A few generations ago, most of us lived pretty much the same way, nok. Then with the industrial boom and increased wages and plentiful everything, we became a nation of consumers and disposers. I think what most of us are working toward with this thread is to find our way back to some of those simpler, more practical, less expensive ways. My grandparents were young adults during the Depression and I had the good fortune to be raised by them so I got to see first hand the idea of "use it, re-use it, fix it" I haven't always practiced living that way...when jobs were plentiful and wages were good, I became a LOT less frugal, opting to spend the money on things that were less work and were more convenient...like "instant" food and such. Although I will say that I used cloth diapers (voluntarily) on my son who was born in 1979. Now that the job market and good wages have dried up, I'm moving back toward what I learned from my grandparents, and incorporating a lot of that in our daily lives.
For years, I had an old wringer washer. That thing was a work horse, and almost never broke down. When it did, it was easy to repair because it didn't have all those bells and whistles. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE my top loader HE machine, and (touch wood) it's never given me an ounce of trouble. But if it did and I had the room for a wringer set up, I wouldn't object at all to using one again...assuming you could even find one! I'd be hard pressed to completely give up a dryer, though. I do hang most of our stuff out in the summer but not in the winter. If push came to shove, we could probably make do without, but we're not quite there yet
We're doing a lot of little things that add up...both for the sake of our pocketbooks, and additionally for the sake of the environment. I keep most of the plastic containers we get and find a use for them; my bucket-in-the-shower trick saves us about 20 gallons of perfectly good, usable water a week. We compost everything that's compost-able that the chickens and rabbits won't eat; we save all our errands for one day and then plan our route so we're not back tracking and using more gas; we us a washable, re-usable coffee filter. We're seriously at the point where we stop to think about just about everything from a different angle, asking ourselves if we really need a thing or if something else would do, is it fixable or does it really have to be replaced, it's broken for its original purpose, but can we use it for something else...it's finally becoming a habit for us, which is a good thing!
For years, I had an old wringer washer. That thing was a work horse, and almost never broke down. When it did, it was easy to repair because it didn't have all those bells and whistles. Don't get me wrong...I LOVE my top loader HE machine, and (touch wood) it's never given me an ounce of trouble. But if it did and I had the room for a wringer set up, I wouldn't object at all to using one again...assuming you could even find one! I'd be hard pressed to completely give up a dryer, though. I do hang most of our stuff out in the summer but not in the winter. If push came to shove, we could probably make do without, but we're not quite there yet
We're doing a lot of little things that add up...both for the sake of our pocketbooks, and additionally for the sake of the environment. I keep most of the plastic containers we get and find a use for them; my bucket-in-the-shower trick saves us about 20 gallons of perfectly good, usable water a week. We compost everything that's compost-able that the chickens and rabbits won't eat; we save all our errands for one day and then plan our route so we're not back tracking and using more gas; we us a washable, re-usable coffee filter. We're seriously at the point where we stop to think about just about everything from a different angle, asking ourselves if we really need a thing or if something else would do, is it fixable or does it really have to be replaced, it's broken for its original purpose, but can we use it for something else...it's finally becoming a habit for us, which is a good thing!
