Just curious who else is living super frugal

[Arielle]

PS. I use old shirts cut into squares as dish clothes. ANd throw into wash often, like every day. And we too hang up clothes to dry-- no dryer. We do take some things to the laudromat as needed, like sleeping bags.

 

[funnyfarmmom]

Thank you Arielle!

Im really glad we took the young man in as well . He has been a huge help around our little "farm" and he's so interested in learning everything! I swear he's in the chicken coop twenty times a day lol.

Dh and I have talked about me working for the school. Ive been watching the job postings, so far theres been nothing that Im qualified for. I did however just interview for a job today that I start tomorrow. Oldest DD and our young man are going to babysit the younger kids until school starts then we are praying the schools work with us better this year about sending kids home.

I did get the meat birds, but Im fermenting their feed and all the birds are getting lots of table and garbage scraps right now. I quit buying junk breakfast food this week and the kids have been having lots of eggs, oatmeal, etc. I even made my own chicken sausage and they love it lol. Theyve also not been asking for lunch as early or asking for morning snacks .

School clothes are going to come from Goodwill lol. I wouldnt buy any new clothes if most of them hadnt grown over the summer. Of course what can be passed down from the older kids to the younger will.

Thank you for all of your other ideas! I see I have lots of room to be even more frugal . You all have a great day!

 

[lazy gardener]

Here are a few other ideas... may, or may not work. With 7 kids, I'm sure you have some who are the right age for this: Make a Japanese beetle scoop. Use a hack saw to cut the flat part off the cap of an ammonia bottle. It works best if the cap is screwed tightly onto the bottle. Then cut the bottom off the bottle, so the bottle is shaped like a scoop. Now, you can use the cap "ring" to screw and hold in place a zip lock bag. You'll cut one of the bottom corners off the bag, use the cap ring to screw it into place for a tight fit. The zip part will be hanging down when the scoop is in an upright position. Hold your jug under the offending beetles, and give them a nudge with a finger or a stick. Or you can just shake the leaves. Best to do on a cloudy day or in the cool of the morning or evening. Good entertainment for kids, good protein for the chickens. You can make a similar grasshopper "hopper". Use a container with a snap on lid, like cool whip or margarine tubs. Cut an X in the lid. Then, send the kids out to catch grass hoppers. They can shove them through the X and they won't be able to get out. More entertainment for the kids, protein for the chickens. Did anyone mention red worms? I got my last batch by laying some cardboard in the garden. Several weeks later, the area under the cardboard was crawling with red worms. There are plenty of instructions for DIY red worm bins. It can be as simple as a plastic bucket with a lid, and small drainage holes in the bottom and lid. Put in some shredded damp newspaper, or some damp peat moss. Add your worms, and give them a light feeding. Just lay their feed on top of the "bedding". A good sized bin can digest a pound of kitchen scraps/day, while producing incredible worm casting fertilizer, worms for fishing (yet an other protein source for the chooks) or to feed directly to the chickens. Young kids are amused with worms, and delight in feeding them and seeing the worm activity as the food disappears. Not every kid can tell their friends that they have a thousand pet worms! Send the kids out with a fly swatter to smack the moths that collect when the outside light is left on for a bit in the evening. Or simply put a bucket of water under the light. It will yield an amazing array of juicy moths. I'm sure you're already giving your flock any weeds and scrap veggies from the garden. In the fall, put out a sign around halloween that you'll recycle any pumpkins. Chickens love pumpkins, especially after they've had a few freeze/thaw cycles that turns them to mush. Are you recycling egg shells back to the chickens? Maybe give hubby his favorite bread. (freeze 1/2 of his loaf for later if he doesn't eat it all b/fore it goes stale) Then, you can experiment with bread making for the rest of you. After the irresistible smell, and the sounds of the kids smacking their lips over your creations, he'll come to his senses. Did you say you are fermenting your chicken feed? Huge savings there. Do you have a chicken tractor? If not, one can be made very cheaply with recycled/repurposed materials. They'll groom your lawn, fertilize, debug. Yet an other savings on feed cost. Just gotta move it frequently, and not over stock it. You can make a cold frame from some hay bales and some storm window panels and plastic. Orient it so it is facing south. I start some seedlings in July, and sometimes haven't gotten around to it until late August. Then, when the garden is wrapping up for the season, make your cold frame, set in your seedlings, and you'll be eating fresh salads late into the fall, and very early in the spring. Here in zone 4, I get an extra 6 weeks of veggies at each end of the season! Buy open pollinated plants, and save your own seeds. Buy seeds at end of the season, but be sure they've been well stored. I just picked up a bunch of seeds for 12 cents/packet. Granted, I wouldn't trust my whole garden to those seeds, but... you can't go wrong with a lot of the basics. They even had one of my favorite tomato varieties.

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
Glad you found a few useful ideas.

OFten jobs at school at not posted. Check in with the person that runs the food service. Might be a hired company or run by the school. Often they need a back up person, IT is a foot in the door. ALso subs in the classroom. Here we have lots of kids with one-one helpers that have no more than a high school education. THough one time I was handed a classroom of first graders for the day. COuldnt understand the teachers plan for the day-- nothing for a substitute to follow. Grrr I just winged it and hoped the kids had a fun day at school. DId a lot of subbing that year. Maybe 1-2 days a week. A friend has suggested help in the lunchroom. . . .

Yup-- when they are fed GOOD food they are better satisfied. My kids are skiiiiiinnnny. ANd eat all they want as I said.

Have you seen the clip on utube of the family in CA that grows plenty of food for the family on a small plot and sells the extras from the front door???? Just need a bit of space that gets good sunlight. Kale has been surprizingly simple and multi use in the kitchen: kale chips, salads, kale and sausage and bean meals.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You're doing great!!

 

[pauljv]

I am not frugal at all but my wife is a coupon queen. I get scolded every time I buy something without a coupon. I should start living a bit more frugal as I think things would only get better. One thing I don't think I could do is buy used furniture I have a huge phobia of bed bugs and I hear they are everywhere now. I have an extremely hard time sleeping in hotels when I travel the fear of becoming infested freaks me out beyond belief.

 

[Sill]

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?

Real stevia from the plant is perfectly safe! The processed stuff in the store is processed how? We don't even know what they did to it after it left the plant! Grow and used your stevia in peace and enjoy something from nature that was not adulterated by a profit hungry food company.
Agave nectar is safe if you are allergic to honey and it has a low glycemic index so is better for diabetics than honey.
Miracle fruit is another safe food that sweetens but is a tropical so needs to be grown indoors or in a greenhouse in cold climates.

 

[Arielle]

I am not frugal at all but my wife is a coupon queen. I get scolded every time I buy something without a coupon. I should start living a bit more frugal as I think things would only get better. One thing I don't think I could do is buy used furniture I have a huge phobia of bed bugs and I hear they are everywhere now. I have an extremely hard time sleeping in hotels when I travel the fear of becoming infested freaks me out beyond belief.

Welcome!!

Most of us didnt start out as frugal-- I know I sure didnt. I learned to be.

THe used furniture we buy is from the thrift store and it is cleaned prior to sale.Maybe its a Massachusets law thing. THe only other furniture I have is from other family members. Because I'm with you, NO bed bugs, YUUUUUCKY I dont travel for several resons, and the bed bugs are one. My kids go caamping and bring their own sleeping bags. . . or I"ll stay at a relatives home. . . .

 

[Arielle]

My breakfast was scrambled eggs.

3 eggs from my own girls.
12 inch scallion from our own onions.
1 hot pepper from the garden.

With butter and feta-- not from my garden or farm. lol

While raising my own food is more expensive than the grocery, I would like to beleive that eating pesticide free is an investment in my health long term. For me, eating clean is a project in progress.

After watching the next Frontline in a series about commercial meat production, I am stricken by the need to keep potentially infected meats OFF my farm, and out of my flocks. I have not been able to buy Sanderson chicken since the airing of the show on how many people became sickened by bacteria and the governements inablility to stop the continued infections. ANd then to not change anything. . . . hmmmmmmm. In the lastest Frontline, the look at superbugs and the link to the meat industry. . . . a smoking gun is not enough to change the inustry use of antibiotics and yet European countries have banned using the antibitoitcs.Please understand that my formal education is ANIMAL SCIENCE, the commercial produciton of meat and dairy products. I accepted what the profs taught . . . . I now see thru more experienced eyes. . . . . and put my knowledge to producing my own clean meats.

A shout out to the old poultry men that have shared their methods of sickness control: an ax. I have seen the light.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Real stevia from the plant is perfectly safe! The processed stuff in the store is processed how? We don't even know what they did to it after it left the plant! Grow and used your stevia in peace and enjoy something from nature that was not adulterated by a profit hungry food company.
Agave nectar is safe if you are allergic to honey and it has a low glycemic index so is better for diabetics than honey.
Miracle fruit is another safe food that sweetens but is a tropical so needs to be grown indoors or in a greenhouse in cold climates.

I've never heard of miracle fruit before. Have you grown it or just heard of it?

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Im checking on it as I write... very intersting stuff.... I need to know if it will grow in the desert it looks pretty shrub like.

deb