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

Brewing Yeast follow up

[degringolade]

Just a quick follow up to a brief discussion a couple of weeks ago concerning re-using the the yeast at the bottom of the fermenter for baking bread.

One of the commenters said that they stored the yeast in mason jars after covering with water. That does work, but not that well. When I tested it, the yeast started losing viability fairly quickly (1 week or so) the experiment is still running but if trends continue, it will become dead at around four weeks.

What seems to work better is to cover with a normal saline solution, again, if trends continue, that should push the viability out around seven weeks.

What seems to work best is just using some of the beer to provide the liquid. estimate of viability is around 12 weeks

This a a disclaimer. this was done using a single batch of beer, no controls were used, I haven't reproduced the results and this is is merely a brief description of a half-assed look at testing a scientific wild-assed guess (SWAG)

I just wanted to take a look, the water thing kinda bugged me as a retired lab doofus, I kinda don't think that critters like yeast like being in non-isotonic solutions.

Your results may vary, just wanted to let you know

Elderberry Bushes

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Friends,
I started out with three potted elderberry bushes and they need to be pruned every January. Each time I prune them, I get heaps of cuttings to create more shrubs and to give away.

The elderberry fruit makes great food. It used to be much used to fill pies, make wine and jelly. They are also super good food for birds. My white-crowned sparrows build nests in the shrubs which grow from 12 inches after a January pruning to about 16 feet tall. They eat a lot of the berries and just shine with god health. Lots of birds eat the berries.

If you can harvest some berries before the birds do, you will have lovely fresh elderberries to make syrup from which is so good at treating colds. I freeze the fresh berries to keep a supply of fresh berries to make this excellent-tasting syrup.

The smaller branches have a foam-filled center and were traditionally used to make whistles and pipes for various musical instruments.

Plant cutting six feet apart for berry production and two feet apart for a hedge. My idea of paradise is a village where all the houses and gardens are surrounded by hedges of elder trees in bloom. The blossoms are collected and left overnight in water to make a lovely perfumed water to wash hands, faces and babies in.
Maxine

Re: Elderberry Bushes

[(Anonymous)]

So nice that someone else loves elderberries as much as I do. I grow all sort of different types on my farm. I do see the elderberry as special. Folklore is full of admonitions and advice about where to plant it and how to use it. I will say that no garden should be without it. It is too useful and beautiful and I personally do feel protected by it.

After making syrup and oxymel for family and friends for years I started selling it at market in small batches and always sell out. I tell people it's not an everyday remedy - use it if you feel low, know you have been exposed or are sick. I agree that freezing is a great idea and leaves you with so many winter possibilities - including making a quick batch of syrup or an easy pie with apples.

Another berry that I have started freezing each year to use in the winter on cereal is the autumn olive - it is endemic in New England and considered invasive, which also means you can almost always forage it for free (always ask the landowner if you are on private land). However, the berries seem to be so good for my health in the winter and they are, to say the least, abundant. Why not eat what is there in such abundance? The birds and other wildlife love them so much that I doubt we will be able to ever eradicate the plants, which spring easily from the hundreds of berries on each plant. The seeds are spread far and wide and the use of poison in nature is abhorrent to me. It also grows where not much else will, for example alongside heavily salted and treated New England roads. It is as if nature is trying to ameliorate our pollution. Warning: I don't eat anything that grows beside a polluted road. Roadways are not only treated with chemicals, they are made of asphalt (oil) and also have all the pollution that comes from degrading tires and toxic car fluids. The plant will have soaked up poisons and harbor them in any fruit. However, you could take a sapling or cutting of anything there and start your own plant. Any poison in that little part would quickly become inconsequential to the larger plant.

I also want to say that I have been lurking here and really enjoy the posts. I thought I knew most of it when it comes to frugality - but I have learned so much, certainly broadening my frugal horizons. Thanks!

Re: Elderberry Bushes

[(Anonymous)]

Over here in Germany people also use Elderberry-blossom-syrup against cold and AFAIK in Austria it gets served diluted with hot water as a refreshment in the skiing-areas. I always wonderes if the berry-syrup was more for the digestive-tract and th blossom-syrup more for the lungs but I don´t know.
Emily07

Re: Elderberry Bushes

[(Anonymous)]

Maxine, could you say more about how to root a cutting? I discovered a couple elderberry bushes on my property I didn't even know about, and I'd love to have more!

Spot Insulation, or, insulation where it does the most good for the smallest effort

[teresa_from_hershey]

Weather-stripping and insulating your entire house are worthwhile goals.

But there's smaller stuff you can do that makes a difference when it's cold.

Spot insulation!

My desk is located in the coldest corner of the coldest room in our house (other than our bonus room upstairs and that's an entirely different problem). Because my "corner office" is so cold, I have had to take steps to make it functional in the winter.

Fingerless gloves topped by handwarmers topped by dressing for a 64 degree house (it's 64 degrees at the thermostat; not here) are just the beginning.
I use a lap robe. I have a light jacket. I wear a hat. I drink hot tea.

But what I also do, that you may not have thought of, is I hung dowels under my desk on three sides using cup-hooks. On those dowels I hang, tightly bunched up, assorted junk towels using safety pins to keep them in place. The towels hang 1/2 inch or so above the floor. Multiple towels provide more insulating power against the two exterior walls. The towels are doubled for much of their length because they're longer than the space I need to cover.

This spot insulation under my desk cost me nothing. Everything came from the workshop or collected, thrifted towels. It makes a difference.

Another piece of spot insulation is our padded headboard on our bed.

Previously, we didn't own one and propped up pillows against the cold north wall. Then I saw an advert for a do-it-yourself padded headboard. Wow. What a great idea! Comfort and warmth. The cost was wow too.

I bought a metal headboard at a used furniture store, removed the wicker insert, added scrap batting and foam, covered it with stapled on fabric that worked in our bedroom from the stash and voila! Spot insulation that made it easier to read in bed AND gave a buffer of dead air between us and the cold north wall.

If you can sew and use a staple gun, probably ANY headboard can be padded with fabric and scrap batting. Make a two-sided insulated bag to fit what you've got and slip it over the headboard. The wall side should be longer, almost to the floor. Voila! A padded headboard that keeps you a bit warmer at night while using up scrap from the stash.

Look around? Where can you add a lap robe, a hat waiting to be used, quilts or towels hanging under a desk?

Re: Spot Insulation, or, insulation where it does the most good for the smallest effort

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Teresa,
I have a little alpaca-wool toque I sleep in when my husband is not at home to keep me warm. This is my clean toque and is never worn for any other activity. I was amazed at how much warmer I slept when I spot insulated my head.
Maxine

Re: Spot Insulation, or, insulation where it does the most good for the smallest effort

[(Anonymous)]

This is great advice. It got me thinking.

One thing I do for "spot insulation," to use your excellent term, is, on cold nights I take a couple of hot water bottles into bed with me. My home office is reasonably warm but there was day last winter when it got cold enough that I brought a hot water bottle in. I kept it on my lap, with a blanket over me-- and wow, that was effective.

I have a bulky goose-down bathrobe I inherited that I had been thinking of decluttering until I remembered, once in a while our house loses electricity, and hence heat, in a winter storm. So I kept that bathrobe for such an emergency. So far I haven't used it, but I'm glad to know that I have it. Seriously, I consider it part of my home emergency kit.

CHICKEN SOUP FLOGGER

Re: Spot Insulation, or, insulation where it does the most good for the smallest effort

[baconrolypoly]

One of the most satisfying spot insulations we did was to pad around and under the bath. Took the side panel off and stuffed loft insulation in there so, when you had a bath, the water stayed hot for far longer.

Question on electric gadgets

[(Anonymous)]

I'd like to ask the assembled frugalistas a question. A few weeks ago JMG commented that stoves are inefficient. So we have alternatives such as rice cookers, electric teakettles and such. But don't those gadgets wear out and break? Is it frugal if you have to buy another device in a few years? After 23 years of marriage, we're on our third toaster and third coffeemaker (even though we hardly ever use the coffeemaker!). These kinds of things can't be repaired. So I thought it was better to use the stove to avoid making more electric junk. What say you, commenters?

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
We have the sort of toaster that the sides flap down and you stand there, making sure when to turn the bread. Those old-fashioned toasters never seem to wear out. They make excellent toast. I loathe modern toasters. They either refuse to toast at all so that you have to keep slamming the handle down. Their other trick is to become psychotic and hurl the toast across the room.

The only down side to the old toasters is that I wouldn't want to have one if there were small children around. A friend's kid got a nasty burn from one.

Our coffee maker is a French press and the technology is so simple, ever we can use it. They never seem to break down except for the time my husband dropped the glass container. We bought a replacement for about $8.

We have a wood stove, built in Tasmania, that has a small Oven. It uses waste heat from the firebox to bake squash, buns and reheat meals. It too has a very simple technology. I cook on the top surface too. Not everyone can get a woodstove but if you can, I believe it is the wave of the future. Ours has a glass front so we can admire the fire which is really good for mental health in the gloomy winter.

Maxine

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[(Anonymous)]

You have a point.

As for the coffee maker, if I didn't have one already now, I'd go for drinking Turkish coffee or cowboy coffee-- that requires only a coffee grinder and a kettle. First you boil the grinds, and then wait a bit, letting the grounds sink to the bottom of the pot. Yep, that's cheaper and easier than replacing the electric coffeemaker every few years.

There's also the French press. In my experience the glass parts tend to break, however, so I do not like them.

For cooking rice, beans and soups etc, however, I'm sticking with my Instant Pot. The convenience of being able to time the cooking and the power-level is very helpful. If I have something on the burner I don't feel it's safe to leave the room. That is oftentimes quite inconvenient. I'm willing to pay for my convenience in this regard, as long as that's possible. It squats on my countertop like a big fat toad and I like it.

Years ago I saw someone use a stovetop bread toaster and it seemed to me to work pretty well. I might go for one of those when the day comes that I need another toaster. It would be nice to reclaim a bit of countertop space.

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[degringolade]

Hmmmm

I think I’m gonna spend some time crunching some numbers and taking some measurements with a meter. Hope you don’t mind but I think I’m gonna answer this next week.

It’s actually an interesting question.

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[(Anonymous)]

Part of the problem is the whole life/planned obsolesce cycle. This spring we tossed a 10 year old electric stove. The back-up, a stovette (2 burners + oven using 110v) that's probably older than me (60+) is starting to think it needs repairs - probably a new thermocouple.

Which is I think part of the answer - vintage products that can be repaired. Stove or gadgets. Thrift stores and YouTube.

For us, our answer won't be relevant to most - the "new" stove will be a 1950's wood-burner installed to code. Heat for warming the house in winter & cooking. (Unless I can figure out how to get a water jacket into it + hot water)

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[ecosophia]

Granted, but stoves also wear out and break. The one in my apartment has three more or less functioning burners -- the fourth doesn't work, and one of the others is touchy -- and I have to be careful about using the oven because that model's notorious for having its circuit board fry out if it gets too hot. Over the course of my life I've seen around half a dozen stoves die. I've been through more rice cookers than that, mind you, and I'd be happier if I could either get more durable rice cookers or find an appliance repair shop...but as it is, since it takes a lot of rice cookers to equal the mass of one stove, I think I'm ahead of the game by using them.

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[(Anonymous)]

this is a good point. Some electric teakettles last forever, and some break in a year or two. Of course, the quality has gone down in new stoves too. I dont know that there is one answer on this one. When my last electric tea kettle broke, I did not replace it and am using a free, used tea kettle on my electric stove. It is cute, and doesnt take up counter space. These things churn in and out of my life as there is no clear answer on this, so I have a bread maker, use it for a few years, start just doing bread in my solar oven or in my regular oven, making sure to stack baking multiple items to make more frugal use of the heat. Give away my bread machine, then 5 years later look for and get another free one.

A bread maker sips power, they dont seem to break, I have alot of room, and I mostly have it to use in emergencies. Small appliances can be run off of my solar batteries, while my stove cannot. Usually when the power is out now I use this single electric induction burner I bought for a few bucks at a garage sale. I used to use an electric teakettle and the bread maker when the power was out.

I think we live in interesting times, kind of in between times, a foot in two eras. There is so much excess small appliances floating around my area, that if I have it for free or almost, I realy dont sweat it. When I buy something new, I realy look into the robustness and how it will work on stair steps down, so I have bought new things like a pressure canner that can be used on a stove, or other heat source, and will last forever.

The whole toaster thing is difficult, I like having a toaster. They break nore oftern and are dead simple, so should be repairable, but it is no longer easy to by toaster wire to repair. I dont think you can. SO, at the moment, I have a toaster oven I bought at a thrift store, and it has various good uses to cook or reheat food as well as toasting. I do not kid myself that it will last, it has weird tube heating elements.

I think it is easy to make coffee using a pour over or an old fashioned metal percolator, we tried out a free percolator when camping last summer, and the others liked the coffee ( I drink tea).

My vote is to go with robust solutions, like a percolator or pour over as boiling water is not your highest power use no matter how you do it. The toaster dilemma is a difficult one, maybe you can find one at the thrift store. Bread machines save ALOT of power if one loaf is all you are going to bake in an oven, but they have coated pans that leach chamicals into the bread -- a solar oven is a fantastic way to bake for half the year, and otherwise make good use of that oven by baking alot of items in one session.

Atmospheric RIver

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[weilong]

It depends.

A simple electric kettle only has a heating element and thermostat. An old-fashioned rice cooker with nothing more than an on/off switch is basically the same thing in a different configuration. There's not anything in those things to wear out and break. The only moving part is the bimetalic strip in the thermostat. These things are simple enough that if you're handy, you can clean or replace the few parts that they contain, but they will go for a decade or two without maintenance.

If you get the fancy new things with electronic controls, the circuit board will probably crap out after a few years, and since you can't get a replacement the whole thing will become a brick at that point.

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[weilong]

There's a lot of factors to consider. One of those is multi-purpose vs dedicated appliances. For example, I have neither a toaster nor a coffee maker, but still make toast and coffee. We usually make our coffee one cup at a time, so we just have one of those filter holder things that sits on top of the cup - you pour hot water into it from the kettle. And we have a toaster oven that can also be used for casseroles and cookies and such.

Versatility is an obvious advantage of a stove. On the other hand, a rice cooker can be used for more than just rice. Boiling water might be something that you do often enough to justify having a dedicated appliance for it.

Incidentally, we bought the toaster oven about fifteen years ago, and the timer switch finally wore out. Turns out that is a commodity part, so I just put in a new one yesterday.

Re: Question on electric gadgets

[mistyfriday]

I don't buy drip coffee makers or toasters because the standard designs are difficult to clean and lead to premature failure. An electric kettle paired with a French press and a toaster oven will last far longer.

I've seen gridles, percolators, crockpots, and waffle irons made of cast iron, stainless steel, ceramic, and bakelite last decades. Heat and corrosion are the major threats to countertop appliances. Appliances made of durable materials and an easy to clean design can last as long as a range.

Re: Question on electric gadgets - french press

[(Anonymous)]

I prefer french press coffee over any other way of brewing, but I hated those glass canister french presses because the canister invariably broke and although the first cup of coffee was hot, anything left in the french press was cold by the time I was ready to drink it. I like my coffee hot. So I looked around and found an all stainless steel, insulated french press for about the same price as those glass ones. I make a full french press of coffee and get about three 6 oz cups of piping hot coffee to start my morning. Yes, I drink a lot of coffee. It is one of those pleasures in life that I thoroughly enjoy and hope to never give up!

Paprika

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Guys,
I just make a couple of spice jars of paprika. I grew paprika peppers last summer in my polytunnel. Here in Costal British Columbia, the peppers of all sorts do better when you grow them with some protection. The peppers are a small, cows' horn type with very thin walls. I dried them in the dehydrator and popped them in a very much used zip lock bag. I wash and reuse these bags many times. Is there anyone here who does not?

I just ran out of store-bought paprika and put some of these dried peppers in a spice grinder and in moments, I had two small jars of paprika. I made two jars as a friend brought me a jar of paprika from the Island of Grenada and I am giving him the jar back, full of home-grown paprika.

Maxine

Re: Paprika

[(Anonymous)]

my paprika did not do well last year, glad to hear you got enough to cook with and share-- spices liek this realy make a difference in cooking

Atmospheric RIver

Repairing old solar electric, panel change out

[(Anonymous)]

I mentioned last month that this was in process, and I am happy to say that the results have been fantastic. Quick recap, I put in Solar electric 26 years ago and things wear out. Most solar companies will not help. want to throw it all away and put in all new equipment and charge a fortune. My old system was making just a trickle of power, but was still great for running battery backup for critical loads during our ever more frequent power outages. So, I was thining I would just let it do that. But, I do have sunk resources there being under utilized and serendipity and all being what it is, I was at a baby shower last summer and got the contact information for a nice solar employee I had met before. The work was done on a 3 day weekend for cash and given the high cost of power, which is just going up each year, the cost to replace the panels made sense.

I posted over at Green Wizards, Keeping Solar Alive, part 2 https://www.greenwizards.com/node/1867

When I reset the electronics and flipped the switch, they were making 2.7kW of power at noon on December 10th. With inverter losses, comes out to be 17amps at 120V AC power. So about 10kWh for the main part of the day, and more at partial sun. Anyway, 10kWh and more for dead winter is good, I dont use that much power a day in general, but depends how much electric oven time and electric hot water heater run time. (Solar hot water heater has also been broke that last few years, one of the hot water panels failed, next on the list, there is alot of sunk infrastructure there too) You might think, hm, you are making $4 of power on a winter day, 6 or 7 in summer -- sure, but prices keep going up, the payback time is 3 to 5 years and the panels have a very long guarantee, so there is money savings. And the main point of it is to have this location just have power at all if the world changes accelerate.

Atmospheric River

egg substitute, Aquafaba

[(Anonymous)]

So I was looking into how to bake without eggs and came across this way, people are calling it aquafaba, and you can look up on the internet with that phrase, but what it is is the water that fava beans have been cooked in. SO if you buy the canned, the liquid that you drain off to cook with the beans, that liquid makes a great egg substitute ! You can also use the liquid if you cook them from dried, and the amounts could be equivalent if you keep the water ratio about the same as canned. Use 3T aquafaba to substitute for one egg in baking It also can be whipped like egg whites.

I have not tried it out yet, because, as is fairly normal in my life, I have eggs on the brain, looking up substitutes and all for baking, so of course someone hands me a dozen eggs, and someone else, some cookies.

Atmospheric River

Re: egg substitute, Aquafaba

[kimberlysteele]

You can also use the sludgy water from chickpeas or any other white bean. I make vegan mayo with it.

Why I do not shop at store closings.

[(Anonymous)]

Why I do not shop at store closings.

1. The best stuff has already been skimmed off by the employees, who are losing their jobs. I don't blame them.

2. The employee skimming came After special deals made by management or ownership--I will take all these widgets off your hands for these Cnotes I have in my hand right now today.

3. We won't even mention the stuff that disappeared out the back door whilst management was distracted.

By the time Ms. Ordinary, that would be me, arrives, there ain't much left. Factor in travel and time spent wandering up and down aisles of empty shelves and I think what you have is a false economy. What I think, is I should already be stocked up on basics like TP and canned beans. BTW, black beans take so long to cook, that I think canned is no extravagance. Mary Bennett

Re: Why I do not shop at store closings.

[slclaire]

The only exception I would make to your sensible post is that if it's a family business and their only store, and you've been shopping there for years, you can get good deals during their closing sale. When the local hardware store that fit that description for us closed about 20 years ago, we stocked up on a few goods while they were selling their stock. Then we bought enough of the store's sturdy shelving units to line two walls of our two car garage with it, at a very low price. It didn't take long to fill up the shelves, since my husband uses one side of the garage as his workshop.

Economical winter outdoor recreation

[(Anonymous)]

Here in Maryland, two of the state parks in the western-most part of the state cater to cross-country ski tourists. In winter, admission to the park is free, access to the groomed trails is free, and a 2-hour rental of skis, boots, and poles is just $15. For $25, you can rent all day: from 11 AM to 5 PM. Sitting around the fireplace afterward is also free. (There is a tip-box, though, for tangible expressions of gratitude.)

There may come a time when we just need to hunker down and survive the colder months, but for now, I like to get out and enjoy the forest blanketed with snow.

Lathechuck