Just curious who else is living super frugal

[HeritageGoose13]

This is something I forgot to post in my last post that I just remembered:

You can grow lemons, oranges, limes, mandarins or any citrus in a pot indoors by the window, even if you live where it gets very cold in the winter. I hate limes but I love oranges so I'm thinking of getting a dwarf plant myself. Oh, and you can even get grafted plants that will grow 2 or 3 varieties at once- one plant that grows lemons and oranges, for instance.

 

[MamaFeathers]

I also forgot to mention a couple of things, doh! lol

When we cook breakfast, we make large quantities of breakfast burritos, homemade english muffin breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, etc...and freeze them in serving portions, they make for a quick easy breakfast when you don't have the time to make breakfast in the morning. Take them out of the freezer and pop them in the microwave for a minute or so and they're ready to eat. We also make our own seasoning mixes for tacos, chili, salad dressings, italian season, etc...

 

[gevshiba]

Ive read about 20 pages of this thread

. I will eventually get it all read! I wondered if anybody would mind taking a look at what Im doing and plan to do and offer any advice on areas we could do better. This may get long, sorry!

First of all, hubby and I have 7 children between us. All 7 live with us, neither of us receive any child support from the other parents. We raise our kids as if we had them together, theres not a lot of involvement from the other parents either, so it works for us. The kids range from 6 to 17 years old. About a month ago oldest DD's boyfriend called hubby. In the middle of the night. He and his stepdad had gotten into a fight that turned physical, boy got beaten up pretty badly, mom and stepdad kicked him out. He has been living here since. He is 17 nearly 18 and still in high school. That makes 10 people living in our house.

We just bought our house in March, so there's no possibility of refinancing to lower our payments right now.

Hubby is the only one working. Three of the kids have problems (one Down's Syndrome, two on the autism spectrum) so I have to be available at any given time to run to the schools for them.

So, our house was 3 bedroom, but it had a pantry off the dining room that was as large as the bedrooms. We turned this into my and hubbys room as it has an entry door leading to the garage and thats where hubby spends most of his time anyway. But that severely cut down on my storage space.

I already cook most things from scratch. I dont make my own bread because Hubby has a love affair with a certain brand of bread, but everything else I do. I currently spend about $150 a week at a discount grocery store. My garden is starting to produce now so Im hoping that goes down some.

I have 8 pullets, only 2 laying so far. I also have 12 chicks, straight run so no telling how many girls I will end up with. We go through eggs like crazy here.

I have 14 cornish x left in the freezer. My local farm store had 27 of them last night marked down crazy low that I may go back today and grab, but my problem with them is im always struggling to pay for feed because they eat so much. I only have 1/2 acre in a rural subdivision so they cant free range.

Hubby gripes about all the money going out, but he doesnt try to find ways to save. For instance, I got our electric bill yesterday. $327. He complained that the light company's rates were too high but then said "just pay it and go on." Our house doesn't have central air, we have two window units that I have set on energy saver mode. We do have a huge woodstove for this winter thannkfully.

Not a lot of consumer debt. Cars are paid for. We have one personal loan that we took out 2 years ago. We borrowed 6,000 have paid on it for 2 years, and we still owe 8,800. Not happy with that at all. No credit cards.

So Im looking for ideas to lower what bills I do have. Utilities and groceries. (Water bill is over $100 a month). We dont have cable, house phone or internet. We have 3 prepaid cell phones in the house that we pay a flat $45 a month for unlimited talk, text and data. Also, ideas for lowering feed bills if any. I currently buy my feed at a farm store in 40 pound bags. We have a farm bureau co-op near us, but I dont know if they sell feed or just seed for the farmers around us. Ive never been in there.

Im planning to hit Goodwill for back to school stuff. Im a member of freecycle but most of the stuff posted is 30 miles away so not really cost-effective.

So any ideas? We are living paycheck to paycheck and worrying every week if we can pay the bills. I hate it.

I have a couple of suggestions. My clothes dryer was ruined when the hot water heater went out and flooded my house while I was out of town. I haven't had one for 2 years now. I hang all my clothes. Everything is stiff and wrinkled, most of the time

, but if you can dry clothes for 10 minutes, then hang them, it'd keep them soft and wrinkle free, plus save you on electricity. But I'd dry all the socks and undies. It takes forever to hang all that for just me, I can't imagine doing it for 10 people. It'd be a full time job.

As for breakfast, I make hard boiled eggs by the dozens and quiche. Quiche stores well in the fridge and can be eaten hot or cold. You can load it with veggies from the garden, add bacon, ham or sausage for the hubby and once the pullets start laying, all you need to buy is a little meat and cheese. I make mine crustless, so they are fast and easy. Make several at a time, or make them when you're using the oven for something else, so you don't waste the electric. Bake early or late to avoid the heat of the day. Much healthier than commercial cereal too.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quiche also can be made and cooked in muffin tins then frozen in the tin then popped out into a freezer bag... its all about storage space in the freezer so I also flatten out hamburger into a freezer bag.... then it can be stored like books.... Same goes for steaks...

deb

 

[oldrooster]

perchie I wish I could use a swamp cooler, but here we LIVE in a swamp lol. I mean that we here in Indiana have 90+ percent humidity most all summer

 

[HeritageGoose13]

I see a lot of people here buy sugar, you may want to think about cutting that out of your diet, for financial and health reasons. There are cheap alternatives we can grow. In fact I have one now but - well, I have not used it because since buying it I have very mixed feelings. Still I will tell you all about it so you can form your own opinions.

I bought a stevia plant at a farm store. Stevia is an herb that is said to be 100 x more sweet than sugar, yet it has no sugar, and very few calories- in fact you would need to eat loads of it to get any calories at all, but that would be impossible, since it is so sweet. It has been used as a major sweetener in Japan since the 70s and for longer in other places. I believe it comes from South America, and it needs to be kept warm, so most people grow it in pots. People usually dry it because you need a very small amount. Oh and the stevia flavoring in the store is said to have many other thing added to it to make it white and taste different. Real dried stevia is green.

Anyway I bought it because I learned many plants I have can be used to make an herbal tea with the leaves. So I thought a natural sweetener would be good and healthy to add to it.

Anyway, I planted the stevia and it has been growing nicely- slow but nice. And as I was looking up info online about how to cultivate it, I learned there is a huge debate! Apparently- the vast majority of studies say it is perfectly safe or even good for you, but there was 1 or 2 studies saying it may have had a link to cancer. So you can see why I don't want to use it now. People who are pro-stevia have claimed that those studies used a synthetic extract, not real stevia, and that those studies were funded by the big sugar cane companies. (no idea if that is true or not) So now I do not know what to think. Does anyone use stevia? Does anyone think it is a bad idea to use stevia? I think I'll just use it as an ornamental for now- I think I wasted my money buying it.

Any other sweeteners we could grow frugally? I know raw honey is good but not everyone can have bees around- allergies or lack of space. There must be other sweet herbs, right?

 

[funnyfarmmom]

So I went to rural king and they had cx chicks for 50 cents each! They were 79 cents last night and I hestitated because of the feed cost. Anyway, i grabbed all 29 of them. They look to be a couple weeks old already. I started some feed fermenting and gave them some of the wet feed already. It was a bag of all flock pellets that I bought accidentally. My chicks couldnt eat the pellets and my layers turned their picky noses up at it so it makes for a good choice at fermenting lol. Thanks Perchie.girl for posting how to do that! I had heard of it but was under the impression you had to add other stuff to it besides just water. We'll see how it goes!

Off topic here, but my local news said this morning that Tyson is being investigated for animal cruelty at some of its factory farms. Also, another chicken product was recalled (those cordon bleu things, I dont remember the brand.) So glad I can raise at least some of our food myself!

 

[HeritageGoose13]

So I went to rural king and they had cx chicks for 50 cents each! They were 79 cents last night and I hestitated because of the feed cost. Anyway, i grabbed all 29 of them. They look to be a couple weeks old already. I started some feed fermenting and gave them some of the wet feed already. It was a bag of all flock pellets that I bought accidentally. My chicks couldnt eat the pellets and my layers turned their picky noses up at it so it makes for a good choice at fermenting lol. Thanks Perchie.girl for posting how to do that! I had heard of it but was under the impression you had to add other stuff to it besides just water. We'll see how it goes!

Sounds good!

 

[funnyfarmmom]

Ive never used stevia-seen it in the sweetner aisle but had no idea what it was. I love honey, and buy it, but cant keep bees myself. Im allergic. Grrr.

Gevsheba- thank you for your ideas! I do have a clothesline up, but its rained here nearly every day this summer. So my dryer has ran nearly nonstop and probably is a big part of my electric bill. We moved in March, but have the same electric company and that was a big jump from last summer. But last summer I didnt have a dryer at all . Thanks for the breakfast ideas! Someone else posted on one of the first several pages of this thread about making pancakes and freezing for later use, my kids would love those. I make my own pancake syrup too

 

[perchie.girl]

perchie I wish I could use a swamp cooler, but here we LIVE in a swamp lol. I mean that we here in Indiana have 90+ percent humidity most all summer

I know I know... sigh... but the person I was replying to didnt have a general location... We got up to 79 percent at 95 degrees I thought I was going to die... I am soo used to 15-20 percent.... I couldnt breathe...

deb