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 may change further as we proceed.

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

Baking Season

[degringolade]

When fall rolls around, start your baking. You can keep the house/apartment more comfortable with the waste heat and cut your food costs considerably. Buying bread at the store keeps your house cool in the summer, but bread is by no means cheap.

Just baked some muffins today. I used the spent grains from a batch of beer (3 cups) and made molasses spice muffins. The grains provide the fiber, and all it cost me was the electricity (I figure around $0.25) and three cups of flour, some butter (could be veg oil) and some spices and vanilla. 10 muffins for around $1.25 all said and done.

The temp in the apartment went up to 76 F.

Re: Baking Season

[baconrolypoly]

Our oven also becomes part of the heating in autumn and winter, it's the season of pies and roasts and adds a considerable amount of warmth to the house. It helps that the kitchen is in the middle of the house so the heat spreads well. I still cook bread in the oven, but time it so the kitchen has time to cool before dinner time.

If we want roast meat in summer then we cook it in the bbq, putting a tray of water over the flames, and it comes out perfectly. I've made bread in the bbq too, which works surprisingly well. If your oven packs up a bbq is a great standby.

Re: Baking Season

[(Anonymous)]

Would you please share the full recipe for spent grain muffins? I am always looking for tasty options for the spent grains and sounds like you have a spice mix you enjoy. Only so many crackers and simple breads the family can eat!

Also Fall is brewing season when the temperatures are right and make fermenting easy without as much fuss to keep in the best temperature range for the yeast.

query - antipodean booksellers?

[kallianeira]

Hello JMG and everyone,

Any tips on good bookshops who sell online, either new or used, in Australia/NZ?
Value for money would be extra nice.

My previous retailer of choice has ceased trading and the first six or seven secondhand dealer sites I tried have been less than useless. A search for "john michael greer" just got me 17 results all not by Greer but Green. Too annoying!

The international sellers still usually have what I am looking for but their prices are prohibitive.

Re: query - antipodean booksellers?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi.

Don't know if you're familiar with "abe" advanced book exchange. I started using them before Zuckerberg bought them. I still find them fairly good. You should be able to restrict your searches to the country you live in.

The site doesn't work as well as it used to. Warning! I've noticed that the price can change between the listing and the cart. (I still bought the books as I already had an idea of overall cost. It went from too good to be true to yeah, that's about right).

A.

Re: query - antipodean booksellers?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi kallianera,
I have similar issues so need to use multiple stores/sites.though to be fair we have a pretty great little secondhand bookstore in town here on the far south coast NSW.

I use US sites like thriftbooks.com, betterworldbooks.com, AbeBooks.com (pretty sure owned by Lord Bezos), bookfinder.com (think same as AbeBooks), NZ - https://www.hardtofind.co.nz/, Aus - www.gouldbooks.com in Sydney, https://www.archivesfinebooks.com.au in Brisbane. As well as any other locals I can find and the usual suspects like eBay and gumtree. I have also found book fairs like lifeline book fair in bris, Syd and Canberra to be sources of gold providing you go in with no expectations of what you may find.
I have found that even new titles such as those by our host are an issue now that Booktopia/A&R are in administration.
Also happy to keep an eye out if there is anything particular you are looking for?


Mr Kemble

Re: query - antipodean booksellers?

[(Anonymous)]

Sydney here - I like these guys for new
https://boomerangbooks.com.au/
and these for used
https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-au

Re: query - antipodean booksellers?

[kallianeira]

Many thanks to all for the valuable suggestions. Most of them were unfamiliar.

Luckily I didn't know about Lifeline book fairs when living in the city.

Mr Kemble, there are many. If you happen to encounter "hoochie mama" by Erika Lopez I'd be ecstatic. And I appreciate your offer.

Foraging Food

[claire_58]

It's fall in the northern hemisphere and I've been out everyday picking up the apples from our tree and processing them. I've noticed the neighbour's tree dropping apples into the lane and I know from past years that there are apples, quince, hazelnuts and walnuts that drop in parks and on sidewalks and roadsides. Normally they just get crushed and rot. Blackberries are the only thing I see people picking regularly.

Today we were speculating about how much food goes to waste and how many people this valley could support if the food resources were used. If you walk around any neighbourhood in this part of the world you can forage one heck of a lot of free food.

Re: Foraging Food

[slclaire]

That's how I am with pawpaws, which are dropping right now. I have enough trees in our yard that I don't need to forage elsewhere (though I will if I see them!), but I do have to get out every single day to check for them on the ground, otherwise some of the pawpaws would go to waste.

Same for persimmons; I just picked the first ripe one from our trees today, so I have to check for them every day.

I know the local parks have persimmon and pawpaw trees to forage from, but I haven't seen anyone foraging for them.

Cobblers

[(Anonymous)]

I just served 7 people dessert and wine for some tiny amount of money. I made a peach cobbler and cobblers are even easier, faster and more satisfying than a crisp or crumble. One friend volunteered to bring some ice cream. Everyone had at least two servings of the cobbler which is just fruit, a bit of sugar and two tablespoons of cornstarch with a biscuit batter over the top.

It was delicious and so very inexpensive. You can make cobblers with any type of fruit and sweetener that you like. I made the biscuit dough with GF flour as some of us are allergic to wheat. It was still very inexpensive as we just harvested the last of the peaches from our trees.
Maxine

Skills

[michele7]

A few times on JMG's blogs, I've read a few posts from people that say, "I have XX amount of money, how should I invest it?" My impression is they are expecting our host to pull out his crystal ball, gaze and tell them what stocks to invest in. IIRC, JMG has always answered politely, but not with stock tips. Marjorie Wildcraft once told the story of trying to sell her gardening survival book (I believe) and a community member told her he would just take her food by force with his gun. He might eat for awhile, but without the knowledge of the gardeners and preservers, that food disappears quickly. This had me thinking, how do you protect yourself as the future goes bottom up?

If you have some extra money, there are posts on Frugal Friday that offer good advice like insulate your home, pay off debt, etc. I think it would be beneficial to learn more skills. Can you feed yourself frugally? Feed a family frugally? Feed a large group of people on next to nothing? Year after year, are you successfully growing or raising food and preserving it for those years that problems happen? Can you do simple repairs? More complex ones? Can you read a cookbook from current ones to vintage recipes and know how to create those dishes? Can you cook on a wood fire? Can you repair your clothing? Shoes? And the list goes on...

Back in the day my school district offered a certification test for what was called Middle Grades Integrated Curriculum. It gave me the opportunity to teach any core class and it gave my principal the ability to move me to an area that needed teachers. In some ways, it was job security for me. I actually had more certifications than this which helped me during my teaching career. To my principal I was an asset because of the varied certifications I had. Now, look at this from a skills stand point. The more skills you possess, the more you are needed in your community.

Re: Skills

[(Anonymous)]

How to protect yourself as the future goes bottom up? Easy. The 'community' member would be invited to an old fashioned 'neck-tie' party. Apparently in such a future he doesn't realize that justice would be served roughly, quickly and without much ceremony. Communities which band together for survival will dispense the law in a way to ensure everybody's well-being probably with the assistance of a strong-man and his crew. This, of course, is a feudal society but I suspect it will be a little while before it reaches that point. Rome didn't collapse in a day and neither will we. There's still a bit of wiggle room left, hence Frugal Friday.

JLfromNH/Alabaster Rotating Groundhog

Re: Skills

[kallianeira]

Paging Mary Bennett...

you put up an intriguing idea on an open post a while back about food security and introducing legislation now that would circumvent certain opportunistic behaviours in times of scarcity.

Could you reprise this please, and any more detail would be appreciated. I understand the gist but am obtuse enough not to be able to parse it in such a way as to make a useful suggestion to local council or my state government.

Curtain Rods

[prayergardens]

We have a bay window and another larger bank of windows. It's been 10 years since we bought curtain rods but at the time we determined it was cheaper to buy electrical conduit from the electrical supply store than buying any specific curtain rods from a retailer.

It does require some handy work - they were purchased in 10 foot segments which Mr. PG then cut down to the right size.

They have also been valuable as a backup clothes dryer. We made sure to anchor the holders into studs and since the bars are so sturdy, in the winter when we can't put clothes outside, I'll put wet shirts on their hangers and hang them from the curtain rods which saves room on the wooden folding clothes rack or saves me the work of getting it out and setting it up. Never had a problem with the weight from the wet clothes.

I just went over to the home depot website and a 10 foot length of metal conduit is $9 and a 10 foot curtain rod is $77.

Re: Curtain Rods

[(Anonymous)]

...and once you've got your $9 curtain rods up, you can easily find that pre-made curtains will cost a fortune as well... but all sorts of large fabric panels go for much less, if you aren't too picky. Fitted sheets wear out faster than flats, so thrift stores always have more flat sheets than sets. When you just need a window covered today, a $3 flat sheet beats $80 curtains ;) They're about the easiest things it is possible to sew.

Stretch and Fold Kneading

[(Anonymous)]

I know the stand mixer is considered indispensable for kneading breads and whatnot quicker than usual, but once I learned about stretch and fold kneading, I've started to find them to be a solution to a non-existent problem.

I've found most breads with an initial ~90 minute or more first rise can be "kneaded" quite easily without any kneading at all. Just mix initially to ensure all the ingredients are nicely combined, cover in the same bowl, and let sit for half an hour. Then uncover, grab the side of the mixture furthest from you, lift, and fold the dough back on itself towards you. Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat until you get back to where you started. Then ball up the dough and return it to the bowl for another 30 minutes. Repeat for a total of 3 or 4 times. This method scales to any size/number of batches and requires no special equipment.

For bonus frugal points, make sure you have a damp towel that will fit your bowls or invest in a bowl with a cover so you don't waste disposable bowl covers like plastic wrap.

Re: Stretch and Fold Kneading

[ecosophia]

This may tell you how far behind the times I am, but stretch and fold kneading is the only kind I knew about. It makes a fine smooth stretchy dough and a good loaf.

Re: Stretch and Fold Kneading

[(Anonymous)]

Do you also do sourdough doughs, especially ones heavy on rye, with stretch and fold? I tried that, and it was just an incredible mess. The rye doughs stick to _everything_, at least for me. My hands ended up looking like I'm the monster straight from the swamp, and it took me several minutes of just cleaning hands after each round of working with the dough. Let's just say I quickly gave up on that.

Kneading a wheat or spelt yeast dough by hand is not an issue, so I'm not sure if this is a general problem of rye sourdough, or if I did something wrong. Has any one of you had more luck?

Milkyway

Re: Stretch and Fold Kneading

[michele7]

I use a plastic shower cap as a reusable and washable bowl cover.

Re: Stretch and Fold Kneading

[(Anonymous)]

I have never tried stretch and fold, something to add to my bread baking tool kit.

I do no-knead, first rise at room temp, and then overnight to all week in the refrigerator.


When I use a large enough bowl, I just put a plate over it, even in the refrigerator.

If I need a different cover for rising dough, I get a tea towel wet and wring out, and use that over the shaped rolls or what have you. I keep a few cheap, white tea towels just for wrapping bread or rising dough

Atmospheric River

Steamer vs iron to remove wrinkles in clothing?

[(Anonymous)]

Just wondering, is it worth investing in a good quality steamer to iron the clothes, since it promises quick and effective results, or better to stick to the classical iron in an even better quality?
Just using a cloth rack to dry them already works a little, if done with enough care. But if I have to buy an appliance, I hesitate between those two...

Re: Steamer vs iron to remove wrinkles in clothing?

[baconrolypoly]

I'd go for the iron, though I like to use the wind instead. They're not only used for neatening clothes, you can fix hems using that Wonder Web tape, to help remove wax/grease stains from fabric, to take creases out of nice wrapping paper you want to re-use or even to use as a door-stop. I've also heard tell of a woman who used an iron to see off a Bad Man. Anyway, they have plenty of uses.

Cheap fabric, Ikea curtains/sheets

[(Anonymous)]

I know that in some areas thrift stores still have a stock of curtains or sheets, and a decent price at that. Not around here. And, Goodwills bargain barn has moved to another county.

I do not live by an Ikea, but it is not that far away to drive to on a rare occasion ( an hour and a bit). They have cotton sheets and curtains at low enough price points to be used as fabric.

I would like to make more energy efficient curtains, but it may be a while for me to get to my sliding doors on that project. I bought Ikea Curtains, 100% cotton velveteen, thick. Each panel is 55" by 98". So 3 yards each panel, 2 panels in a package so 6 yards of that fabric at 55" wide. I bought them at 40% off, when an additional discount, so paid less than $7/yard. A good color for my place. And, it is hemmed and with a sleeve on top to mount on the existing curtain rod, with these elegant puddles of fabric on the ground when they are pulled back. SO I can use them as is now, and can use as fabric for the "warm windows" treatment once I get around to that. There are thinner patterned ones that cost less. They have cheap cotton sheets you can cut up too. I cant take the outgassing from synthetic curtains, most of the time, so synthetics are risky for me to try and buy. These do not bother me, so they must not have used a bad finish on them either, just the cotton. ( I have some of the warm windows product, unused, on a roll, that also is fine for me, the synthetics used for the insulation in it is not any type of bad outgassing product)

Reuse is best of course, but if you need larger amounts of matching, sometimes it is more frugal to buy from a place like Ikea than to go to the fabric store. I think this has always been a frugal hack too, to buy flat sheets to use for fabric for things like curtains so other stores by you with a good sale on would be a place to try

Atmospheric River

Outdoor kitchen, part 2

[mskrieger]

Just checking back in with an update:

In month 2, cooking for 6 people outdoors everyday on a stove and a grill, I used barely 2lb of propane, or a whopping $1.50 of fuel.

Contrast that with using my stove. Assuming I have a burner on for about an hour and a half a day, and it draws 3 kilowatts, that's 3.5 kilowatt-hours/day, or 105kWh per 30 day month. I pay 23 cents/kWh. That's $24.15 in a 30 day month, or about a fifth of my monthly electric bill.

That's significant. If I were on a really tight budget, I might cook on propane all year round. I'm not on a budget that tight, thank goodness, but it definitely offsets the added cost of running fans all over the house during the summer.

Obviously this analysis will vary depending on where you live and the relative costs of propane vs. electricity there (and will probably be moot if you cook with natural gas) but I hope it is useful to some readers.

--Ms. Krieger

Re: Outdoor kitchen, part 2

[slclaire]

Thanks, that's useful to know! Our electricity cost is half of yours during the summer rate period because most of it is generated from coal burning plants, but even at that rate it would still be cheaper to cook on a propane grill, especially during periods when we are using air-conditioning in the house so we don't dump any waste heat into it. In the winter, on the other hand, at 9 cents/kWh winter rate and needing to heat the house, using the electric stove for cooking makes economic sense, plus it's often too cold for outdoor cooking.

cooking with less fuel

[(Anonymous)]

I like to cook more than one meal at a time, especially if I'm using the oven. I'll often make two pizzas and a big batch of cookies at once, for instance. I also like to make one pot meals, making enough for two or three meals at a time. It saves time as well as electricity.