Just curious who else is living super frugal

[Beekissed]

It sounds interesting to me, but not so much fun. My goal is to prove that you can eat healthy on that budget... but I am still working on eating healthy and still learning how to cook! I'm doing it in February so hopefully I can try some cheap recipes out between now and then, since we won't have the money to throw anything out that doesn't turn out okay (unlike you ladies, I was never taught how to cook... just how to make cookies =/)

Though I was allowed to watch mother cook, I was not allowed to cook while still at home. Out on my own was the first time I ever cooked anything, so it's no big thing, one just has to DO it. Same with everything else like changing a tire, changing the oil, building things, sewing, etc.

 

[perchie.girl]

I learned how to cook from watching tv.... Back then the only cooking shows were on KPBS... Graham Kerr and that gal that got drunk every time she cooked.... Oh yea Julia Childs.... I was thirteen.... Mom could burn the same pot of beans twice.... Oh she could cook and I did learn some things from her... This was when TV dinners were packed in foil and you cooked them in the oven....


So I learned to cook out of self defense... Mom was a late riser so I cooked eggs and bacon for breakfast. Or toast .... A slice of toast with butter then cinimon and sugar then pour milk over it.... Yummy.

There are big gaps though in my home making skills. I never learned how to scrub pots or vacuume or clean the toilet... I had to read the directions on the toilet cleaner....

So when I became an adult I learned more about the finer points of cooking and cleaning. A girlfriend introduced me to brillo Pads. Woo Hoo. What an invention...

Here we have the public assistance programs through private donations.... as a single adult I dont qualify... But ANYone can get a Share. It goes through the churches that belong you just have to look them up. The way it works is for every one hour of public service you do you get a Share a share is a grocery bag of food. I met a man on this program who had twelve kids to feed he had been a VP of a company but the company reorganized... he lost his job. So he would work at a church or a soup kitchen a few hours a week helping others.... he got enough food to supplement the welfare they were already getting in order to feed his family.

There is another program I believe is run by the food bank. You dont have to fill out alot of paper work except to show your disability check stub or unemplyment stub or social security stub... the program is called commodities... once a month you go and get a box of food... Rice Beans Cereal Canned fruit canned tomatoes.... Sometimes some fresh fruit or greens... It wasnt much but those kinds of basics is enough to pretty much feed a single person a month. when you are on social security its enough to bolster what you can already get for yourself. The add a bag for every child in the family too. Or more ingredients like powdered milk and formula... More fruits and veggies too.

People with disabilites get meat and Cheese added to their box too.

When I go on Social Security I will be taking advantage of the program.... I will have no other income. I am not able to garden unless I can get my Aquaponics going.... but I will have chickens and eggs for certain. as well as chicken for freezer camp. Guineas too.

this is why I have been querying people about ways to preserve eggs... Now I have enough info in order to be comfortable year round....

deb

 

[oldrooster]

Quote:
Growing up I rarely had dessert once a month if I was lucky at home (usually not even that maybe 2-3 times a year most years). But I was given a dessert every day with the school lunch. fried potatoes of any form at home? nope not until I hit middle/high school and it was spotty then but school lunch usually once if not more often a week. pigs in a blanket (biscuit dough covered hot dog) didn't know what that was until I started school, NEVER at home, corn dogs if I was lucky was once a year if mom and dad bought them (we rarely went to a fair/carnivals so it was spotty then IF we got them) but usually every week or two at school. fried chicken? not at home 3-4 times a year at pot lucks and family get togethers. but quite often at school. My parents rarely fixed any fried foods at home or got any fast food like that in the few times we where out and meals had to be taken out. but I got more than a lions share due to the "nutritious school lunch" I was in high school when I learned Manhattan was not the Atomic project during WWII or a Burrough of NYC, but bread gravy potatoes and sliced meat all in a pile. we had grilled and baked meats at home, occasionally a hamburger was pan fried and not grilled on an electric indoor grill (kind of a cross of a foreman and charcoal grill the foreman is more like a pan fried compared to this contraption) roasts, meat loaf chops steaks hamburgers boiled or bbq (oven style bbq) chicken never had any hamburger helper type meals. noodles (chicken or beef) was one to three times a year. plenty of garden raised veggies. but little good nutritious food with the "nutritious school lunch" at home there was no grease or butter on veggies unless it was mashed potatoes or corn on the cob (and mom gave in to the corn 4 or 5 times of a summer because she hated to eat it off the cob).

 

[Amberjem]

I grew up a latch key kid we didnt have a bunch of snacks and readily available goodies to eat so learning how to cook things from basic ingredients along with doing cooking with my grandmothers when visitng them or lived with them at times....moving out and living on my own as a young teen breed more need to learn how to cook and buy frugally..the jobs I managed to get were limited and had school to go to daily ..buying half the junk they have in the store can drain a low pocket book faster then taxes on your wages... but so many are micro-wave cookers now.. my son has a limited knowledge not from my lack of trying to teach him but his lack of interest.. I can see how easy it must be to pop something in for a minute and get instant gratification..then spend several hours doing prep and cook something healthy delicious and nice

 

[donrae]

We lived off SNAP a few months last summer when I was first diagnosed. I swear I never felt so rich!

 

[Beekissed]

I grew up a latch key kid we didnt have a bunch of snacks and readily available goodies to eat so learning how to cook things from basic ingredients along with doing cooking with my grandmothers when visitng them or lived with them at times....moving out and living on my own as a young teen breed more need to learn how to cook and buy frugally..the jobs I managed to get were limited and had school to go to daily ..buying half the junk they have in the store can drain a low pocket book faster then taxes on your wages... but so many are micro-wave cookers now.. my son has a limited knowledge not from my lack of trying to teach him but his lack of interest.. I can see how easy it must be to pop something in for a minute and get instant gratification..then spend several hours doing prep and cook something healthy delicious and nice

My grown sons do this too...except when money is tight and then, all the sudden, they are calling me up and telling me they "made" supper last night. Seem right proud of it and all...even thanked me for teaching them how to cook. I got them a crockpot and they will use it on occasion as well. Then, when they are getting plenty of hours at work again, the pizza boxes and burrito bags mount up around the trash can.

 

[Tikkijane]

Probably not.  I've found that people already KNOW what they should be doing...it's not a problem of not knowing.  We are bombarded with information on healthy living and food choices from every type of media.  The kind of people who make poor choices turn the channel or choose not to listen to or read such things.  It's a conscious choice. 

The only people who would respond to the thread are those who are already doing this kind of lifestyle.  I guess I'm just jaded, but after posting on this site for so many years I've learned one important thing...everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die. 

In other words, everyone wants health~for their flocks or for their lives, and everyone wants to have more money~ or less debt, at least~ but no one really wants to do what it takes to get there.  Oh, they will talk about it until they are blue in the face, but they won't ever make any real positive moves in that direction.  They'll do little things in that direction that really don't do any long term good.....but it makes them feel better about their willful ignorance. 

And I don't know about all of y'all, but where I've lived/live, fruits and veggies are not anywhere close to cheap. Eating right is $$$. And when you live in the desert and can't grow anything? When you get to the desert SW, water is rationed and is costly.

I'd wait until produce was $1 lb and then can like mad. Not that living frugally is impossible, just more difficult. Farmer's market foods are easily two-three times the cost of grocery store foods, often even compared to the organics.

It's been a few years since I've cooked. {Kids plan and execute menu}. I refuse to fight the kitchen on a daily basis {nothing goes in the same place twice and I refuse to spend hours looking for supplies}, so the times i do my baking or big meals, they've got what I need ready ahead of time.

And seriously like over 10 years since I've done their laundry. Pretty much by the time they could help, they were measuring soap and doing laundry.

My kids can totally run the farm without me. Even my 11 year old {now 13} could drive the tractor to drag the pastures. I love not being needed. Leaves me more time to play with the chooks, ride, and knit.

 

[Outpost JWB]

And I don't know about all of y'all, but where I've lived/live, fruits and veggies are not anywhere close to cheap. Eating right is $$$. And when you live in the desert and can't grow anything? When you get to the desert SW, water is rationed and is costly.

I'd wait until produce was $1 lb and then can like mad. Not that living frugally is impossible, just more difficult. Farmer's market foods are easily two-three times the cost of grocery store foods, often even compared to the organics.

It's been a few years since I've cooked. {Kids plan and execute menu}. I refuse to fight the kitchen on a daily basis {nothing goes in the same place twice and I refuse to spend hours looking for supplies}, so the times i do my baking or big meals, they've got what I need ready ahead of time.

And seriously like over 10 years since I've done their laundry. Pretty much by the time they could help, they were measuring soap and doing laundry.

My kids can totally run the farm without me. Even my 11 year old {now 13} could drive the tractor to drag the pastures. I love not being needed. Leaves me more time to play with the chooks, ride, and knit.

That is awesome! Kids are not taught enough these days. My 9yr old daughter thinks dishes are fun if she has the wand scrubber. And laundry is a breeze for her as long as we have the pods. Works for me!

 

[lazy gardener]

Tikkijane: Sounds like you've done a great job schooling/training your brood. Hats off to you! A parent's job is to become no longer needed!

 

[wyoDreamer]

I agree that the cost of fresh food is crazy! I can get a box of Cherry Poptarts for less than it will cost me to buy a pound of fresh cherries in season. And the poptarts have frosting ...
The store bought white bread is cheaper than buying all the ingredients and time it takes to make homemade. And yes, my time is worth something. However, I much prefer the homemade and it is a free gym membership to gat off the couch and move around the kitchen making meals. I hate when DH goes shopping with me, he is still stuck in the 1980's when it comes to food prices and complains and refuses to "buy at those prices", so half of my shopping list will not be bought on that trip. I buy on sale what I can find, but $1.50 for a single grapefruit? makes it hard to eat healthy.