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

Rabbits

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Everyone,
I keep rabbits for meat and they are very quiet, they provide great manure for the garden and a pair of does and a buck can provide a great deal of meat for the table. They are easy enough for children and small people to work with. Anyone with even a scrap of a garden can have some rabbits. They kept everyone in Europe and Britain going in the Second World War as they could be produced at home with just hay, grass, vegetables and a little ration of oats.

I got a couple we are friendly with raising rabbits and they say now that rabbit is what they most commonly eat. With the price of groceries being high and I believe it will go higher still, it makes sense to not be dependent on grocery stores for everything. Also, rabbit is a very fine and nutritious protein. I have kept rabbits for over a decade and wouldn't be without them.

All you need is a little garden shed to keep prying eyes and rain off your rabbits. They do not mind cold but cannot abide getting wet. I keep spoiled hay, wood chips of sawdust under my rabbit cages to collect all the nitrogen in their urine. They are a great source of fertilizer.

I know some of you will think this is going to be hard on children in the family but on my little island, a lot of people who were kids in the 1950's and 1960's raised rabbits for the family table and they all seem quite well adjusted.

Food for thought!
Maxine

Re: Rabbits

[fringewood]

I totally agree about the rabbits! We have been raising and eating ours here in Vermont for over a decade as well and they are so easy to care for. Our only problem has been finding other rabbit breeders in the area that aren't raising them for pets. We occasionally need to refresh the colony with new blood. We have found some on Craig's List here in the states. We really like Californias, but have raised New Zealands as well.

We grind and can most of the meat and we love the livers which are sweet and tasty and make great pate. We have been trying to turn our friends onto raising them for years, but they have trouble with the "cute" factor when it comes time to harvest. Chickens, it seems, are not cute. :^)

Rabbits are much easier to harvest, they reproduce and replace themselves and take care of their kits. Their fur can also be used for clothing and blankets in colder climates.

They're also quiet, so rabbit keeping in cities is a possibility.

Lots of plusses.

Re: Rabbits

[methylethyl]

I've been interested in this for some time-- has anybody here raised them in a hot climate, and are there any special considerations for housing, or appropriate breeds, when you have a lot of heat, humidity, and torrential rain?

Re: Rabbits

[prayergardens]

Do you give them access to grass, like in a protected yard? This is a goal for me but I had a neighbor that kept some in a hutch and I just thought they needed some space.

[degringolade]

I think that one of the things that people have to look at is the cost of commenting on a site like this. I will comment now on the first part of this process today and then work through the overall process over the upcoming weeks.

The whole computer business is built around planned obsolescence. They have a business model that wants you to buy a new $1,000 computer and purchase a online service to plug into the programs that you need. A good business model if you are a rich man looking to get richer and there is a considerable market out there whose denizens feel that not having the latest and greatest technology is a signal to their peers that they are no longer cutting edge.
The opportunity for us folks out here in the land of frugal is that the old systems still work just fine. I am typing this on a used lenovo X-220 that I bought over five years ago for $125.00.

IOS Information
Vendor: LENOVO
Version: 8DET69WW (1.39 )
Release Date: 07/18/2013
Address: 0xE0000
Runtime Size: 128 kB
ROM Size: 8 MB

So the computer is eleven years old and still runs just dandy. I stripped the windows 8 off of it and installed a Linux OS and haven’t looked back.

You don’t need a new computer, There are a lot of perfectly functional computers that will literally do everything that you could imagine doing that will cost you a fraction of what you would spend on a new computer.

Linux is free to download. The actual hardware is cheap if you pay attention. This part of the link to cyberworld is quite open to frugality.

[ecosophia]

I'm typing this response on a fifteen-year-old Toshiba Satellite with 4 gig of ROM, running Windows 7. It cost me $100 in 2014 and it's still going strong. There are things I can't do on it, but none of them are things I want to do.

That is to say, you're absolutely right. Running used computers is also good for the environment because it decreases the highly toxic e-waste stream.

[jenniferkobernik]

I wonder if there might be a market for setting up stripped down used computers for people like me who enjoy saving money and want very basic computing capability but dislike tinkering. I know I’ve passed up opportunities on cheap/free computers because they involved phrases like “just replace the…” or “if you run Linux…” at which point I start looking for a nice entertaining phone book to read instead. I’ve also given away nice, slightly broken computers for free because commercial repairs were ridiculously expensive or otherwise discouraged.

[open_space]

If somebody requires the punch, some workplaces have recycling bins where people put the equipment they don't need too and often gets donated or sold for parts. The computer plus two monitors I use as an engineer came from an internal bin like that and runs everything but games smoothly.

Computers

[(Anonymous)]

I got my current laptop for a bottle of rum. I pay $25 Canadian a month for my internet connection. Other people here pay over $100 for the same service. I got a better price by calling up our provider and asking them to cancel my service as it was too expensive. There was some back and forth and I told them they could have $25 a month or nothing. So they agreed.

If they had cancelled my service, I could have spent the $25 buying a coffee at our local café where they have free internet access.

Maxine

cooking small - inside - cooking on the road

[(Anonymous)]

Hi all, Tired21 here,

Next September, I will be traveling, and I have been thinking of how take a hot dinner in a normal hotel room.
I’m not used to alcohol burners, that’s not my first choice indoors. Something that makes almost no smoke. As I’ll have electrical power, I have decided to bring a small sandwich toaster (pie iron), with me. To cook some chicken breast and some cheese or eggplant sandwiches.
I’m planning to use parchment paper to keep the toaster cleaner, you can re-use it quite a few times. I’m also thinking of using the kettle or coffee machine that are usually available in the rooms to just heat the water. Hot water will turn into an easy way of making instant mashed potatoes or some instant cream or soup.
Anyone wants to share their favorite easy recipe for “on the road”.

Re: cooking small - inside - cooking on the road

[(Anonymous)]

PBJ and other no cooking cooking. If you can take a cooler than they'll probably have a fridge if you want to keep some cheese, lunch meat, and stuff for sandwiches, or carrot sticks and hummus for snacking. Instacup of ramen sounds good, like you mentioned with the coffee maker.

Justin Patrick Moore

Re: cooking small - inside - cooking on the road

[weilong]

I carry a small thermos bottle and some rolled oats. Put the oats into the bottle with piping hot water before bed, and you'll have cooked oatmeal for breakfast when you wake up. You can pre-mix the oats with salt, sugar, raisins, etc. if you like.

Re: cooking small - inside - cooking on the road

[open_space]

Quesadillas and sicronizadas for sure. Two flour tortillas a light cheese, ham in the middle and on to the sandwich toaster.

Tsampas, thought they require prep, last forever and you can take a small box with them, they are filling.
Sprouts, moong bean and lentil sprouts. Nutritious and require nothing but a container with water and fast to make.
Bananas and soaked peanuts. Soak peanuts overnight, next morning rub them gently to get some of the skin off. They taste like a completely different thing and are very good for you. I like to eat these with bananas, some other nuts and honey.

To last week's underwear gurus: Thanks!

[methylethyl]

To everybody who responded to my late query in last week's FF: Thanks! I'm sifting through those resources and tips and there's a lot of helpful there.

Re: To last week's underwear gurus: Thanks!

[claire_58]

You're very welcome.
I had another thought about using a bias cut on woven fabric. That would give it a little stretch. I have some scraps from a bias slip/nightie I made in a light weight cotton a few years ago. I'm going to give it a try once spring planting is mostly done. I'll let you know how it goes.

bone broth

[michele7]

Don't feel like you have to limit your bone broth to one type of bones. Ramen restaurants often mix pork, chicken and fish parts to make their broths. I have mixed beef and chicken bones to make a lovely bone broth. Sometimes I add apple peels along with the typical veggies when making bone broth. The broth doesn't taste like apples, but I figure it adds some vitamins.

Re: bone broth

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like the kind of mischievous housewife that would slip in some mashed banana into a sweet potato casserole, just to see if anyone notices.

Tips for dealing with cucumber moth larvae/pickle worms?

[(Anonymous)]

I am currently a couple months into a little backyard garden project (live in North Central Florida so spring hit over a month ago) and in the last week or so my cucumber plants have been besieged with cucumber moth caterpillars. I've been dealing with them by physically inspecting the plants and manually squishing the voracious bastards with some success but they seem to do most of their dirty work at night.

Not totally opposed to pesticides but would prefer not to go that route if I can avoid it as it appears that most of the ones that work will also kill helpful bugs as well.

Also worth noting, have tried, with some success, using Neem oil and somewhat soapy water to ward off some sort of mite or aphid from my bell peppers. Unfortunately this route seems to have pushed the plants into a perpetual state of adolescence, meaning lots of vertical growth but no flowering. So hesitant to try it on the cucumbers.

Any tips/insights would be much appreciated!

Re: Tips for dealing with cucumber moth larvae/pickle worms?

[methylethyl]

My go-to is a bit of Dr. Bronner's soap in a spray bottle of water. Works for aphids, anyway. But not all plants are equally tolerant of it. Radishes were fine with being soaped up, but the sunflowers they dripped on were not so happy about it, and got some scorchy looking bits on the leaves. Anything you use, maybe test it out on a couple leaves first, before you douse half the plant.

FWIW I've just never had any luck with cukes (panhandle here). Bugs get em. Growing stuff here is all about finding stuff that tolerates growing here, and sticking with that. Tends to be pest resistant stuff generally.

One thing you can do that helps with caterpillars is plant climbing green beans (I've had good luck with the asparagus beans and the long ones with the red speckles on the pods), and/or passionflower vine. Those both have weird little nodes on them that attract wasps. I know, not everybody loves wasps, and you shouldn't plant them next to your front door, or on your porch railing (did that, regretted it), BUT once the wasps come around, they'll spend all day patrolling your garden for bugs and caterpillars. They kidnap them and haul them back to the nest to feed their babies. The more wasps I have, the fewer obvious pestilential bugs I get. Since I started growing vines that attract them, I've only been stung once, when I accidentally grabbed one on the porch railing (again, don't plant them there!). Otherwise they are not aggressive, for all that they look scary. They made me nervous at first, but now I enjoy watching them make their rounds. Like little garden guard dogs.

OK John.

[(Anonymous)]

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

Common sense!

-A Spaniard.

Re: OK John.

[methylethyl]

--I had just composed a garden reply when I scanned that and read it as:

"don't compost anything that would amount to criminal activity..."

Part of me is still wondering what constitutes criminal composting.

Potpourri

[frittermywig]

Hi all! I'm in early stages on the Way of the Golden Section, and for various reasons can't use incense on my altar. Pricing commercial potpourri was a shock. Any advice for frugal, homemade potpourri? Thanks!

Re: Potpourri

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure if this will be helpful and I'm not familiar with the requirements of the Golden Section but I make pot pourri from herbs and spices that I have around for other things. I keep a jar in the loo for a bit of background pleasant scent. I stir it or shake it when I leave the room and replace it when it doesn't smell much any more. So it hardly costs me anything but I do already have these herbs and spices in.

Dry rose petals when you find fragrant ones -- spread petals out in a dry place out of sunshine and check regularly until dry, then store in a jar with a lid.

Dry lavender (/L. angustifolia/) flowerheads just before they open, pick stems and hang in a paper bag upside down in a dry warmish corner.

Mint leaves can be harvested and dried in a similar way, as can thyme and rosemary.

Can you get (Ceylon) cinnamon quills -- these can be crushed between fingers.

Star anise is good too.

Do you have any gum incense like frankincense? Add some grains of these to the pot pourri jar.

Cold brewed Tea

[executedbygandhi]

Cold brewed tea is an excellent alternative to soft drinks. Not only are they much cheaper. Instead of ruining your health, you are actually doing something for it. In Japan, this is a popular summer drink.

I take a 1 liter thermos flask for work and fill it with cold tap water. Then I take a metal tea filter and put about 3-4 teaspoons of green tea in it and pour it into the flask. To make the drink even fresher, I add a few dashes of lemon or lime juice. Mint also works well. I leave the bottle in the fridge overnight and take it to work in the morning.

Re: Cold brewed Tea

[(Anonymous)]

I love sun tea also, or cold brew.

I like hibiscus herbal tea, and I do put in a glass pitcher or jar out in the sun for at least half a day, and then refrigerate. 2 tea bags to a quart of water if you use hot water or put out in the sun.


Lemon Zinger, made by Celestial Seasonings is also good or any fruity herb tea or one of the other ZInger flavors

I also use fresh garden herbs like mints or lemin balm, but use alot of fresh product

Atmospheric River

Repair Cafes

[escorcher]

I've just finished a shift at my local repair cafe.

They are great for community and attempting to prolong the life of all sorts of items. Today that included a 58 year old electric shaver, sharpening of numerous garden cutters and textiles/clothes repairs. The beauty of these events is the chance for the person bringing the item to learn something about the repair process.
And there's always good cake too. Lemon drizzle today was my favourite:)
More idea on what they are here, but these guys represent only the tip of the iceberg as many repair cafes run independently, including my local ones: https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/
Ifixit have been very generous in supplying us specialised tools and are a great resource for repair guidance and manuals, particularly for electricals: https://www.ifixit.com/

Dandelions

[prayergardens]

Even though the season is almost over, dandelions are a handy plant, as any herbalist knows. I let them run wild in my garden in the spring so I can harvest them.

This year, I saved and dried the yellow heads and leaves for winter chicken feed supplement. When they are young, I will put the leaves in a salad, but the older and bigger ones I save for the ladies.

I harvested by hand so I didn't get a lot of roots. I think I will look into lifting them up with a garden fork next year so I can save and roast the roots for tea.

The intact white seed heads are excellent to save in a jar and can be gifted throughout the year with a cute label "Wishes" to kids.

I do have one note of caution though. I can't prove this but one year I put the yellow heads in oil to steep and then applied it to my dry skin. I believe this raised my blood pressure a crazy amount. At the time, I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something and even went to the hospital. I can't think of anything else it could have been except the dandelion oil so I stay clear of consuming the yellow heads myself in lotions, salves or even dandelion wine. It's a potent medicinal one way or another. YMMV.

Re: Dandelions

[kimberlysteele]

Here is some of the best info I have found on dandelions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1lYtk16UMQ

The flower is the healthiest part of the plant -- it has 160x the polyphenols as the other parts of the plant (like the root).

[robertmathiesen]

I just saw a telling post on one of the blogs I regularly follow. The blogger, Andrei Martyanov, lives in America and is elderly, but he grew up in Russia and is a Russian ex-military man. Usually he posts on the current state of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, but uncharacteristically he just posted a link to how Americans managed to feed themselves during the Great Depression:

https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/05/kent-rollins-advice.html

He ends his post with "we should view all that as a steady decline of America's standard of living which is absolutely tangible with the inflation making serious inroads into the grocery prices, especially for people who are in low-paying jobs or unemployed altogether."

As I said, it is a telling post.

[(Anonymous)]

Martynov is welcome to go back to Russia. Way back to Russia, to a rural village far from Moscow and St Petersburg. He can enjoy the standard of living there. Lots of Americans are in recession mode, but it is a far cry from the poor Russian boys who looted toilets from Ukrainian villages to take home as war trophies.

Saving money on soda

[(Anonymous)]

Most sodas are bad for you. And the ones that aren't are more expensive than the big brands. Like $1 a can expensive. But what if you still want something fizzy to drink?

You can drink bottled seltzer water instead, not only is it healthier, it's also cheaper.

But you can take this several steps further. There's a product called sodastream, if you do the math, it's even cheaper than commercial seltzer. Make your own soda water on demand. But those sodastream CO2 cylinders are sold at near ripoff prices. They set the price of them so they are just a little cheaper than buying the canned seltzer water but they are collecting quite the premium.

If you buy a sodastream to CG320 adapter (Big Slimy River has a few), you can start getting your CO2 from the local industrial welding supply store. They will sell you twice as much CO2 for about 1/2 the price. And a 5lb CO2 cylinder will last you several months.

Stuffed Dates

[kimberlysteele]

I have trouble with craving sugar, especially in the summer. Lately I have been stuffing pitted dates with peanut butter -- about 1-2 teaspoons per date, and storing them in the refrigerator. They taste better cold.

Raw Materials for Cell Salts

[open_space]

I was happy that most of the people that ordered the raw materials for home compounding of cells salts have received their envelopes. Thank you! All the process has been fun to organize as well as all the measuring and packaging.

Recapitulating a little bit. Not that long ago there was a field of medicine called biochemic medicine which was based on homeopathy but using the principles laid out by Schüssler who came up with the 12 salt system. It has ever since fallen out of fashion but many people still practice it. However, recently they biggest provider in the U.S got sold and now they have crappyfied the product so a few of us went and looked up for the raw materials to make them ourselves following the instructions JMG shared on his blog as Home compounding Cell Salts

I still have a big stash of raw materials, I have separated some envelopes for future use in case but there's plenty left.

I will be resending the packages that failed to arrive this coming week, but if you wish to get a set or two for yourself you can send me a message through dw or at gustella.adrienne@gmail.com and I'll get them promptly your way. Or if you are going to the Ecosophia Potluck this June I can give them to you there.

There's also a discussion group here: Cell Salts Discussion