Just curious who else is living super frugal

[weezilgirl]

I haven't had any new outerwear in at least 5 years. I shop at Family Dollar for under garments. I go to town once a month for groceries. It is a 70 mile round trip and gas is $4 here. I am building a store on Etsy.com to sell the vintage things I bought when I had money. I raised a huge amount of vegetables this year and froze everything I could. My neighbor is going to get a deer for my f reezer. We are overpopulated with them. I cook a lot of rice, beans, make my own bread, eat eggs from my hens and, in general, don't do much fancy for food. Occasionally I buy butter amd make a cake or a cobbler. I haven't been to a movie since 9/11 came out. 11 years ago. My oldest daughter bought me a small television that I can move from room to room and both daughters copy DVDs for me. I need new glasses but have to wait so I don't read any and that is one of my biggest pleasures.

I have a woodstove and I cut a lot of wood myself and will be buying a rick for $35 from a neighbor, once a month. I can close the rooms off and the pets and I stay in the warmest room. One expense that I don't cut is dog and cat food. I've spent about $1500 on veterinarian care in 25 years. I cook for them, in addition to the dog food. My dogs are always very healthy. The biggest expense I've had was $375 for emergency surgery for my girl dog. She prevented two men from getting into my house and they stabbed her four times. So that was a must do! I give them their shots and I don't give many to the cats. I have found that they were sicker when they were on a regimen of meds.

I am a photographer and sell prints online and to repeat customers. My best friend dog, Mister Tip, died in 2001 and I have 12 notecards that I made photos for. We did the photos at 'icons" and they are still selling. Rancho de Taos church, Shiprock, NM, etc. Those sell mostly by word of mouth.I had a greyhound and I did some "art prints" of him and they still sell by word of mouth. I have lots of photos of indian cowboys and those are picking up lately.

I bake for neighbors who can't or too lazy to make their own goodies. I make jewelry out of found objects and sell it in small towns around here.

That is about it. I miss the travelling and eating out. I don't remember the last time I ate out.

 

[mickey328]

That's awesome! Sorry about Mister Tip...its so hard to lose them. Three cheers for your girl, tho...what a brave one she is!

 

[weezilgirl]

If you have a printer, you can find them online.

 

[HeatherLynn]

I found a great recipe for quick and easy yeast rolls. I have been making one batch each morning. It only takes me a couple minutes. So thats our new bread. Pretty cheap and healthier. I have been using the unbleached unbromated and I can tell the difference in baking. I have to give a bit of extra rising time and the white bread is more creamy colored than usual. Nothing big that I cannot live with.

I have decided that weekends are stew or sphagetti weekends for now on. Too much cooking and too much work to do on weekends. So I am going to make one huge meal that can be eaten whenever and thats what we will eat on. I can make rolls and cookies and the meal on Saturday morning and then I am not cooking again till Monday.

I have my goats but they are not ready to breed so i am really considering an older goat thats already pregnant. Milk is a HUGE expense for us. We go through about a gallon a day. Yes I am serious. Between all of mine, a sister who saves money by eating our groceries, and the odd nephew or two hanging about we are going through milk like mad. Its under serious consideration. Can't wait till my jersey is ready to be bred.

 

[weezilgirl]

Heather, can you post your yeast roll receipe? I'd love to try them.

 

[weezilgirl]

Thank you so much. Fayeroe was quite a dog, very liberal.: Her name was taken from a past president of Planned Parenthood and roe.vs.wade.
I found Fayedy dead in my back yard in 2009. No signs of a struggle, no trauma, nothing. She was only 7. Needless to say I felt safe when she was around. I miss her horribly.
Mister Tip lived to be 15. He was very large to live that long. Half airedale/scottish deer hound. I've had some good dogs.

 

[HeatherLynn]

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/quick-yeast-rolls/detail.aspx

Seriously these were so easy I can whip them up while the kids are eating breakfast and they are ready to gobble down by lunch. I don't put them in a muffin pan though. I use a round cake pan and just spoon little blobs in ( wow that sounds yummy, not really) One in the middle and little blobs all around. I followed the recipe pretty exact. I did test out replacing the sugar with molassas and it still came out very good. No problems.

Today I put melted butter and cinnamon and sugar on top. They did not last long. I made 2 batches yesterday so we had rolls for the chicken bbq I made and rolls for butter and jelly. Obviously we are not on a low carb diet. But despite all this, after taking cleaning up the diet a bit from all this pre prepped food I am losing weight even and saving money and eating healthier. Just thinking about that makes me so happy I am going to eat another roll. lol

 

[DennisK]

I loved making my own bread in the breadmaker. Then one day I threw away the hard end piece without taking the mixing paddle out of it first. Call me stupid!

Oh, I did that too! My machine is an old Welbilt, and I was able to find a replacement on line. Give it a try - you might be able to restore your "old friend". I googled the machine's name and found a site that sold replacement parts - even for my machine. I suppose a lot of people do what we did; even to the point of creating a market for them.

 

[newfoundland]

Don't know if anyone in US can access this but I have been watching an amazing documentary series on BBC TV. It's called 'Wartime Farm'. IT follows a format that has been previously used that I think some people have viewed, where two archeologists and an historian recreate a time period on the farm. We have had Victorian farm and Edwardian Farm in previous series.

'Wartime Farm' is absolutely inspirational. It tells the story of how farmers got to grips with increasing their yield from providing just a few percent of the food needed in the UK before the war, to supplying the vast majority of it during the war. The hints and tips of how people scrimped here and saved there is so informative. This takes 'make do and mend' to a whole new level.

In lasts night's episode, we saw how the children were taken out of school, some really quite young, to bring in the different harvests, as man/woman power was insufficient to complete the tasks on the farm. The children were also collecting herbs which were processed into medicines. They needed honey for wounds and cleavers, that sticky weed that runs riot here, for antibiotics. This is a lesson in survival and the best part is they even had some fun along the way. Respect to those people!

 

[ScottnLydia]

Don't know if anyone in US can access this but I have been watching an amazing documentary series on BBC TV. It's called 'Wartime Farm'. IT follows a format that has been previously used that I think some people have viewed, where two archeologists and an historian recreate a time period on the farm. We have had Victorian farm and Edwardian Farm in previous series.

'Wartime Farm' is absolutely inspirational. It tells the story of how farmers got to grips with increasing their yield from providing just a few percent of the food needed in the UK before the war, to supplying the vast majority of it during the war. The hints and tips of how people scrimped here and saved there is so informative. This takes 'make do and mend' to a whole new level.

In lasts night's episode, we saw how the children were taken out of school, some really quite young, to bring in the different harvests, as man/woman power was insufficient to complete the tasks on the farm. The children were also collecting herbs which were processed into medicines. They needed honey for wounds and cleavers, that sticky weed that runs riot here, for antibiotics. This is a lesson in survival and the best part is they even had some fun along the way. Respect to those people!

HERE HERE !!! I've always said that people here in the states just don't know what the English endured during both the world wars! Through hardships untold they struggled on, and I am proud that my ancestors hail from "that green and pleasant land"!

I keep forgetting to mention a tip for building materials. Besides re-purposing and recycling things like shipping pallets for fences and the like, I shop the 'cull bins' at the local lumber yards. There they have scratch-n-dent sheet good (plywood, drywall), warped or split dimensional lumber, many times cut off into 4 foot lengths. It's usually priced at 51 cents a piece! I was able to build a 4 x 4 house for my meat birds for about 10 bucks.

~S