Just curious who else is living super frugal

[DennisK]

I like it! great job on the stove. I am wanting to build and outside wood furnace, thats my fall project.

Jbird and I made that stove from an old propane tank that I had laying around. If you follow that example, make sure you COMPLETELY fill the tank with water before you start cutting away on it. No BOOM BOOMs allowed here – OK?

 

[newfoundland]

I love that wood stove, and the other one as well. How cosy and comforting it must be and after all, what can go wrong with these appliances as opposed to modern electric cookers that go wrong all the time and are repaired a great expense.

 

[Child of Noah]

Heck! I all wanna know what time breakfast is tommorrow. Those vittles are lookin' good! I'll volunteer to wash the pans and dishes, Missus jbirds.

I will make you breakfast EVERY DAY if you do my dishes!

 

[MoonShadows]

Quote:
A small price to pay for what looks like a delicious breakfast.

 

[DennisK]

It seems to me that this sums up what all of us have been saying:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/04/25/why-americans-are-miserable-and-broke/

 

[MoonShadows]

Excellent article and right on the money. My friends don't understand and think it's strange that I don't have a smart phone, I drive a 13 year old car, I don't have cable TV, etc, etc, etc. I am much happier and content with less. They all seem miserable.

 

[galanie]

Excellent article and right on the money. My friends don't understand and think it's strange that I don't have a smart phone, I drive a 13 year old car,  I don't have cable TV, etc, etc, etc. I am much happier and content with less. They all seem miserable.

Yep. Mine think I'm just poor. Well, I don't have much to spare but I'm perfectly happy with my 15 year old truck, no smart phone (did have one - don't need it), no cable, etc. I did however spend $300 on a refurb Kitchenaide to help my carpal tunnel wrists knead bread, etc. Next big purchase will be a strong, professional grade blender. Food processors - useless in my opinion. But others can't seem to cook without them. It's all in what you prefer I guess.

 

[DennisK]

I like to read historical novels, and I just finished one titled LONDON by Edward Rutherfurd. The reason I bring this up is because he describes in great detail how people lived during all of England’s economic ups and downs. It fascinates me just how bad things can get – how much people will tolerate poverty and deprivation. I wonder if we could find ourselves in similar situations, and how prepared we would be should we find ourselves as history suggests we could.
But, I’ve learned that deprivation is, sometimes, a state of mind. I am remembering a man who, during my early teens, was kind of like a segregate father to me. I would listen to many of his stories of his travels during the Great Depression. He ran away from home at an early age, and he traveled from state to state, looking for work. He did just about everything you can imagine. The strangest thing about his experience is that it was the best time of his life! So go figure – it was the worst time for this country, and the best time for a hobo. But he was young, healthy and with no responsibilities. I have responsibilities – most of us do.

 

[3riverschick]

My Mom gave me her 1946 edition of The Settlement Cookbook. It was the first one she ever had. She is spry at 94. Picked it up to read a couple of weeks ago. What a revelation! Here we are trying to figure out how to eat with less eggs, milk, and sugar. It is all in this cookbook, whose recipes hearken back to the 1930's. I tried the molasses oatmeal cookies using a half sugar /half Splenda blend. Just yummy. if anyone here has read Wheat Belly, they know that the first wheats were hybridized in 1950. Between 1700 and 1950, we pretty much used the same wheat called "spelt". So I was wanting to cook with spelt and got to thinking, any cookbook published before 1950 would be using spelt in the recipes. That was an eye opener. As a child in the 1950's, I started making Toll House Cookies out of my Mothers( now mine) 1951 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook ( a classic). They were delicious. Yet, over the years, they became less so, until in the 1990's, the recipe simply no longer worked. The cookies just didn't mix, bake or taste the same.
Coincidentally, this parallels the rise of the intelligent oven and the continued hybridizing of wheat. Now the original 1938(?) recipe for Toll House Cookies is different from the one you see today. It has a difference in the amount of water and cooking time. I wonder if that has to do with the hybridized wheat? I am going to get a copy of the original and make it with Spelt. I think it will be really good. What has all this to do with living super frugal? Simply that we don't need all these expensive, processed ingredients to make good food. Yes, the spelt is more expensive, but it is not Twinkies, smile. I am finding these old recipes from the 30's and 40's a real eye opener about how food can be simple and good without the latest fancy mushroom, exotic nuts, fancy lettuce or expensive fancy sugars in them. The recipe for the molasses oatmeal cookies can be found at http://www.allrecipes.com under "WWII oatmeal cookies". . They don' say it, but it's the one from the Settlement Cookbook.
Next I am going to try out some recipes from the 1941 Rumford Cook Book, that should be fun.
Best,
Karen

 

[newfoundland]

I also have inherited old cookery books and find them absolutely fascinating. I have many of the war time recipes when food was in seriously short supply and fiercely rationed. I believe each person's ration was 2 oz of sugar a week, not a lot to cook with. Everyone was forced to live very frugally then and I find the recipes, and the stories people tell of those so much harder times, inspirational.