Comments on: 10 Changes we’ve made this year

By: justme

justme — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:31:00 +0000

I have read you use a crockpot. Have you tried a pressure cooker? They are the ultimate frugal tool! They cook in very little time (even dry beans) and save lots of energy, time and work. I think pressure cookers are the frugalite’s best friend!!!

By: Tammy

Tammy — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:28:50 +0000

It would be awsome to get a cow!! I get fresh farm milk, and make all kinds of things! Butter, sour cream, buttermilk, yogurt, and have even tried cheese (cheese is a lot of work and uses a lot of milk, but if you had a cow you’d have tons of milk, AND you have helpers). The taste is superior, but the health benefits of raw, organic unpasturized milk are really huge. Also, I enjoy projects and teaching them to my girls (and you have plenty of them). And you’d never run out of milk! But I have heard that goat’s milk is great for children and even babies. The cream doesn’t separate, so you couldn’t make butter or sour cream.

By: Homeschooling6

Homeschooling6 — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:05:09 +0000

Wow, you all are doing great! Lets see, we sold our 3300sf-3500sf for a 700sf apt. house that we use to rent but now live in. No more $500.00 ac bills in the summer, of assoc. fee, or mortgage.
We switched to no store bought shampoo or conditioner.
When the dc were little we did use cloth diapers and wipes, we have used cloth kitchen napkins for years.
I use to buy in bulk when we lived in the bigger house but now we have no room I really miss that.
We still have a long way to go but are working on it.

By: Left Right Out

Left Right Out — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:24:56 +0000

Renee — we only produce about one supermarket size bag of rubbish every couple of weeks. We freeze inedible meat related scraps in a separate bag from our stock-scraps and just get it out on trash day.

By: KimC

KimC — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:51:23 +0000

Renee,
We just put our animal scraps in the compost. I know this is supposed to be a no-no, but our chickens eat everything before it ever composts, so there’s no chance for it to stink or draw predators.

By: Renee

Renee — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:58:38 +0000

I’d love to cancel our trash, but we can’t burn because of township laws. We also use cloth diapers, as well as rags and napkins instead of paper, and recycle everything possible, so we usually only put out a grocery-sized bag or two. Any suggestions on what to do with animal scraps, especially in the summer when they start to stink quickly? I already freeze chicken scraps for broth, but I don’t know what to do with fish and deer scraps, or kitchen grease.
Our trash service accepts up to 20 large bags of trash per week. Oh. My. Goodness! No wonder we pay $30/month.

By: Susan in San Antonio

Susan in San Antonio — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 04:40:11 +0000

I noticed “burning trash” on your list of chores for which your kids are responsible. That reminded me of the trash incinerator in the back yard of the brand-new duplex my parents bought in 1966, in the Denver metro area! I don’t know how long they actually burned trash there, probably until the infamous “brown cloud” resulted in all kinds of emissions limits. As I remember, the incinerator was located next to the clothesline – one wouldn’t want to burn trash next to drying laundry, I suppose. . . .

By: Joan

Joan — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:48:38 +0000

Good tip about cloth diapers. Suggested that to my daughter-in-law when my grandson was born a month ago, but so far she hasn’t heeded my advice. Maybe next year. Here’s how I saved this year. I put a timer on my water heater and scaled back cable to the most basic package. Savings approximately $70 a month. I switched from a cell phone contract to a good prepaid service called Straight Talk. My savings (when you compare my $45 a month for an unlimited plan to the average cell phone bill of $81) is $36 a month. It may not seem like much, but when you add just those 3 items, I’m saving about $106 a month. That’s more than 1,200 a year.

By: DeputyHeadmistress

DeputyHeadmistress — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:11:06 +0000

Oh- we can’t cancel our trash pick-up- two other families dropped trash off here.

We have lived in places where you could not cancel your trash pick up- it was required by law, whether you had any trash or not (and we generally didn’t have enough to fill even one can each week back then).

By: DeputyHeadmistress

DeputyHeadmistress — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:09:24 +0000

We burn a lot of our trash, too. I don’t really believe it’s any worse for the environment than sending it to a landfill would be. If we had a paper shredder I’d compost more of it.

We finally got our corn boiler up and running. Next winter we hope to hook up the woodstove. No spare funds for that this year.

Next year I think I’ll try your vinegar and baking soda shampoo- I gave up this year.

We are using our drier through the winter, but we hooked up a pulley clothesline from our deck to a tree across the yard this summer, and it was great.

We are raising two cows for beef, and housing a third for a friend. I would love to have a chicken coop again (we’ve done milk goats and chickens in previous homes).

We’ve been using 100 percent whole wheat for almost all our baking (except a few holiday items each year) for years. But we’re still doing the old pry-open lids. I’ll have to look into the gamma lids!