Exploring The Frugal Lifestyle
 

While awaiting information from a customer I spent some time on the web checking out variations of cooking rice. I got pulled off course into the general subject of Frugality. I've decided that true frugality is not being learned by the next generation in the home as much today as it was in the past. Frugality must now be sought out and learned from a webpage.

I think THIS SEARCH will provide many hours of enjoyment and entertainment to those of you looking to explore the ideas of simplicity of life, doing more with less, and having a good life without having to have an expensive life.

One that sticks in my mind is HillbillyHousewife.Com. Good, basic house and cooking skills. Much of it I remembered from my own childhood. Definitely worth the time to peruse.

Enjoy!

Yes, HillbillyHousewife.com is a great link....reminds me why I still can't eat peanut butter...when I was a kid we used to have a big tin that we'd have the grocer fill with peanut butter. Ate way too much peanut butter back then!

I'm still exploring the site....very entertaining, as you say.

With the steadily rising cost of food, growing your own is becoming cost effective. For the past couple of weeks I've taken some time away from modding my car to dig and plant a vegetable garden (under cloches). Now that I am several weeks into the project, I have stopped shopping for salad greens at the grocery store. In addition, many of the types of greens I harvest are unavailable at the grocery stores.

interesting you mention this topic. I'm in the process of amping up for a "living on less" experiment for the next year, if not more.

and Basjoos, I too am preparing for a garden. I just wish the damn snow would melt.

Living through a depression (aka poverty) will do that to a person.

Most of humanity's existence has involved making a little go a long way. Same too in the animal kingdom. The efficiencies involved in crafting animals like birds, bats, fish etc that make a living from traveling through air or water have very little to do with fashion other than color. Ornamentation on such animals is strictly limited to have minimal impact such as the crest of a cockatoo, folded up when not used.

I've discussed having a vegetable garden with my wife too. We just need a house. :/

I live in Japan. Rice here is expensive, but that is mainly due to government interference in the growing of it. Living in America, you can get the same quality (koshi hikari) stuff, that is grown in California. Get yourself a nice rice cooker (expect to pay about $300 for this, but remember that it is a long-term investment) and enjoy excellent rice every day thereafter. Oh, but please do wash it before you cook it!

Gardens are the single best way to improve your quality of life. First, you always have access to fresh produce. Second, that fresh produce takes minutes to harvest and make ready to cook. Third, you don't contribute to the hauling of vegetables across the whole country. Fourth, it keeps you busy and in shape -- as long as you don't rely on pesticides, fertilizer, and machinery. There is a reason why Japanese people live as long as they do. The 90 year olds grow all of the crops!

People need to start considering (when reasonable) living without whole-house temperature control systems. Sure central A/C and heating are nice, but they are extremely wasteful. Give your pet an electric blanket for when you are out of the house, and dress warmer when you are at home.

Turn off the t.v. and pick up a book. Hang-dry your clothes. Walk to work. Make your own beer. Pick up a board game. Have a conversation. Get yourself a little tail. Exchange dishes with neighbors. Go for a walk in the woods. Cut the cable line. Cut the phone line. Keep the internet -- don't want to lose that. Anything else though is fair game. The less you have, the more you appreciate what you do have.

We've had a garden in our backyard for 20+ years...it's become an automatic thing. Quit using pesticides 10 yrs or so ago...we use complimentary plants to keep the bugs down.

Haven't made beer for a long time...20 yrs or so. Used to really enjoy "making my own"....so much so I took the exams and qualified as a beer judge. Just regional competitions, but it was fun. Quit that about 15 years ago, just too busy with kids, job, etc. to do it. May have to take it up again....1 more year and our youngest is out the door!:thumbup:

I bought my Troy-bilt tiller in Sep 1986 and the only maintenance I've had to do to it is two drive belts, one tine gasket, and fluids. I've had a garden everywhere I've been since then and have enjoyed fresh produce of my own choosing and growing. I must have at least 20% dirt in my blood by now. I told the wife to save on funeral costs by just dumping me under the compost pile and cover me up good.

We live in the city, but have enough room for three peach trees, four apple trees, and a new apricot tree this year. I built my own greenhouse out of pressure treated 2x4s & 6x's, along with corrougated fiberglass panels for less than $800. The door is an aluminum screen door from the recycle place. The greenhouse has been in good shape for the last eight years.

I compost garden waste, leaves, and grass clippings. I'm always getting volunteer tomatoes, cucumbers, flowers, and beans growing around the piles. I use rolls of wire about 12' long that are about 4' high. It makes an open top cage about 3-4' wide. I fill it up, let it do it's bidness, lift the wire off and place it next to the pile, and fork it all over into the cage again. Do that three times and you've got stuff to put in the garden. The best 50gals of potting soil I ever made was compost mixed with peat moss and run through the shredder. MAN was that stuff good for the flower pots & garden.

We have four grape vines (though the robins and I fight over the grapes every year.)

I put up 19 quarts of pickled beets year before last. I have a recipe from a book of recipies of old farm wives.

In the greenhouse and garden I do raised bed gardening. I use 2x10's & 12's in beds 4' x 12'. The tiller gets in them very well, thank you. I tie the tomatoes up to 8' 2x2's that are sharp on one end and pounded into the ground with a post driver I had made for me ($0). The pole beans are on a 4" hogwire fence about 10' wide with 10' steel posts on the ends. Mmmmmm...pole beans....

The asparagus might produce this coming year. The rhubarb is always great. The horseradish patch is beautiful. The cherry tree I cut down for bbq wood (too many worms in the cherries) works great in the smoker along with the apple and peach trimmings.

There's nothing better than getting something to grow and then eating it, except maybe sharing the bounty with others.

I've been brewing my own for about ten years. I've got a freezer with a controller I use for the kegerator. Two taps, but I'll put another on next year. It has enough room for four corny kegs and some bottles of standby beer.

I welded up a brew tower with three levels. I've been thinking about plumbing it for gas but just use two separate burners for now.

My last freezer went tango-uniform last year and I wound up dumping about ten gallons of beer. So sad. About three gallons of a brown ale, three gallons of my first lager (a Pilsner Urquell clone), and four gallons of my bitter blonde ale. Again, such a sad day.

I really need to get another brew day going soon...

Yeah, the stainless kegs are the way to go...I had 10-12 that I sold last spring. I had a refrigerator set up to brew in, another to store the finished product, with 3 taps. Boiled the wort in stainless kettle, but never actually fermented in stainless...used large plastic containers.

If I start up again, I'll have a couple of thirsty friends fabricate a fancy SS boiler/lauter tun for me, along with a SS fermentation tank. That would be cool. 10 gallon batches would be great, fill 2 kegs at once.

Ever seen a grown man cry? Close to it, when you have to pour out your beer!

MMMM... all this talk of beer is making me think of my lovely IPAs that I used to brew back in the states. Can't wait to get back and back into it. Japan is pretty dead when it comes to good beer.

awesome thread.

I didnt know there were so many gardeners here! We just bought a small farm in the hills of central ny. We are stoked to grow a greater portion of our food right here next year. the challenge is finding a way to pay the taxes and small debt without having to drive long distances everyday. I bought a 1982 troybuilt rototiller and tilled and covercropped a 60x30 garden, plus dug a few 30 foot beds by hand. Also put in some plum and pear trees, and some blueberry bushes. we have a little attached greenhouse for salad greens, but things arent growing too quickly now since it is 15 deg out.

having chickens is one of the best things since really good eggs are either hard to find or expensive. we have 8 which even in the winter lay 2 eggs a day. they make good use of the garden and kitchen scraps. they also have access to pasture which makes the eggs have a higher vitamin content.

Do you guys have or purchase raw milk/butter/cheese? I discovered those things three years ago when i was working on a small mixed farm, and couldn't believe that i had missed out on that for my whole life. The taste is way better, and the health benefits are impressive.

We are living off the grid, heated by wood with solar electricity. It is great for me, but it is challenging for my wife, who has to "sit in the dark all day" when we have 8 cloudy days in a row. then again, she stays at home most days all day so i can't blame her. She loves it in the summertime though.

Wow...James you're really kickin it! We just have 2 lots in town, so we can't do a whole lot. We're extremely fortunate to have friends who have about 90 guinea keets, so we're in free eggs for about 7-8 months out of the year. Can tell a HUGE difference between home raised eggs and store-bought!

Unfortunately Kansas is really paranoid about raw milk. Dairies are supposed to sell it for "pet consumption", but lots of humans consume it. Raw milk is much better for you than what is available at the grocery, which is basically dead, white water. I grew up on a small farm, and if you take care of your cows (or goats) you don't have problems with the milk.

Perhaps they're protecting the commercial dairies, because if raw milk were more available, they'd take a big hit on production.

Its probably good that raw milk is not commercially available on a large scale. It would seem risky to mix the milk of thousands of cows together without pasturization. But from a small farm or family cow nothing beats fresh milk.

I grew up in the suburbs on supermarket food, and can really tell the difference in nearly everything, but especially eggs, butter, meat, and greens. Things like onions are more subtle. Also my apples have scab and other imperfections on the skin, so sometimes they are bitter if not peeled. i will try a seaweed spray next year.

what are guinea keets? do they lay small eggs?
we were thinking about bantams because they multiply automatically, but for now we just have rhode island reds.
Do you have super fertile soil where you are in Kansas?
Our soil is rocky clay, kind of a pain.

Guineas are a really ugly bird, about the size of a chicken. Most people keep them because they are voracious bug-eaters, and make an excellent alarm system...they raise a hell of a racket when strangers (man or beast) approach. Their eggs are smaller, but have a very yellow yolk and rich flavor. The shells are harder, takes a while to used to whacking them hard to open. Most folks let them run during the day, pen them up at night...bobcats and coyotes are rather fond of them!

On the raw milk, I meant the small dairies should be allowed to sell milk for human consumption...but that would put a kink in the commercial dairies' production, so it probably won't happen soon.

We have really good soil here, some areas are rather rocky, though...we live in the "Flint Hills". Sometimes put a little sand in our garden to help loosen the soil.

Dad told me stories of Grandma's guinea hens and him having a multi-year war. They won, of course, since they meant food. But he won a few battles.

I saw them around farmhouses in the country through the 70's, but you really don't see them much any more around home. They're a close-to-the house thing and the kind of farms that have them are far enough from the main road where you don't get close unless you have business there.

I think i have seen guineas once before, I remember them making a strange sound. I would really like to get ducks both for laying and for meat. Hopefully there will be time for that in the spring.

We used to live in vermont, and raw milk could be sold on the farm, though it was illegal to advertise and the limit was something like 6 gallons per day, so nobody could make a living doing it. Here in NY I think it is legal, but i dont know the limit. We buy some from an organic dairy,and i have seen a sign out on the highway before. It is good for us, it tastes so much better, is certified organic, the cows are out to pasture a lot of the year, and the price is the same as conventional milk at the store. the only problem is that we have to drive for 30 min to get there, so when we go we get 3 gallons. Also there is this farm called hawthorne valley in ny that packages it and sells it from the farm with a real label and everything.