse, drain off the water and repeat.

Now you have posole. Posole can either be added to soup (to make a soup called posole) or ground into masa. I use the food grinder on my Kitchen Aid, but go ahead and use a stone metate if you like.

Now you are at the stage of having rehydrated masa harina ready to make tortillas. A mathematician would say that you have reduced it to a previously solved problem.

Dry corn is available in far more flavorful and colorful variations than masa harina. Green tortillas, red tortillas, the generic mauve of blue corn tortillas. I have a batch which was mostly deep yellow corn with some red kernels from a backyard breeding project and it makes lovely tortillas.

Simmering and soaking the corn in alkali is called nixtimalization, from a Náhuatl root word which also gives us "tamale". Nixtamalization changes the nutritional profile, which prevents contracting pellagra from a high corn diet.

Raphanus

Re: Making Masa from Posole

[open_space]

You know, it never occurred to me that I could make my own nixtamal with a food grinder! Nor that you could get pellagra from eating too much un-nixtamalized corn. What I know is that the process adds minerals and makes some of the compounds of the kernel to become available for absorption in digestion as you mention.

Now that you mentioned pozole, I saw cacahuazintle corn the other day on the mexican grocery store so might as well make some. Its what gives it is name, when you do the process you describe the kernel loses its outer husk and when cooked they flower inside out looking "foamy", which is what "tlapozonalli" means --never thought of it but tamales are quite fluffy too.

gathering for herbal tea

[(Anonymous)]

This is still a good time to start gathering leaves to dry for herbal teas. Yes, these are not just for taste but have medicinal values. In general, pick the new or early season leaves if you can, but if you need more take older ones too. Lay out in a single layer to dry, on a cookie sheet, a clean bed sheet on the floor, a paper grocery bag cut open and laid flat. Idealy dont heat too high while drying, but you can put next to the woodstove, next to your heater, but not in direct full blast heat. In the sun or partial sun too. Drying wont take long, then store in a glass jar with a lid. Try not to forget to label, because when you have a cold and need them, you may not be able to smell which is which

Lemon Balm. This comes back every year, it is a perennial, it may die back in winter, but will then come back, I have had some come back after being mown down, but dont tempt fate too much. I dry some for hot tea uses, but also use fresh in water in the summer. Mine is just getting large enough in new growth, after being dormant and dead above ground from winter, for me to be able to start harvesting some to use as dried leaves

Blackberry leaves. This is a new one for me. I was very happy and surprised to learn that blackberry leaves( and various other berry leaves) have as much antioxidents and vitamin C as the berries. Very health promoting to have in a tea in the winter. I just did my first small test drying of some, it dried very quickly. This is a great find as I do have alot of blackberry leaves popping up all over. There are also various health issues helped by blackberry leaf.

Mints, of course. My mint isnt far enough along yet to harvest, but soon will be enough new growth, another month or two. I have spearmint, my peppermint was lost int he fire, but I was given a few starts of a peppermint variation I need to plant out, so if it survvives, I will have more variety.

Other plants you may be able to grow, lemon grass in mild winter areas, various mints, raspberry leaf, nettle leaf, chamomile flowers, strawberry leaf, blueberry leaf, elder berry leaf. Look at what is in your area, look up if it is safe and has uses.

Citrus peel is also good dried and added to tea mixes. Or, whole slices of citrus fruit, slice and this should be dried with a dehydrator. My daughter gifted me with dehydrated lemon slices she purchased, and I just put one in a cup, poured boiling water over it, let it steep and added honey. Very nice.

I often keep my herbs separate and then mix at the time to what I need. Like if I want plain lemon and honey, nice and hot when I lost my voice after Christmas. Or last week with cold sores and bad allergies, some fresh lemon balm and dried nettles.

I think you can easily look up maladies the various herbal teas are good for, so I wont give you any medical advice. And, all the ones I mentioned can just be used in general for flavor and general health when not actively ill. Who doesnt like a cup of mint tea ? Hot in wnter, iced in summer.

Atmospheric River

Re: gathering for herbal tea

[(Anonymous)]

Also onion peels make a nourishing beverage. One caution, I would not do this with peels from non organic produce for pretty obvious reasons. But, the possibility of using said peels might make the higher price for organics worthwhile for those who can afford them. Mary Bennett

[(Anonymous)]

I want to be energy efficient and use my Crock Pot to make beef stew. But my Crock Pot never gets hotter than about 250 degrees F, which isn't hot enough to break down the tissues in beef to make it tender. I want to cook the beef at something closer to 300 degrees F. Would it work to wrap my Crock Pot up in cotton terry towels to insulate it and make it hotter inside while it's cooking? Or is that a fire risk? Has anyone ever tried this?

Might you be able

[(Anonymous)]

to par cook your stew on the stove top, bringing it to a boil, maybe boil for a minute or so, and then carefully transfer the stew to the crock pot. There is a reason I regard funnels as one of the most useful of kitchen tools. Or what about marinating the beef chunks first? I know that is what many barbecuers do.

Late to the party

[jerry_d]

jmg -- nice coop picture -- are there plans with this? In about 5 years I may need a new coop and this looks eminently buildable :)

thx

Jerry D

Re: Late to the party

[ecosophia]

Good question. I simply did a search online for chicken coop pictures!