Just curious who else is living super frugal

[pinusresinosa]

First of all, beautiful daughter!

Looks like you did really well on the sleeping baggie. It's adorbs!

Good for you that you guys were able to see the potential in a house that had good bones and new things where it counts! I know exactly what you mean about people coming over and acting kind of stuck up about the place. I've learned to accept that people just don't think like us frugal people can, and many times, I decide to opt out of friendships because they just don't understand it at all (Oh well, it's cheaper to not have as many friends ). What I love about living out in the country in a house that is bare bones, is that you can do pretty much whatever you want to it. I love doing our own drywall and flooring projects. A few years ago, we saved a lot of money by investing in a metal roof and putting it on by ourselves. I'm not sure how old your house is, but our's was built in the 1940's and most likely started out as a one room house/shed. Over the years, the house was added on to, and I swear that some of the rooms aren't square/straight, but I love it and wouldn't trade it in for the world. Not only because I get to do what I want to it, but because the mortgage is cheap and the house has a lot of character that new houses just don't have.

And to add to the living frugal list, we heat the house with wood. We have been very fortunate that this winter's supply of wood was given to us for free, all we had to do was haul it out of the mountains. It only took us two trips and doing the loading and unloading. Totally worth it though!

Thank you! And while our home wasn't built in the 40's like yours, you described our home to a T. The original part of our home is a tiny two story built right around 1900, guessing by the beamwork and saw edges that you can see in the basement. A real estate company owned this place after the original owners and rented this place out for many, many years, adding onto it here and there. There's awkwardness that we intend to change as the years pass. This is our second year in our home, so we haven't been here long. Our home was appraised for 140k after we bought it, and down the line we expect we'll take out an equity line of credit to make improvements to the flow of the home and update it where needed. But that's 5+ years ahead, as we're fine with it really and you're right- keeps me in the right company! I would love a friend or two in the same mindset nearby. I don't really have that, although I do have some friends... just sort of convenience things I think. I'm 29 but I get a long a lot better with the generation ahead of me and beyond. But with young kids, it makes it hard to have a social life at all. To give an example, my siblings were flabbergasted as to why we'd want to move further from the twin cities and into a HUD home no less. To each their own! I get to have big gardens and chickens and ducks and my kids can run around outside stark naked in the middle of summer if they want without neighbors having a tizzy. That's the life I want.

Whoo, rambling! I could talk about this all day. About the wood, we built (with insurance approval) an add on outdoor wood burning furnace, and next year we're going to take what we learned from that and make a boiler type. We just paid over $400.00/100 gallons of propane the other day. That has to end. When you can put pine wood in a boiler furnace at $150.00/cord and have it be far more efficient than anything else given cost, the writing is on the wall there for heating our home (and my greenhouse etc). So yes, heating with wood is a great one!

 

[Aacre]

Thank you! And while our home wasn't built in the 40's like yours, you described our home to a T. The original part of our home is a tiny two story built right around 1900, guessing by the beamwork and saw edges that you can see in the basement. A real estate company owned this place after the original owners and rented this place out for many, many years, adding onto it here and there. There's awkwardness that we intend to change as the years pass. This is our second year in our home, so we haven't been here long. Our home was appraised for 140k after we bought it, and down the line we expect we'll take out an equity line of credit to make improvements to the flow of the home and update it where needed. But that's 5+ years ahead, as we're fine with it really and you're right- keeps me in the right company! I would love a friend or two in the same mindset nearby. I don't really have that, although I do have some friends... just sort of convenience things I think. I'm 29 but I get a long a lot better with the generation ahead of me and beyond. But with young kids, it makes it hard to have a social life at all. To give an example, my siblings were flabbergasted as to why we'd want to move further from the twin cities and into a HUD home no less. To each their own! I get to have big gardens and chickens and ducks and my kids can run around outside stark naked in the middle of summer if they want without neighbors having a tizzy. That's the life I want.

Whoo, rambling! I could talk about this all day. About the wood, we built (with insurance approval) an add on outdoor wood burning furnace, and next year we're going to take what we learned from that and make a boiler type. We just paid over $400.00/100 gallons of propane the other day. That has to end. When you can put pine wood in a boiler furnace at $150.00/cord and have it be far more efficient than anything else given cost, the writing is on the wall there for heating our home (and my greenhouse etc). So yes, heating with wood is a great one!

I'm 27 and DH is 32 and the majority of our friends are one and two generations ahead too. My neighbor lady and her daughter have themselves a herd of goats, horses, a couple of cows, and a bunch of chickens and cats, and I can relate to them far more than anyone else. My husband is friends with an old farmer and his son, who are old enough to be his dad and grandfather. It just works that way, and we couldn't ask for anything better. We don't have any children, just furbabies, but we don't have much of a social life either- unless you count the friendships we have with our dogs, cat, chickens, and pigs!

And MMM! Pine wood burns a lovely smell! We use whatever we can get our hands on. It usually depends on what is on sale, and often times, we collect our next season's wood throughout the year. I think the only thing I don't like about wood burning stoves is that we have to get up in the night to put more in, otherwise we wake up cold! Brr!

In early December, I almost caved and bought an electric furnace, but we decided to wait until January to make sure it was something we really wanted. Here it is, January almost over, and we have had very mild weather for the whole month and still no furnace. Now I think we will just forget about it. Spring is almost here and it looks like we will have a good February.
I have heard about propane being ridiculously expensive. I think I might rather freeze than spend that much on propane!

 

[Beekissed]

Your wood stove won't hold a fire all night? You might look into if it has leaks around the joints or damper. A good wood stove should hold a fire well all night and still radiate enough heat to keep the house reasonably warm.

Also, if you are burning pine you might have some creosote build up in your stove pipe that may cause a poor burning/drawing of your stove and that too could contribute to a low heat output.

 

[pinusresinosa]

Much of our home runs on propane unfortunately. Our guts did a twist when the lady at the co-op told us how much propane was per gallon. You sound like you're in part of the country enjoying warmer than normal temps, which makes me jealous for sure! We're dealing with -40 windchills today, and it's been unseasonably cold all winter so far with feb not looking much better. I'm turning into a cracking and bloody prune, it's so dry. Humidifying any way we can right now. Gold Bond is the best lotion- smells terrible but I can slather that stuff on even super cracked lips before bed, and when I wake in the morning it was like I never had dry skin.

Thinking warm thoughts here! Come on spring!!

 

[pinusresinosa]

Your wood stove won't hold a fire all night? You might look into if it has leaks around the joints or damper. A good wood stove should hold a fire well all night and still radiate enough heat to keep the house reasonably warm.

Also, if you are burning pine you might have some creosote build up in your stove pipe that may cause a poor burning/drawing of your stove and that too could contribute to a low heat output.

This is something we've learned with our current stove and are taking into account with a boiler type. Boiler types burn so hot that they literally burn the smoke and creosote. That's the idea anyway.

 

[NinjaRooster]

*sigh* I wish I had a wood stove.

 

[Beekissed]

We have a DIY barrel stove that we've used for many a year...we have used this same design here at my parent's home for the past 37 yrs. It holds a belly full of wood and lasts all night long with plenty of coals in the morning for a quick warm up.

For folks living in the country it's the best way to go and I can't imagine not having one if I lived where I could. It's saved us so much money over the years it ain't even funny....and we are truly warm...not furnace warm where you have to huddle over the vents to get warm in the mornings.

 

[Aacre]

That may be something we have to check into, Beekissed! The fire doesn't go out, it's just that we have to add more wood to keep it going. It burns the wood nicely. I already know that I need to change that non-flammable insulation on the door part (not sure what it's called), as it's practically non-existent. We also clean the chimney quite often because we're scared of getting carbon monoxide poisoning.

It's an older stove too.

 

[wyoDreamer]

If you don't mind me asking, what brand of woodstove do you have?

We have 2 QuadraFire wood stoves, one in the dining room and one in the basement.
We have hot coals in the morning, but the furnace kicks on at 5 am, to warm the house to 68 for when we get up. At our elevation, we had to install an outside air intake to help the stove draw correctly when we get the right pressure conditions that happen during some snowstorms. Unfortunately, the previous homeowners installed the stove upstairs and put it on the windy side of the house, so the outside air intake creates a jet engine effect at times.

Are you talking about the fiberglass braided rope in the door? DH adjusted ours last fall. It looked like a fairly simple job, but pretty dirty.

 

[Aacre]

We have a Warsaw wood stove. I don't know too much about it, except that it was in the house when my husband bought it 8 years ago. I don't think they make those Warsaw ones anymore. We only have the one for the whole house as of now, but we do have a small boxwood stove that isn't hooked up yet. And yes, I was talking about the fiberglass braided rope. The one on the doors to our's is pretty worn and could use a replacement. I found that you can get the material at TSC, so that will be a project at some point. I haven't investigated the project very much, so I am still wondering how it stays in the groove of the door where the old one is.