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By Penny, April 12, 2010 5:44 pm

Last year, before the house burned down, my husband and I decided that having the front yard fenced in would be immensly helpful for our suburban homestead.  The front yard is mostly shady, so it is not conducive to vegetable growth. As such, we wanted to move the ducks and dogs into the front yard, using the entire backyard for vegetable and fruit gardening.

With this goal in mind, we had a representative from a local fence company do an estimate.  It came to a shocking $3,000!  Bearing in mind that our front yard is roughly 75ftX50ftX40ft, I nearly had a heart attack.  Obviously, we put the notion of having professionals do it quickly out of mind.

Scouring the classifieds, I found 150ft of chainlink with all the poles, ties, etc, for $150.  We brought it home and were waiting for spring break to put it up.  With the help of our friend, we managed to get the fencing we had bought up.  Unfortunately, it was not enough, so we had to buy more. However, that was only an extra $156.  As far as aggravation, it took two afternoons and two minor arguements. The process was a simple one, the most difficult part being the stretching, which had to be done by tying the fencing to a truck and pulling.

By doing it ourselves, we saved an astounding 90% off the professional price.  Does it look all shiny and new? Nope. It does keep the ducks and dogs in the yard, which is all I need it to do.  Plus, I don’t the the extra $2,700 to have the professionals do it was worth it.  If you look at the hourly wage for putting up the fence, we paid ourselves $337 an hour to put up fencing.  I surely can’t make that while sitting in my house on my tushie.

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By Penny, March 31, 2010 7:38 pm

I so desperately wish that I had the ability to show you lovely pictures of my seedlings, but the computer is still kaputz.  At any rate, I will give you the update without it, though it will be a sad update, indeed.

Two weeks ago, I planted some of my Brussel sprout seedlings in the garden.  In order to protect them, I covered them with “hillbilly cloches.” 

My husband drinks at least a two litre bottle of Diet Mountain Dew per day.  Rather than waste those bottles, I try to recycle them in some fashion.  I cut the bottoms off of the bottles, saving them for starting seedlings.  Then, I used the tops as cloches.  I planted the seedlings, covering them with the cloches.  To help harden the seedlings off, I put some branches from a pine tree over the cloches, to offer a bit of protection from the sun.  It seemed to be effective, as I only had two die, and those seedlings were ones I didn’t think would make it anyway.  Hooray for recycling and hick-engineering.   I would have loved to post a picture, but you will have to envision a garden plot with Mountain Dew bottles growing out of it.

Our warm weather seedlings are growing merrily away in the front windows.  Interestingly enough,  we have relied, once again, on hillbilly engineering.  A friend lent us one of his aquarium lights to use as a grow light.  We bought two L-brackets and some rope; then, we attached the L-brackets to the window frame and suspended the aquarium lights from wood flooring pieces, left from the fire, which were screwed to the L-brackets.  Not pretty, but the way I see it, my house is not a show piece; it’s the place where I work and play.  I am curious to know if the neighbors think we’re growing anything illegal.

For the last bit of redneck recycling, I planted some peas. Rather than buy special poles, we used some pine limbs that had fallen during the snow storms.  We made teepees out of them, stripping them down to poles and tying the tops together with the rope leftover from the light.  The best part: these pea teepees are in the front yard.  Good thing the neighbors think we’re “quaint.”  However, out of deference to the neighborhood, I did plant Blue-Podded Peas which, in addition to being delicious, are a lovely ornamental with purplish-blue flowers and pea pods.  After the peas are spent, I plan to sow Scarlet Runner beans which are also quite gorgeous… or, at least, that’s what the picture in the seed catalogue shows.

 In the back yard, I didn’t bother with teepees and just stuck branches in the ground. I suspect that batch will look like modern art once the peas have climbed up the branches.

With just a little ingenuity and eccentricity, you, too, can reap the frugal benefits of hillybilly engineering and redneck recycling.

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By Penny, February 22, 2010 6:13 am

A decorated table for a fancy dinner at home.

Under a tight budget, people believe that they can’t go out and have fun.  Maybe the “going out” part might be impossible, but really, how much fun is “going out”? You can’t get exactly what you want, when you want it. You often have to wait in line, wait for someone to bring your food, and then wait for them to bring the check.  The food is rarely worth all the effort. The important part of going out is the company, so why not bring the company in?  Have a dinner party!

1.       Don’t be afraid to make “poor food.”  Soups, beans, stews and pastas are all delicious and budget friendly.  Most people do enjoy that kind of home cooking.  For guests, I made a ham and bean soup with fried hoe cakes and homemade peach jam.

2.       Be creative with meals. Fried eggs, scrapple, and biscuits make a lovely breakfast for dinner. Bake pizza crusts ahead of time and have the guests help with topping them.  Better yet, make each person a small crust of their own. 

3.       Ask the guests to contribute something. Majority of folks ask if they can bring something.  We’ve been conditioned to instantly say “no, of course not!”  Instead, ask them what they might like to bring that would complement your meal or what their specialty is. When people ask, they do want to bring something, they just need some direction. This weekend, I told my friend to bring vegetables to dinner.

4.       Have fun with table decorations. I’m not suggesting that you go out and buy something, but it is fun to decorate the table with something as simple as a table cloth or a vase of flowers from the garden.  Decorations can make the dinner feel special.

5.       Choose “theme” meals.  I’ve been known to make Chinese, Indian or Thai themed meals. Now, are they as good as “authentic” meals? Probably not. However, they are tasty all the same! There are about a gajillion different recipes available online. (yes, I’m aware that’s not an actual number, but I’m using hyperbole here)

6.       Your slow cooker is your friend. No, seriously, it is! There is no rule that says you have to make a labor intensive meal to impress the tar out of your friends.  Make the day less stressful on you and use a tasty slow cooker recipe. If you feel funny about serving straight from the cooker, you can put the food in a dish or bowl for the table.

7.       Choose one part of the meal to emphasize. By making one part of the meal the focal point, the rest of the meal can be fairly simple.  For instance, bake your own bread for the pasta, but don’t worry about making a complicated side dish. The meal will seem elegant and all parts will be able to stand together without competition.

We often have people over for dinner; as of late, it has been three times or more a week.  These tips are things that I do, sometimes, though the theme meals not as regularly. The meal is mostly about sharing fellowship with people you care about, not about the food.   The important thing for you to remember is that your friends are just that because they like you, not because they are after your cooking. 

Does anyone else have some suggestions for dinner parties? Favorite recipes? Tips?

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By Penny, February 4, 2010 6:27 am

This is a repost of an article I wrote not too long after our housefire last year.

It probably sounds like a cheesy self-help title, but it isn’t any less true. While the fire was stressful and the ensuing fallout even more so, it’s interesting to see the effect of owning less. Right now, my husband and I are staying in a living room at my mother’s house. Since many of our things were destroyed or packed up by the salvage company, we don’t have much. All of our clothes fit in one singular bureau. I have three pairs of shoes, while my husband only has two pairs. I stack them neatly next to the door. It’s so easy to keep everything tidy, when I have a limited number of things to tend. I never realized it, but the over abundance of things made it difficult at our old house.

In January of last year, my grandfather had a stroke, so his house had to be sold in order to pay for his care. Because we liked the house, my husband and I purchased it in the spring. Unfortunately, all of my grandfather’s things were still in the house when we moved in. As you can imagine, we had double, sometimes triple, of everything. My mother insisted that we put the things we didn’t want in the garage so she could go through them later. Later, as it were, never came. There were plenty of things still in the house that we didn’t need but couldn’t get rid of.

When the fire ripped through the upstairs, many things were burned, but more things were destroyed by water damage. In the following week, most of our things have been packed into boxes by the cleaning crew. I’ve found that there are few things I “need.” I would suggest that you get this freedom for yourself, but without the fire, of course.

1. Limit the number of “repeat” items you need. How many different novelty mugs do you need?

2. Weed out your wardrobe. Choose a reasonable number of blouses, shirts, pants, etc. Then, go through all of your clothes. Figure out which pieces you really love, limiting yourself to your reasonable number. Get rid of the rest.

3. Ask yourself about everything you own. Do you love it? If not, are you keeping it for actual sentimental reasons or because you feel that you should? Don’t let things take space in your life out of obligation or guilt.

4. Once you’ve decided what to get rid of, take it immediately to your car. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Take it to a local charity as soon as is feasible. If you’ve opted to have a yard sale, be warned that the stock pile is wily and may take over quickly. I find that I benefit more from the tax deduction and the mental relief.

Once the house is rebuilt and we can move back in, I have a new plan. I will go through every box and evaluate whether we really need what is in the box. Nothing will be allowed back in that is useless or unloved. Owning things means have more responsibilities to “stuff.” The less things means more freedom: the power of less.

Do you have any experience in the power of less? Do you have any purging suggestions?

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By Penny, February 3, 2010 4:26 am

Laundry Soap

1/3 bar of laundry soap ( I use a homemade soap that I barter eggs for, but Crystal from The Family Homestead sells a lovely laundry soap here  Any soap will do, though.)

½ cup borax

½ cup washing soda (NOT baking soda!)

Grate soap into a saucepan. Add soda and borax, stirring until the soap is dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket.   Now add your soap mixture and stir.  Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.  You use about ½ cup per load.

Here’s the pictorial:

The directions say use a sauce pan, but I just use my stainless steel mixing bowl. I assure you, the matching ensemble was accidental.

Grate the soap. You could whirl it in a food processor, but I hate cleaning the blasted thing and would rather hand grate for just a small amount like that.

Here's all the ingredients together.

Mix the ingredients completely until the shredded soap melts.

Add water to the pan you're going to keep it in. I just use a dishpan that I keep on the dryer.

Add the soap mixture, stirring constantly

add the rest of the water, and You're done!

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By Penny, February 2, 2010 4:53 am

This month is the first month where I am carefully recording our harvest, preservation, and budget progress.  It is my hope that I will be diligent in continuing to keep accurate records.  Record keeping is an important part of pursuing and achieving goals.

For the month of January, we:

Found $90 for a snowflake to the credit card.

Canned 31 quarts and 12 pints of food.

Harvested 15 ducks and 5 geese

Butchered one deer.

Collected 182 eggs.

Corned 8lbs of venison.

Traded six dozen eggs for soap.

All told, I think we have made considerable progress in our goal of being debt-free and self-reliant.

For the month of February, we hope to start spinach and kale in our cold frame, start planning our garden, order seeds, baking snack foods instead of buying them and refinance our mortgage, to save about $100/month in mortgage payments.  I’ll keep you posted!

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By Penny, January 26, 2010 5:37 am

Here's the final product in the pan.

Eating from the pantry, a la LifeasMom, does not need to be a misadventure in taste.  As far as I know, I just created this recipe.  We had leftover ham and a lot of whole wheat lasagna noodles.  I decided to try a ham and cheese lasagna.  Here’s the recipe:

Ham and Cheese Lasagna

Cheese Sauce (see below)

1 to 2 cups of ham pieces

1 to 2 cups of peas

1 cup of shredded cheese, cheddar or Monterey Jack.

10-12 cooked lasagna noodles

breadcrumbs (optional)

To the sauce, add ham pieces and peas. Layer three or four lasagna noodles on the bottom of your 9×13 pan. Cover with a layer of the ham and cheese mixture. Repeat layers until the pan is full.  Cover the top with the cheese and then sprinkle breadcrumbs over that, if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees until everything is hot and the cheese is melted. 

Sauce:

1/2 cup of fat (I used 1/4 cup butter and a 1/4 cup lard)

1/2 cup of whole wheat flour

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 onion, chopped

4 cups of milk

1 cup of cheddar or Monterey Jack, shredded

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

In a large saucepan, melt the fat at medium heat.  Sauté the onions and garlic until soft.  Stir in the flour until a thick paste is created.  Add the milk, stirring constantly.  Add the cheese, salt and pepper.  Keep stirring until cheese is completely melted.

This recipe can be quite flexible and even made under financial or other emergency,  using powdered milk and canned versions of the veggies. I imagine that this recipe would be just as tasty if you used bacon instead of ham. Then, you could call it a Loaded, Baked Potato Lasagna.  It’s all about good publicity, you know.

I probably should have waited to cut it to make a better picture, but look at that! Who could have waited?!?

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By Penny, January 22, 2010 4:45 am

(I posted about this on the Down To Earth Forums for advice)

My husband asked me if he could loan a friend,money with a hunting firearm as “collateral”. I was reluctant, because I didn’t want it to be about DH spending $300 for yet another hunting implement. DH said that the intent was for the friend to buy the gun back as soon as he got the money. He and his wife are in a tight spot because they have three children, and he lost his more lucrative job in construction, having to take a job that paid considerably less.

I don’t mind helping, but his wife,told me that they were planning to go to a bar/restaurant tonight and invited me to go. I said that I appreciated the invitation, but I didn’t have the money to go. She replied that she wouldn’t say they had the money, but they were going to go anyway. I feel so angry that they would continue to mismanage money, even though they owe us $300 and know that I work a full time as a high school teacher and part time as a teacher in an adult high school on two nights a week. I feel guilty that I am angry at them.

I have learned a few things from this situation. 

1. Make sure you have clear terms. I should have come up with a repayment plan instead of a “when you have extra.” With their spending habits, they are probably never going to have “extra.”  If I had given terms of repayment, perhaps that would have given them more motivation.

2. Think about it for a lot longer that four minutes. I wish I had really considered the situation and their money habits. I have had  long conversations with the wife about their spending and budget woes. Had I spent time really considering it, I would have either said “no” or resigned myself to the possibility of never being repaid.

3. Consider if you could afford it if it didn’t come back. I should have determined whether our budget could afford the dent put into by giving someone else a “loan.” If I had done the math, I would have realized that it was one third of our savings at the moment, considering that we have had a few actual emergencies lately, which constituted dipping into our emergency savings.

4. Try to remove emotion from the equation. I was manipulated, and that is too strong a word, by their situation, having three young children to care for.  Motivated by emotions and the desire to help others, I may have put us in a worse situation.

I am not saying that loaning money to people who need it is a bad thing all the time.  I just think I should have been more wary about the whole endeavor. I wish I could shake this feeling of bitterness, but I am having a hard time. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to deal with this situation?

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By Penny, January 20, 2010 4:00 am

Lacking a picture for the topic, here's a gratuitous picture of my mom's dogs.

I once heard someone on an inane decorating show say that curtains are the eyebrows of a room. *Snort, polite cough*

Far be it for me to argue with the champions of home décor, but I find I must in the name of practicality and frugality.
Curtains are practical tools in regulating a home’s temperature, or at least they were up until the latter part of the 20th century. Somewhere along the way, it has become far more fashionable to use them as accessories to impressing guests instead of their original purpose. Now, folks just crank up the air conditioner and heater as the weather demands, paying the inevitable bill for such largess, all the while bemoaning high energy costs. However, you can buck this trend by taking your curtains by the rods, as it were.

Invest in some lined curtains, preferably of brocade or other heavy fabric. Lose the miles of lace and gauze, as they are about as useful as a drink umbrella in a hurricane. Yes, lined curtains will be expensive, but note the use of the word “invest.” If you use them properly, you will recoup the cost of them fairly quickly. Furthermore, you might be able to sew them yourself, depending on how fancy you want them.
Make sure you are able to open and close them. The mobility of the curtains is absolutely crucial to their purpose. It is important that they are on a rod, able to be opened and closed as necessary.
In the winter, leave the curtains open during the day. Doing so will allow the sunlight to heat the room. At night, close them so that the heat is not dissipated during the lower night temperatures.
In the summer, close the windows and the curtains in the morning before the temperature begins to rise. It seems contradictory to leave the windows closed in the heat, but, with the curtains drawn, the temperature will not rise too much. Use fans to circulate the air. In the afternoon, once the outside temperature is cooler than the inside temperature, open the windows and the curtains. Use box fans to draw in cooler air. In the event you are not quite ready to forego air conditioning, just follow the instructions for the curtains.
Be creative about their placement. Sometimes there are doorways to spaces you don’t use too often in your home. Why pay to heat the laundry room if you don’t have to? In my home, we don’t use the upstairs overly much during the cold winter months. As such, we hang a heavy curtain over the doorway to the stairs, removing it once the weather becomes warmer.

Most assuredly, I will never win any awards for my home decorating skills. However, my home is comfortable year-round with little excess use of energy. Eventually, the pennies that I save on energy will help us to buy our little farm, which is a far more satisfying than being a home décor diva. Besides, in keeping with the analogy of eyebrows, the room would have to have eyes and that’s just creepy.

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By Penny, January 14, 2010 3:51 am

Some of my homemade bread. Not the prettiest at first, but it keeps getting better!

Learning new skills is important for frugal folks, particularly those interested in homesteading.  However, many people seem to have the mindset that if they don’t know how to do something, they can’t ever do it.  That’s just ridiculous and, oftentimes, an excuse.  There are so many different ways to learn a new task, particularly with today’s technology. 

            Talk to people. I cannot stress enough the importance of talking to others.  Offer to trade lessons with someone else for a skill you do not possess.  Sometimes, someone you know will have connections with someone else who has the skill you desire.  It’s not always apparent who has what skill and others don’t know your needs if you don’t voice them.

            The library is an amazing resource. Not only can you get how-to books, but many libraries offer videos about skills.  I learned how to French braid hair from a VHS tape from the local library.  Don’t forget about the community events board.  Local clubs may post about meetings, ranging from quilting bees to public speaking.  And all of this for free!  (Thank you, Mr. Benjamin Franklin).

            Visit or volunteer at a local museum.  Museums often have groups attached to them that practice the “old arts.”  The agricultural museum in my city has a spinner’s guild which meets once a month on the premises. Even visiting for special events would give you at least a cursory understanding of a skill and someone to contact if you wanted to continue to learn about it. 

            The internet is one of the most useful tools, provided you don’t spend too much time reading the celebrity columns.  If you are discriminating about whose advice you take, you will find that the internet has a wealth of knowledge.  A skill typed into a search engine will give you a plethora of websites by both professionals and hobbyists.  I particularly enjoy blogs, as they are personal and often feature stories about failures and snafus that other websites won’t.  You’re able to learn from the comfort of your own home and at your own convenience.    

            Attend an event thrown by historical enthusiasts.  I belong to a Renaissance re-enactment group which has members all over the globe.  Sometimes, our events are open to the public, in order to demonstrate the various arts such as spinning, weaving, leatherwork, and many others.  If you feel strange about attending an event, you could probably contact a local historical group for more information.

            While it can be difficult to learn a new skill, the rewards for learning are well worth it.  If you learn to bake bread, you can save nearly $3/loaf, if you typically buy whole wheat bread.  Your new found sewing skills will save you from throwing away clothes or paying to have them mended or tailored.  A fifteen minute oil change can save you ten dollars, making your time worth $40 per hour, a hefty hourly wage.  More importantly, you’ll have the knowledge of how to it, something no one can ever take from you.  So, be brave and start learning something new.