Just curious who else is living super frugal

We always have taken and sawn the deer bones up and frozen them. The dogs eat them well. They do not offset the feed bill but they knock the heck out of the chew bone/teeth cleaning type of purchase.

We do alot of fishing but we arent supposed to eat but a certain amount due to the mercury or pcb levels. With fuel being so high, we wont be hitting Mt Storm for our catfish as much:/

The wife said to mention to be sure to ask the meat dept at the grocery about bones.....she gets a bag full for a dollar or two when we are out of deer bones.

We are in the process now of becoming a legit farm with the USDA and hoping to capitalize on their programs. The tax breaks alone will help a ton as well as some of their financing programs.

I always shop at goodwill type stores. I shave the boys hair instead of taking to the shop.Buy foods only when on sale.Even buy socks and undies that are a wee bit mis-shaped,so they are way cheaper.

I was behind a lady at Target the other day who got a few cloths items that rang up over $100. I could not help buy think of all the cloths I could get at the goodwill for that. We are talking designer type stuff for $2-$3. Sometimes I have to remind myself that $3 -$4 is a good deal,and to NOT wait till the items are half off.Yes, I am stuck on that. They used to have 50 cent Monday sales,but now it is 75 cent SUN/MON sales.Still good.

I am looking to figure out how to fit some 8 foot posts in my car/van so I can make a cloths line.Save on the drying.

I grow stuff,but on a small scale.I did plant apple,plum,and grapes. I am hoping to get a 6 by 8 harbor frieght greenhouse.They are better than the big 10 by 12.

Lol,about the deer.My mom showed a picture of a deer in her yard,and my first comment was," Boy we could live off her for a year!" We have never eaten deer.

This Thread is great! We have just recently begun to face to financial wreck we have made of ourselves over the least few years, and Ii have been looking for any way I can to scrimp and save. lots of little extras have been cut- cable gone completely, internet gone (only way I have access is on my phone), no eating out.... It makes me sad sometimes when my kids ask for something and I have to tell them no. But it will be worth it in the end- when i'm not afraid to answer the phone anymore and we can buy our house...and my big dream is to take my kids to disney, none if us have ever been!
rigjt now we are learning lots. Just planted our first ever veggie garden. It's little, but hopefully it will help a bit. Ii made fresh pasta the other day for the first time and it was great! Trying my habd at fresh bread for the first time today. My clothes line is my best friend... And of course the coupons! Clip then religiously now! Ii haven't hit the jackpot with then yet, but if Ii can save $30-40 on groceries, I'll take it. Little things, I know, but every little bit helps, right?

My husband and I have spent the past 5 years trying to become debt free and as completely self sustaining as we can get living in a city. We have an acre that we grow our food on and then I can it or freeze it or dehydrate it. I now have my hens which are giving us compost, eggs (one so far!), and down the road maybe meat (if I can part with any of them:/). I coupon for most of our bought food and avoid convenience foods for the most part. Though I have been known to go ahead and get those pizza rolls because they were only going to cost me 24 cents after my coupons and I didn't want to cook after all that shopping. My girls have never had clothing that was new. All of us shop at thrift stores for that. The kiddos just sprout so fast that at least for now it's just not worth spending 10 or 12 bucks on jeans from Wally-world when I can get the same or better from the thrift for 39 cents on Fridays. (Friday is their kids clothes sale day). Our debt is slowly coming down, but we have an incredible amount of medical bills from my last pregnancy and our oldest child's heart condition. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of credit card debt we both had when we married 9 years ago. Boy would we have done things different if we could have! I think we are on the right track and hopefully we will get the debt gone and continue our journey towards self-sustainability. Good luck to you!!!

This thread is great! It's comforting that there are others out there in the same boat as I am... and are trying hard to become debt free.

I could go on and on and on on in a reply to this post. First off, I'll tell you what we do, but I really wish we did more. I have a hard time getting my husband on board with living frugally (he's an antique tractor collector). We certainly don't splurge on new clothes or anything, but he will definitely buy a tractor if its a "good deal" whether we need it or not (and trust me, we do NOT need it). Anyway, that said, we do have chickens (obviously we're on this site) and we plant a huge garden...not commercial or anything...just for our consumption. I just pulled 80 lbs of potatoes yesterday and am canning/freezing/banking them today. We can/freeze almost everything out of the garden. We make our own laundry detergent and soap and use dish towels instead of paper towels. We make our own bread/yogurt/butter and a whole slew of other things. We do the once/month grocery trip and we definitely use coupons. We buy clothes/vehicles and everything else you can thing of, used.

That said, we still have debt, but we are working on it. Its only our mortgage, a vehicle, and a piece of family land we chose to buy.

My best resource for living frugally has been my 80 year old grandmother who claims that she was so poor during the depression that they really had no idea that there was a depression. She often makes fun of me (jokingly) for doing things the way she did them when she was growing up, but she loves the fact that I'm trying to preserve her heritage (which is honestly my draw more than it is to live frugally). Any time I want to know how to do things cheaper or on my own, I ask her and she has the answer. After all, when she grew up, the only thing they bartered for were sugar and salt. Anyway, we're here and we're trying desperately to live frugally.

I'm Very interested in knowing how you make ypur own laundry detergent! Can you post how you do it or a link to directions? I wonder if it can be used in a high efficiency machine? And soap too? Please share! I am new to all this!

Quote:
Laundry Detergent: 1 bar of Fels Naptha soap, grated (sometimes hard to get ahold of, so I buy by the box), 2 c. of washing soda, 2 c. borax. Mix the 3 ingredients together and store in a container until use. Use 3 tsp of detergent for super loads, 2 tsp for medium, and 1 tsp for small. I usually make 3 batches at a time (3 bars of soap grated, 6 c of washing soda, 6 c of borax) and it lasts me 4 months...I have two small children, so we do a good bit of washing. I'm not sure about the high efficiency machines, but I'm sure there is information about it on the internet.

The soap...now that's a different story...its not such an easy process. We use beef tallow (we butcher a whole cow at a time...another way we save money) and we have the butcher save the bones (for the dogs) and the fat/tallow (for soap). We make lye soap, so its not soap you can use to wash your body (its harsh) but with a husband as a mechanic, we have a lot of greasy hands to wash...and that's where we use the soap.

So This, Ii realize, is an odd question, but i'm going to ask it anyway. How does it smell?

It doesn't really have much of a smell. You can add essential oils and scent it yourself if you want.