Just curious who else is living super frugal

[erinszoo]

Hi Erinszoo, I would like to see the recipe for your yogurt!  We drink goat's milk and eat goat's yogurt.  Look forward to seeing your recipe.  Thank you.

Okay, here it is.
Put milk in crock pot on low heat for 2 hours 45 minutes. Then turn it off and leave it alone for 3 hours.

For each 1/2 gal of milk add 1/2 cup plain yogurt with active cultures. It can be greek or regular. Mix the yogurt with a little hot milk to make it easier to blend in. Stir well. Replace the lid. Then wrap the crock pot with a beach towel and place in a cooler for 10 - 12 hours.

It won't be as thick as store bought but it will thicken in the fridge.

Use within 2 weeks and save some to start your next batch.

Simple but it does take most of a day. We leave it wrapped overnight then portion out in the morning. My kids eat it with homemade granola for breakfast.

 

[Sclark73]

I just found this thread and have only made it to page 9 so far. I've lived this way pretty much my whole life other than when I was married but being a single mother for nearly 20 years has impacted my life greatly. I am disabled and until March of this year had no income for the previous year and half. I sold the many things I accumulated over the years to get by. Due to being scammed by a lawyer in MPLS I lost all of my disability insurance and only receive fed. SSI, that's 710$ a month. I have 3 kids at home and my oldest daughter just moved back in(long story) but we get by just fine. It's no where near perfect but it is what it is. I have no mortgage payment or cable. Their are no land lines so we use wifi and a cell phone. We raise chickens, beef, rabbits and have a few horses only because we had them before I became disabled but it's getting close to where we won't be able to keep them. I hunt and have taught my boys to hunt also. I barely buy meat and only shop once a month for main food and only have to buy milk and bread thru out the month. I'm glad I read on here you can freeze milk as I can stock up when I go to Aldi's shopping. We usually have a garden and can or freeze about anything we can but due to my health I wasn't able to get a garden in this year. I switched this year to homeschooling my kids due to disagreement in views with the public school and what it was costing me for sports and other school events. I have never owned a new vehicle, however had purchased them from loans in the past. My last vehicle loan was paid off Feb 2007 and I will never do it again. If I can't pay cash, I don't need it. I just recently sold my car to buy a Jeep and searched around for the best deal. However 13 days after purchase transmission went out but I saved so much buying it I had enough to rebuild trans and the Jeep is still worth 2k more than I have into it. I have enough food in my 2 chest freezers and staple food to live all for about 8 months or better without purchasing any new foods. As I read in one post, I lived this way so long that I can't pin point all the frugalness but it's here. I can't tell you the last time I bought anything new, I shop at thrift stores or garage sales and I too dumpster dive. One mans junk IS another mans treasure. It appalds me to see what people throw away. I am quite lucky in that I am a mechanic, a carpenter, teacher, plumber, electrician, you name it, I can do it. Me and my oldest daughter when she was 15 built our 3 stall barn with tack room(now chicken coop) with a loft that stores hay and I have a woman cave with a 12x20 attached tack shed. I traded a winch for a 20x30 pole shed, just had to unassemble and reassemble here. Built my 20x32 addition and 12x32 garage with help from my daughters and sons. All built out of reused supplies. The barn cost me 20$ for stall latches, the rest was salvaged for free or trading. The same wood from barn leftover built my latest chicken coop. I get guff all the time about the way I live but to each their own. I have a nice clean home and have no need for all the frivelous things that most people have in life. It makes you appreciate things much more thats for sure and I'm glad to be able to teach my kids to be independent. I always say when the world goes to crap we can survive where most won't.

 

[ducksinarow]

Gone vegetarian, beans are cheaper than meat. I could not do the vegan thing.

 

[houseofknauss]

I just found this thread and have only made it to page 9 so far. I've lived this way pretty much my whole life other than when I was married but being a single mother for nearly 20 years has impacted my life greatly. I am disabled and until March of this year had no income for the previous year and half. I sold the many things I accumulated over the years to get by. Due to being scammed by a lawyer in MPLS I lost all of my disability insurance and only receive fed. SSI, that's 710$ a month. I have 3 kids at home and my oldest daughter just moved back in(long story) but we get by just fine. It's no where near perfect but it is what it is. I have no mortgage payment or cable. Their are no land lines so we use wifi and a cell phone. We raise chickens, beef, rabbits and have a few horses only because we had them before I became disabled but it's getting close to where we won't be able to keep them. I hunt and have taught my boys to hunt also. I barely buy meat and only shop once a month for main food and only have to buy milk and bread thru out the month. I'm glad I read on here you can freeze milk as I can stock up when I go to Aldi's shopping. We usually have a garden and can or freeze about anything we can but due to my health I wasn't able to get a garden in this year. I switched this year to homeschooling my kids due to disagreement in views with the public school and what it was costing me for sports and other school events. I have never owned a new vehicle, however had purchased them from loans in the past. My last vehicle loan was paid off Feb 2007 and I will never do it again. If I can't pay cash, I don't need it. I just recently sold my car to buy a Jeep and searched around for the best deal. However 13 days after purchase transmission went out but I saved so much buying it I had enough to rebuild trans and the Jeep is still worth 2k more than I have into it. I have enough food in my 2 chest freezers and staple food to live all for about 8 months or better without purchasing any new foods. As I read in one post, I lived this way so long that I can't pin point all the frugalness but it's here. I can't tell you the last time I bought anything new, I shop at thrift stores or garage sales and I too dumpster dive. One mans junk IS another mans treasure. It appalds me to see what people throw away. I am quite lucky in that I am a mechanic, a carpenter, teacher, plumber, electrician, you name it, I can do it. Me and my oldest daughter when she was 15 built our 3 stall barn with tack room(now chicken coop) with a loft that stores hay and I have a woman cave with a 12x20 attached tack shed. I traded a winch for a 20x30 pole shed, just had to unassemble and reassemble here. Built my 20x32 addition and 12x32 garage with help from my daughters and sons. All built out of reused supplies. The barn cost me 20$ for stall latches, the rest was salvaged for free or trading. The same wood from barn leftover built my latest chicken coop. I get guff all the time about the way I live but to each their own. I have a nice clean home and have no need for all the frivelous things that most people have in life. It makes you appreciate things much more thats for sure and I'm glad to be able to teach my kids to be independent. I always say when the world goes to crap we can survive where most won't.

sounds like all you need is a generator to keep those freezers going when the economy goes to crap and the world goes to crap and there is no electricity.

 

[Beekissed]

Word to the wise...can up all that food in the freezers. Lost around 50 CX last year in a power outage by neglecting to can them earlier that year when I should have. Lot of money, lot of time spent..all gone in one big storm that left the gas stations closed, no ice to be found, no power for almost 2 wks.

 

[Sclark73]

sounds like all you need is a generator to keep those freezers going when the economy goes to crap and the world goes to crap and there is no electricity.

Funny you mention it, generators in the tack shed. Currently trying to think of a way to run it a few hours a day and no more power co bills. I have to be able to run my furnace in the winter. I have a wood stove in the basement but my house ins co said they'll drop me if I start using it. Had a house fire in 2007 and lost everything, had to rebuild it all. Problem is I had no house ins so I won't be losing that. We went for nearly 11 months w/o power or water and at that time all my 5 children were at home. If we can do it, others can for sure. It wasn't pretty by no means but we survived it.

 

[Tikkijane]

Word to the wise...can up all that food in the freezers.  Lost around 50 CX last year in a power outage by neglecting to can them earlier that year when I should have.  Lot of money, lot of time spent..all gone in one big storm that left the gas stations closed, no ice to be found, no power for almost 2 wks. 

Yes, yes, yes. The only thing I don't can (besides dairy although Jackie Clay says you can) is pumpkin because I'm not cubing it......

I would be heartbroken to lose it all from a power outage.

 

[GreenGables]

God bless you and thank you for sharing your story, SClark73.

Also, thank you Erinszoo for the yogurt recipe! I can't wait to try it. This may be a silly question, but when you put it in the cooler, did you cover it with ice?

 

[Totalcolour]

sounds like all you need is a generator to keep those freezers going when the economy goes to crap and the world goes to crap and there is no electricity.

And what will you put in the generator to make it run?

 

[houseofknauss]

sounds like all you need is a generator to keep those freezers going when the economy goes to crap and the world goes to crap and there is no electricity.

guess it depends on if you had a gas powered one or a propane powered one. either way- you could use a propane tank to store the fuel--obviously if the generator was propane you could have a 800 gallon propane tank and cycle the generator and be conservative. if you had a gas powered one--you could modify a propane tank (say 250 gallon one) to store the gasoline with an additive to stabilize the fuel. you would pressurize the tank with a 20lb propane tank to be able to pump out the gasoline. hence--no electricity to get the gas out of the tank to use it.