Just curious who else is living super frugal

[Raiquee]

Me and DH are youngin's (mid 20s) and grew up being way spoiled by our parents. We now have two DS of our own, and love to spoil them as well. But we lost our jobs a few months after our wedding, and right after we bought our home. We were both unemployed for a year and a half. I just landed employment beginning of March (but have been on Maternity leave since the end of april) and DH got a job the day DS was born! (End of April) We learned very quickly how to change our livestyle in order to save our home and get our bills paid. I became a much better grocery shopper, we got a roommate even though we didn't want to, we gardened, we got ducks for eggs.

Now, we want to continue this lifestyle, and are looking at finding a place with 5-10 acres so we can garden for us and immediate family (as they need to stop eating out of boxes) raise our meat, and also plant a food plot to feed most of our livestock we have. We want to become more SS...I admit i'm not as SS as most on this forum. But I think changing our lifestyle in the way of being able to provide us with our own food is a big step in the right direction. I can't buy used clothes, I just freak out thinking someone else wore it. But I usually only buy clearance, I never pay retail pricing. I'd like to get to a point where I have things to barter for, and I'm definatly for farming in small areas

I don't do the once a month shopping, BUT I am going to make a calender of the next month and plan my dinners, so I can grocery shop SMARTER and also plan ahead to catch sales on the meats needed and dry goods needed. I thought that was kinda smart. I tend to impulse buy and spend money and get home and go "oh man, I forgot this!" or "What am I going to do with that?"

None of my family did any food preservation, so I had to teach myself to can and dehydrate. Also to garden to our needs. We always had a cute tomato plant and thats about it growing up. Now I care for the garden as if a son, as I know our fresh produce for the year relies on our garden doing well. We garden organically too, and I am keeping track this year how many # of food I pull out of it so I can calculate organic costs and how much we "saved".

(Sorry, I get excitied about SS too, cause everyone thinks we are crazy too.)

 

[teach1rusl]

Quote:
I think it's great that you and DH are younger, and starting to think this way. Some folks I know think we're odd, because we don't buy into the whole "keeping up with the Jones'" thing. But when you get to the point where you have no credit card payments, no car payments, no mortgage payments...the security of knowing what is yours - is YOURS - it'll all be worth it.

 

[HeatherLynn]

Another post reminded me, we also stock up on olive oil and coffee. My dad wants to stock pile toilet paper but we have been ignoring that one for a bit.

I wish I could find an article I was writing. My husband transfered over my files and my writing disappeared so. I grew up on stories about the depression. Not just here but in europe during the occupation. Lots of stories about things my grandmother did to keep the family fed. She was an amazing woman who ran a home, worked, raised her daughter, helped her family survive, and managed to keep everyone well fed. She did that while my Opa was in a war camp. So I have all kinds of inspiration on living differently and adjusting and flourishing in a downward economy.

 

[Abirdbrain]

I love it. My mother always said canning was good for the soul. Because we made Eastern European Soul Food. Crock pickles, sourkraut, sausages, and things in jars for the winter and spring. G'pa had a larder in the cool corner of the basement where all the pantry was stored, and a stove in the near corner with table to eat in the cool on hot days. No Air conditioning back then. I still have the crocks. 10 and 20 gallon.

Living on the grid, is not efficient by design. Canned veggies, (inna can) are too salty. Pickles of Sweet, or Dill are worth it, at $4+ per storebought jar. Plain and sweet-sour green beans are served cold. Tons of Tomato sauces packed whole puree, or with onions and green pepper are favorites and can keep you busy. We raid the local farm market , and get the damaged and overripe fruits. They get sorted, washed, pealed, diced, whatever it takes and are canned or frozen in baggies for pies and cakes, and ice cream toppings, along with the Black and Red Rasberries, and Blueberries that grow wild here. A ton of Mulberries, and Elderberrie for home wines, and Liquers for toppings.

Most anything can be frozen, I prefer a chest freezer. It doesnt drop the cold out when you look for a package. Wire in a LED pilot light, to show it has power. It is sometimes hard to remember what you have. A simple list, can be made and the numbers scratched off when removed. We freeze excess eggs, remove the shell and put in zipper snadwich bags, 6 at a time. Whole or stirred, doesnt matter. Use for cakes, bread, or morning scrambles. Butter on sale, goes in baggies, gallon size for 3-4 lbs frozen, to guard against odors. Store fish, in double bags, floating in water,take the air out, to prevent freezer burn, and escaped odors. Most meats and veggies, have a storage limit aof about 6 months, same with prepared meals broken up and stored in bags or Poplidded containers. on containers pick one simple style and use only one or two sizes. It is amazing how many parts you can get, that dont match. When they are the same same they stack nice, and a lost lid is no biggy.

Rice, beans and flour are transfered to glass or metal containers, with some stick cinnamin stuck on top. The bugs wont live there. Stick cinnamin in the cabinets help keep the flour bugs out of boxes of pasta too. If your house is really active for such critters, buy the flexable shoe boxes, and commit all your pasta, and noodles to them.

I have been at this a long time. Trust me, this works. Kiss rule. Keep it simple stupid...

Long term, no bags or boxes of any flour made product, you are asking for trouble with pests destroying your stock. G'ma had a flour tin, held 20lbs of flour without problems, a rare thing now. So are Half gallon canning jars. We used to buy canning jars for $.05 each, cause nobody used them anymore, and lids and rings got hard to find.

 

[hcppam]

I freeze milk and bread...the reason I got the chickens, for eggs and to help people on the edge with free eggs. Its hard out there.

 

[silly]

Any ideas to save on feeding four big dogs. We started with one dog but over the last 10 years have acquired four more that stayed. We go through 50 pds of dog food a week. I usually buy the store brand but it is still $20-25 a bag. I feed leftovers (we seldom have any) and anything that is over the hill.(they eat old raw fruits & veggies and love em ) I chose to quit work and stay home with the kids this past year and am looking for ways to reduce expenses. We are gardening, canning, baking, cooking from scratch,and have a freezer full of wild game. I have found lots of great ideas on cutting back for the people, but not the pets. How do others save here?

 

[ChikeeMomma]

Not sure about saving with pets. We only have one dog and I feed him Diamond Chicken and Rice brand dog food. It's not the most expensive, but it's not the cheapest, either. Kinda higher middle of the road, but the vet said that it is a good dog food. With four dogs, I could see going through the feed! Hope someone has some ideas for you. I have read about people making food from scratch for their dogs, but not sure if it is cheaper.

 

[HHandbasket]

Last year, Farmer Lew and I bought scooters. When it's not raining or freezing outside, that's what we drive instead of our cars for in-town trips to the store or to visit people we know or whatever. Farmer Lew's scooter gets about 70-75 mpg, and mine gets about 85 mpg (I think it has more to do with the fact that I weigh 110 pounds less than him LOL). They are 150 cc scoots and are a ton of fun to drive, freeway legal (though NOT freeway-safe... there IS a difference). We bought them used from people on Craigslist but did our homework and looked at a whooooole bunch of scooters before we found the ones that suited us and were most mechanically sound. They are not Vespas and are made in China. Some scooter fanatics look down their noses at Chinese scoots, but we have had excellent response with ours without a bunch of mechanical issues (we stay on top of the maintenance almost religiously). Both of our scooters, including tax, registration, title transfer fees, and one year of insurance were $2,100. (One year of insurance for both of us on both bikes is less than $180 a year through Progressive.) That's $2,100 for BOTH bikes... not each.

We garden and grow as much as we can, but we had to move in the middle of spring planting this year so there is no garden this spring. Preparation is being made for a fabulous fall garden, however.

We freeze as much as possible.

We grow our own chickens and eat fresh eggs. I'm going in a couple of weeks to a fellow BYCer's place near me and learning to process birds on her farm.

While not an extreme clipper, I will use a coupon for an item I was planning to buy anyway if it is available. I'm getting more active at looking for good coupon deals, though.

We go grocery shopping twice a month, but now that we are living up in the mountains, we are working on doing it less frequently. We just moved up here in April and are still trying to get our routine down. I hate having to go down off the mountain into Sacramento to go shopping (I love it up here SO much), so the less frequently I have to do it, the better.

Our income is roughly 1/3 of what it was this time 3 years ago, so paring down from a station wagon and a minivan, down to a Dodge Neon and a couple of scooters (all of which we bought used and were very inexpensive, I might add) has been tremendously helpful.

Renting movies at Redbox for $1 is a lot cheaper than it costs us to go to the movies, so we wait for them to come out on DVD.

Edited for typos and clarification.

 

[BarefootMom]

Quote:
I only shop once a month for the main things- it was the way I was raised. I never understood only shopping for a few days. It seemed like a waste. It takes me about 3 days usually to prepare for my shopping trip.. I have to check all the store adds and matchup all my coupons and meal plan. You have to meal plan or it is pointless.

We have always had to be a bit frugal.

Although grocery shopping isn't that big of a deal since we have our own meat (Chicken, beef, and whatever else--venison, fish, pork..sometimes) I always plant a HUGE garden and can/freeze many many things. We have our own eggs (obviously) and I trade a dairy farmer eggs for milk. I make my own bread occasionally. I try to buy in bulk for some things.

All of my kids clothes are used unless other family members buy them.

Most of our furniture is used. In fact I am sitting at a table that I picked up at the flea market for $12 yesterday!

We only eat out once or twice a month.

I use reusable things more often--which with that we have canceled out trash service and I burn all paper goods and we only end up with about 2 13-gallon trash bags a week which get put in with my mom and dad's trash. (they said we could)

I don't just accept things and go on. Our DISH network bill was getting out of hand and I called 4 times in 1 day and finally got it down to $15.39 a month (with taxes) and we get about 40 channels plus locals. It was nearing $60 for about 60 channels and no locals.

I am sure there are other things we do that I can't think of too. It is just so natural to us though it is hard to pinpoint them out ya know?

I would like to get some horses and just ride them to town as high as fuel is. I noticed today that diesel went down to $3.70 a gallon ugh. Still way too expensive! Especially when the truck holds about 35 gallon. I am a SAHM and my husband works in town (about 15 miles away) so he drives my Escape usually. We talked about going down to only 1 vechile but with our son starting preschool in the fall it just wouldn't work. Preschool is only half days and I have to take him and pick him up...which makes it a PITA but whatever. Many schools around here the buses will pick the preschoolers up and it lasts all day. But I guess I should complain since we only live about 4 miles from the school. It could be worse.

 

[Momagain1]

We are not allowed to NOT have garbage pickup..we will get fined..ugh...