Frugal Friday
Jan. 31st, 2025 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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!
Tis the season for
Date: 2025-01-31 06:20 pm (UTC)In an effort to encourage the overplanting of starter seeds (every. expletive deleted. year) I have created with considerable obstinacy an actual veggie garden plan. Wide rows. Three season, spring, summer, fall. Multi-year crop rotation. Geared for zones 5 - 6.
If I can figure out how to upload it (its on my hard drive), if any one is interested, I will post. It has a total of 10 rows, each designated at 3' (to accommodate my short person reach). The 10 rows are designated spring/fall (5rows) and summer (5 rows). Each row can be any length.
Re: Tis the season for
Date: 2025-02-01 09:33 pm (UTC)Dylan
Re: Tis the season for
Date: 2025-02-02 04:49 pm (UTC)Attend your municipal meetings
Date: 2025-01-31 06:42 pm (UTC)But think of your taxes!
Your municipality, working with your county, your state, and the federal government, determine your services and the taxes needed to pay for them.
That money comes from somewhere.
How do you want it spent? On the Taj Mahal of community centers?
Do you want to let out-of-town developers run rampant?
How about that TIF (Tax Increment Financing)? If that developer can't make money on that new project without tax cuts, is it really a good idea?
Moreover, attending local meetings means you get to know the people who run your town. They know you. They know your views. They see you as a person and not a statistic.
Every town has regular meetings on a regular schedule. Ask at city hall or visit them online. My township posts the calendar for the year for the board of supervisors, public works, parks and recreations, storm water management (occasional), planning, zoning board, and the library.
Sometimes, we get special zoning board meetings when something big is going to happen.
I subscribe to various township newsletters (each area has its own), the local newspaper (we're fortunate enough to have one), and our local business community's newsletter. I follow them on social media.
Agendas for the upcoming meetings are posted a few days beforehand.
When you attend a meeting, think about what you want to say before you get to the mike. In Hershey, public commenters are given 3 minutes to speak. A few minutes silent rehearsal in the parking lot will make sure you're concise.
Speak clearly and confidently. So many people can't do this that you, voicing your opinion on the Taj Mahal of swimming pools or tearing down a row of houses to erect a 10 pound hotel on a 5 pound-sized lot, will be noticed.
If local news reporters (from newspaper to TV) are hanging around, voice your opinion!
In the long run, we'll all be very much more local than we are now.
Build those ties and connections now.
You can make a difference at the local level because so many people don't bother. You also see how hard it is to get anything done.
And, maybe, you'll be inspired to run for local office and really get your hands dirty.
Re: Attend your municipal meetings
Date: 2025-02-01 06:22 pm (UTC)Also, my involvement ended when the district bureaucracy successfully convinced the council to pass a bylaw requiring all district employees and volunteers to take the jab. This included attending council meetings. The politicians were excluded from this requirement. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
(To her credit, my area representative voted against this bylaw.)
Caldathras
Re: Attend your municipal meetings
Date: 2025-02-01 11:11 pm (UTC)My municipality is about 27 square miles.
Pennsylvania is divided up into counties. Each county is further divided up into townships (like mine) and boroughs or towns or cities which have their own governing boards.
My township makes it easy to learn what's going on, yet I routinely hear my neighbors complain that they don't know what's going to happen.
It all depends on your area.
If you can attend, even irregularly, it still matters.
Re: Attend your municipal meetings
Date: 2025-02-02 09:37 pm (UTC)I understand that attending these meetings may not work for everyone-- I myself have lived in a couple of places where, truly & honestly, attending local government meetings would have made no sense, a total waste of time for me because firstly, those places were run by nasty political machines and at that time I had too many other pressing personal responsabilities.
But now I live in another place, a smaller city, where it is possible. And the more time goes on, the more I see how gobsmacking amounts of taxpayer money get spent on the stupidest and even hideously corrupt ways-- and this happens precisely because the citizens are not showing up and shining light on it all, and pushing back. The officials start to think their you-know-what smells of lillies and taxpayer money sprouts on easy-to-reach bushes at the command of their magic wands.
In sum, yes, your participation could make a big difference in the quality of life in your community (the bang for the buck on your dollars spent) and also on on your tax bill.
I realize that we have a covid forum, but I'd like to offer a related comment here, having to do with local government budgets-- and frugality. At the time of the covid jab mandate craze, I not only recognized that both the mandates and the refusal of religious exemptions are a violation of human rights, and that they would be vigorously challenged in the courts, and that therefore one day, sooner or later, the fired noncompliant firefighters, police, teachers, healthcare workers and so many others, would present a dreadful fiscal problem for local governments. To those workers who refused to comply-- a very large number of people, though the mainstream media has tried to keep that inconvenient fact buried-- the local governments would possibly be obliged to pay back the all the wages and reinstate the pensions and possibly also fork over for damages-- and this in addition to having to continue to fund the salaries and benefits and pensions of all the new jab-compliant employees who replaced the ones who got kicked out for refusing the jabs. (Plus, compensation for jab injuries could represent a fiscal burden as well.) I really do think that, in a least a few places, a few loud citizen voices on target at the meetings might have made a difference -- I mean, where it was up to the local officials to decide on the mandates. (That said, I realize this not was not the case uniformly.)
My own new city is a relatively small one and I would like to think that, had some city council member been so obtuse as to attempt impose a jab mandate on the city employees, my voice against that, both on moral grounds and on fiscal grounds, could have made a difference. Fortunately, however, it didn't come up.
Unjabbed Typewriter Collector
Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-01-31 08:37 pm (UTC)- They use 15% of the per person water usage for their area, a savings of 85% ( household use, not including garden, but that is also low)
- Before adding solar, they used 35% of the electricity usage for their area. (180kWh/month, is 6kWh day, is 3kwh/day per person) Their biggest useage would likely be hot water heating, then electronics and refrigerator.
- He lowered his blood pressure, cholesterol and improved other health markers by behavior changes, lowering medical bills while having a nicer life.
The point he is making though is that they are not sacrificing anything in their lifestyle. They use so, so much less and still have a modern lifestyle of daily showers, a washing machine and refrigerator, computer/electronics(as he makes his living this way), they wash lots of dishes, cook and eat good food, they have good health.
"This raises significant questions about our economy, our runaway costs of living and our lifestyles. Healthcare consumes almost 20% of our nation's enormous GDP. How much could we reduce the burdens of cost and ill-health with very basic, nothing-fancy modifications of our behaviors? How much could we reduce our consumption of water and energy with very basic, nothing-fancy modifications of our behaviors?
This raises another question: why is any reduction in consumption posed in terms of unbearable sacrifice, when no sacrifices are necessary to consequentially reduce consumption? Behavioral modifications of the sort described above exact very little from us. Many require very little time and extra effort, and those that do demand time and effort--a daily walk and eating only real food prepared at home--have outsized positive effects that would be considered miraculous were they contained in a pill. "
When you make changes in habits, do you feel it is a sacrifice ? Do you have a favorite change in behavior that not only was not a sacrifice but gave you immense gain
Atmospheric River
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-01-31 09:12 pm (UTC)Atmospheric RIver
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-01 07:20 pm (UTC)Those that ask about our lifestyle do still see it as a sacrifice. They only see what we gave up, not what we have gained. Being debt-free means less stress and a better work-life balance. I can only wish that more people could find their way to enjoying the benefits of a debt-free lifestyle ...
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-02 01:57 pm (UTC)Be very very careful what you wish for. As in understand the consequences of what you're wishing. You think this is a good thing you're wishing for. What if I told you that what you're wishing for is the whole economy to crater and all the banks to permanently fail?
For every person that isn't in debt someone else must go even deeper into debt. Take a moment to thank that poor person (tonight on Kitchen Nightmares). It's baked in the system, it's the rules of the game. The debt at the system level is unpayable and always increasing. Then again maybe that's what's going to happen all along anyway.
So, yeah, sure, I wish that more people were debt-free. Let's push that throttle all the way in. Let's do it.
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-02 08:18 pm (UTC)Most people won't get ready. Or spend less. Or bulk up their savings. This is why so many cultures have those ant and grasshopper fables.
I don't believe thrift, self-denial, or rational behavior come naturally to most humans. If they did, everyone would have a savings account, eat right, exercise, and do all those other boring, unfun, uncool things that actually help you succeed in the long haul.
The only way to win is not to play.
If you don't want to cut back and discourage others to cut back now, when it's easy, then okay! You subsidize me at the grocery store. When more people take advantage of grocery store savings as times get harder, the grocery store makes its policies less liberal and I swiftly adapt.
Practice makes perfect. Practice now, when it's easy and you have safety nets.
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-03 12:08 am (UTC)https://www.ecosophia.net/an-unfamiliar-world/
That means that debt-based economics are ending, and being in debt will increasingly be a disastrously bad decision, as it always is in periods of economic stability or contraction. (It's not that good of an idea in a period of slow growth, for that matter -- only the temporary boomtime of runaway growth driven by fossil fuels and massive population expansion makes it functional, for a while.) With that in mind, getting out of debt is crucial, and it really does make life much, much easier.
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-03 08:10 pm (UTC)Thank you for your insightful comments.
Caldathras
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-03 07:58 pm (UTC)In your second paragraph, you seem to be trying to make me feel responsible for someone else's choice to go into debt -- because I'm not carrying my fair share of the debt load. That argument is preposterous, if not disingenuous. I am not responsible for other people's choices.
This debt-dependant economic system is relatively young. Many, many rural individuals lived a subsistence lifestyle up until after WW2. It was seen as noble, honest way to make a living. Then, the western governments began a smear campaign to stigmatize the lifestyle of these self-sufficient people and make them believe that they should be ashamed of the way they lived. Industrialism needed Consumerism to thrive. To support the fallacious idea of unlimited growth, Consumerism needed a debt economy. A self-sufficient lifestyle was not compatible with either of these needs.
I feel no guilt for those caught up in the Industrial/Consumer/Debt system. But I will happily show them a different path if they are interested. What we once called the subsistence lifestyle, due to the stigma, we now call simplified living.
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-03 08:05 pm (UTC)Caldathras
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-01 07:22 pm (UTC)Caldathras
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-01 08:06 pm (UTC)When my partner and I lived in the city 15 years ago, we would still have found his water and energy consumption to seem exceptionally high. Time seems to have managed to increase the minimum consumption level for both resources.
We live off-grid now so we have little basis of comparison.
Caldathras
Re: Changing Habits for Frugality not a Sacrifice
Date: 2025-02-03 07:16 pm (UTC)My answer: refusing to buy a new car every time my spouse got hooked by the ads and wanted to buy a new one. For him it was a sacrifice, for me, however, not at all-- and over decades, we've saved a ton of money by my dragging my heels on this issue.
My other answer: I chucked the TV.
Yet another answer: I got a dog.
UTC
Overwintering geraniums
Date: 2025-02-01 05:10 pm (UTC)Happy Imbolc to all!
The photo of plants on a windowsill made me think of the little plantation on my office window. I have 5 Datura Angels' Trumpet cuttings flourishing in some home-made potting soil on my office windowsill. Then, I have cuttings of red geraniums (yes, I know they are really pelargoniums) and heavily-scented rose geraniums rooting vigorously. It is not a big windowsill so the production is very high for the space. I potted up 4 or 5 geranium cuttings to each 4-inch pot as I thought they would not all take. They all took.
So, I am not only saving money by not having to buy seeds or seedlings, I am saving time as my plants are already large and robust. I am also saving lives because I keep the same plants going for years.
I have tried the other ways of overwintering geraniums such as putting them dry into a cardboard box and expecting them to be alive in the spring but none of those techniques worked. The cuttings have been very easy and successful so far.
Maxine
Seedlings from red pepper flakes (free from dominos pizza)
Date: 2025-02-02 01:14 am (UTC)Re: Seedlings from red pepper flakes (free from dominos pizza)
Date: 2025-02-02 04:59 am (UTC)I have a jar of red pepper flakes on my counter and will try to rear some plants from them. Thank you for this idea.
Maxine
Re: Seedlings from red pepper flakes (free from dominos pizza)
Date: 2025-02-03 08:15 pm (UTC)That being said, despite warnings against it, I have grown potatoes from "seed' obtained at the grocery store.
Caldathras
Re: Seedlings from red pepper flakes (free from dominos pizza)
Date: 2025-02-04 06:45 am (UTC)Maxine
Re: Seedlings from red pepper flakes (free from dominos pizza)
Date: 2025-02-04 07:08 pm (UTC)Re: Seedlings from red pepper flakes (free from dominos pizza)
Date: 2025-02-03 12:15 am (UTC)Chickpeas from dried ones have germinated for me.
Most other dried pulses and seeds here are imported - this is Australia - and I believe have been treated to kill pests, which also kills the embryos.
iridescent scintillating elver
Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 02:16 am (UTC)At the time, I took quite a few suggestions, particularly relying on used things where possible and generally we succeeded but I am wondering if any one has tips they might like to reiterate from their experiences.
I have quite a bit of time until he’s eating of course but I’d love to do my best to avoid those pesky pouches and am curious how others went about the food transition?
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 04:02 am (UTC)You dont need to buy any baby food. When your baby is ready to eat, you use foods you already have at hand, keeping in mind they dont like strong flavors and you should not give raw honey the first, I believe it is one year, look that one up. But you should be able to cook using regular groceries you buy. For my first child, I had a small hand crank baby food grinder to mash foods. After that, I never thought that was needed as I then believed in delaying solid foods until the child was grasping. The first food they eat they are realy playing for a while and breast milk or formula is the real nutrition. They want to eat what you are eating and try to grab it and put it in their mouths. SO, you dont want them to choke, so you can mash it with the back of a fork, or put food in a blender, or cut realy small if it is relatively soft foods. Or use a baby food grinder. Or chew it yourself a bit, as our ancient foremothers did and then put some of that in their mouth. Banana, avacado, applesauce, cooked oatmeal are easy, but you want them to get used to family foods, so make sure to mash up with a fork cooked vegetables and grains and proteins that you normally eat. If you eat meat, that is why you would need that baby food grinder or to prechew. break bread into very teeny bits without crust. They eat rice, but it basically goes right thru them, as most foods do realy. They are practicing.
Atmospheric River
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 03:24 pm (UTC)Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 06:43 pm (UTC)Atmospheric River
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 09:46 pm (UTC)We eat tons of peanut butter in my house. When we walk the earth trembles. (Kidding.)
I would add, if the parents can take dairy, try that, too, especially fermented.
It's indeed possible to save a lot of money by not buying commercial baby food, just using homecooked food and, when necessary, a blender or grinder.
Unjabbed Typewriter Collector
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-06 05:08 pm (UTC)That's the best way to inoculate them with your caries....
Just sayin'
pamouna
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 09:19 am (UTC)As they got better and more teeth we'd give them things like a cheese pizza slice, bread and butter, corn cobs or large chunks of raw crispy fruit and veg to gnaw on. Or put spreads on some celery to lick off. Added a few spoons on their tray if it was something spoonable. Doing it this way they'd be pretty much feeding themselves by 1yr old, sometimes with a spoon sometimes not and no problems with triggering/exacerbating the oral aversions that a couple of them had.
After that we all worked pretty hard on gradually broadening their tastes - no chilli and always a choice of something bland as well but they all got a taste of basic European herbs, paprika, garlic, pickled veggies etc just from sharing what we were eating. Keep in mind children often need 15-30 introductions to a flavour for them to learn to enjoy it (though apparently some of the flavours come through in breast milk as a sort of pre-introduction). Even then, some kids will always have plainer tastes than others or a hatred for a particular flavour. However, with a lot of autists in our families we were really wary of ending up with a bunch of kids who would only eat three white foods and one flavour of soft drink. Getting used to a wide variety of normal food flavours early helps avoid that and gives more options as they go on and off foods as toddlers.
Last and fairly late was small roundish things that could be inhaled if they were mucking around and not paying attention - grapes, peas, corn kernals, unground nuts etc. They got those around 2.5-3yrs by memory - as a reward for sitting properly at the table. They liked learning to count with those and practice their pincer grip as they ate them 1 at a time.
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 06:51 pm (UTC)As for serving grapes, this is a risk for all preschoolers even. I used to just cut them in half so they were no longer a chocking risk. If you serve things like sausages or hot dogs, cut them in half lengthwise first, otherwise if they are cut or bitten off as usual to eat, the cross section is a large round they can choke on, when cut in half lengthwise, you end up with half circles.
Besides being expensive and not frugal, those pouches are introducing alot of chemicals from the soft plastic pouch into the child, this is not good for them.
Atmospheric River
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-03 03:59 pm (UTC)This is something many people don’t believe me when I say, but I know I read in the book that very young babies have a gag reflex close to the front of their mouths and it moves back as they grow so actually giving them hard foods to suck on when young trains them to get used to the gag reflex well before they’re in any real danger of choking. Either they figure out how to spit it out or you can swipe it out with a finger easily when they gag. because it’s still in the front of their mouths. Waiting to give kids solid foods until they’re a year or more actually fosters choking at the table since they are unpracticed and the gag reflex has already grown back towards their throats. I see a lot of hysteria online, like “Make sure you chop up grapes because your three-year-old can easily choke on them!!!”, which I just can’t relate to. None of my babies/toddlers got into the habit of stuffing too much food at once or taking too big of bites and I put it down to baby led weaning starting from the first meal.
Nappies
Date: 2025-02-02 10:11 am (UTC)I never bothered with treating them well to be able to pass them on - no one else seemed interested in buying even the spotless ones and I had too much else going on. I did the dry nappy bucket thing with a splash of tea tree oil down the bottom and a shake of bicarbonate soda on top of each nappy (shake poo into the loo before the nappy goes in the bucket). Then I'd just soak/hot wash them in the machine over night and hang them on the line. We had enough they could dry for three days if they needed to. They were trashed once we were done (and I needed to buy a second lot at 12 months because it's impossible to make a fitted nappy that fits a newborn as well as a two year old). However, still an incredible money and environment saver.
They do require a different mindset though - the nappy needs to get changed as soon as the baby goes - you can't just plan to leave them in the nappy until it's more convenient or because it isn't 'full' enough. On the plus side, the baby never gets used to being left in its wastes and will pretty quickly learn how to indicate things are happening down below. Which then makes them super easy to toilet train later or even start elimination communication if you want to do that to save a few nappies.
No pram
Date: 2025-02-02 10:32 am (UTC)Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 05:25 pm (UTC)Allow me to get on my natural organic soapbox and suggest, for kids, nutrition and home cooked meals are critical for avoiding those expensive medical bills now and lifetime good health later. I beg and plead, avoid the pizza, burgers, brown sugar water, and processed food trap. You DO NOT WANT your kid on a lifetime fat, salt and sugar addiction. No guarantees, of course, given the chemical stew we all inhabit, but this is a matter of odds in kid's favor, just like reading aloud increases the odds of your little guy growing up not stupid. I rarely had to employ physical punishment, the threat of no reading time this evening was usually enough. Best of luck to you and your family. Mary Bennett
Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-02 09:08 pm (UTC)Re: Baby tips 2.0
Date: 2025-02-03 12:58 am (UTC)As for baby food, I'll chime in with the others to say that we didn't really make any. I might have mashed up some pumpkin or sweet potato at some point, but mostly we just fed the kids what we were eating.
You might have the impression that it's hard to get kids to eat vegetables, but I assure you that if you do, there is a problem with the vegetables. My kids would turn their noses up at veggies from the store, but happily munch away at raw veg from the local organic farm. They can tell what's good and what's not.
Making Yoghurt
Date: 2025-02-02 12:44 pm (UTC)From making yoghurt in the past, I remembered that after a while, the yoghurt you use as starter no longer works to produce more yoghurt, and you have to buy new starter cultures to continue. That's exactly what I don't want to do - I want to keep making yoghurt from yoghurt indefinitely, because I don't like being so dependent on an outside source; I also figure that in the
post-apocalypticecotechnic future, we also won't have shops with yoghurt starter cultures at every corner.So, I'd be grateful for any tips and tricks for that.
*)as well as other fermented food
Re: Making Yoghurt
Date: 2025-02-02 09:29 pm (UTC)https://culturesforhealth.com/collections/cultured-favorites
I have had mine for about 12 years now and it is still going strong. Apparently, unlike the dried starter cultures that only work for a few batches, heirloom cultures have a wider mix of bacteria and are more resilient. A starter culture like this could be passed down through generations, just like people do with sourdough starters or kombucha scobys.
Re: Making Yoghurt
Date: 2025-02-02 09:48 pm (UTC)Unjabbed Typewriter Collector
Re: Making Yoghurt
Date: 2025-02-02 11:11 pm (UTC)And while we are on a frugal forum this is one time that I would recommend using an instapot or similar if you are making larger batches. It has made temperature control, timing, and clean up so much easier and has been a real time saver. We also use it for low temp pasteurizing and if we ever get enough milk for small batch cheese making.
We got our current starter from cultures for health online. We tried a couple of their choices and I couldn't really tell the difference in flavor. It is likely our current culture is some mix of a few of them. Similar to sourdough it might take some time to stabilize in your setup. Over time the mix of the culture that are strongest for the milk and environment will be consistent. A non-ideal batch isn't always a sign of a problem with the culture so it is worth it to us to try again rather than buying new starter. You can also freeze a portion of yogurt once everything is working and have that as a backup to restart. Freezing isn't ideal so I would also refresh the backup every six months or so. We do the same with our sourdough starter. I have had to resort to the sourdough backup but not yet the yogurt.
When we started we just used plain store yogurt as a starter. This is good for a number of batches but does change and get less vigorous over time. Since we just made it every once in a while it was easy enough to just use fresh store yogurt each time so it was consistent.
One other note is that in our experience all homemade yogurt is going to be thinner than store bought. To make it thicker we use a greek yogurt strainer that is basically a super fine metal mesh bowl over a plastic bowl with a lid. Some are easier to clean than others. This also will give plenty of buttermilk like liquid for pancakes, animals, or watering your plants that like acid.
We also have a continuous culture of clabber going. This is the simplest culture that I have. Every day or two I just pour about a cup of milk in a pint jar, take a baby spoon of the previous jar stir it up, and put the lid on it. The previous batch just goes in a bigger jar in the fridge. Since I am just using milk it is somewhere between yogurt and sour cream. Making sure the culture is good is based on smell but I have never had to restart this one. I use it in place of milk in some baking recipes.