Gas Prices and the Economy

I'm sure you've noticed gas prices at the pump, going down and down. According to Bankrate, "The lowest prices may still be on the horizon."

Good news, right? In the short term, yes. It costs less to fill your tank when prices are so low. In the long term, the picture may not be so bright, however. 

The fact is that gas prices are tied to the overall economy of our nation and when they go down this far, companies lose their profits, causing workers lose their jobs, causing retailers lose sales, causing more workers to lose their jobs... When enough workers lose their jobs, it affects the housing market negatively and it affects savings rates and retail sales, all of which have powerful effects on the overall economy. 

Just in case you wanted to be happy about saving money at the gas pump... really, I don't like to be negative about everything, so enjoy your savings. But remember that one person's gain is another person's loss and be ready for it to boomerang. We're all in this together. 

Saving Seeds

One of the things a frugal gardener does is save seeds from year to year. Not only does it save money, each year your seed becomes more and more acclimated to the unique conditions in your garden, so that they become hardier and more reliable.

Saving seeds for most things is fairly straightforward and simple. Let a plant to to seed, pick it off and save it. Here are some radish and onion seeds I have been working on saving. The radish seed here will probably be sprouted this winter rather than planted because the crop was disappointing. I don't want those genes to reproduce, but they do make some fine salad and sandwich material once they've sprouted.

The onion seed (on the paper) are not quite dry enough yet to remove, so I will leave them out for a couple of days. Since onion seeds only last one year and they're not nearly as reliable as onion sets, I'm going to experiment with winter sowing a few, keeping a few just as they are and planting next spring and keeping another few in the garage to bear the freezing temperatures of nature.

We shall see what happens next year!

I have lettuce seed saved already, from an heirloom type that I've had for around four years now. There is still seed from tomatoes, peppers and a few other things. Okra is on a string drying right now.

There are a few things that I've not had good luck saving seeds from, though. Summer squash and sweet peppers never seem to work out. If you know how to do either of those, let me know!

Packing School Lunches

If you pack your child's lunch for school, or plan on doing so, do you save money over the school lunch program? I know there are other reasons for packing school lunches over using the programs - nutrition or special nutritional needs, for instance, but for the purpose of this blog we're talking money. Actually, how to save it.

What to send

First, think about how your child eats. If he never eats more than half a sandwich, only pack half a sandwich. If he won't eat it, don't send it. Ask him to bring home the portions of uneaten lunch from school instead of throwing them out. That way you can see what he is really eating. Don't waste money in providing things he won't eat.

Making sandwich spread is far cheaper than buying it. A food processor or a blender can be used to chop leftover meat finely, then add cut up pickles, onion, cheese, and mayonnaise or whatever you prefer, and continue to blend/chop until the mixture is very fine. Chicken, ham and beef all make very good sandwich spreads. One leftover chicken drumstick can yield enough meat for two sandwiches this way.

If there's a particular kind of sandwich spread you buy because you like it, look at the ingredients and try to duplicate them. (Some things, like preservatives or hard to find ingredients, can be skipped!)

Don't get stuck on sandwiches. Send crackers and cheese or crackers and peanut butter, boiled eggs, cold fried chicken, slices of ham or roast, olives, peanuts, raw vegetables, muffins or cornbread with baked in hotdog chunks. Keep a notebook or computer list with ideas as they strike you. Combine foods differently. Carrot sticks and crackers combined with a slice of beef roast makes a good and frugal school lunch!

Don't fall for the prepackaged "meals" you find in the store. They're a very poor buy and they are not nutritious. It doesn't take much time to put your own together and you can add real food to them and spend far less.

How to send it

Send soup or leftover main course in a wide-necked thermos to vary the menu. If the meal starts very hot, it will be just right by lunch time. Don't forget the plastic utensils to eat with!

Keep cold lunches cold by using an insulated lunch pack and/or sending drinks frozen. Frozen drinks keep the rest of the lunch cool, but will be thawed (or mostly thawed) by lunchtime. Find or buy a drink container with a snug top - a soft drink or water bottle can be recycled this way. Buy juice or fruit drinks in large containers and refill the bottle each evening and freeze for the next day's lunch. (Leave enough headroom for the liquid to expand!)

It's easier to pack school lunches, or at least the basics, the night before. If leftovers from the evening meal can be used, you won't have to put them away, then get them out again. If you need to change the form (pick the meat from a piece of chicken; add to a salad, etc.), you'll have time to do that.

What if There Was an Extended "Bank Holiday"?

On February 14 of 1933, the state of Michigan declared an eight day bank holiday. Other states followed, trying to keep everyone from withdrawing funds at once. On March 9, newly sworn in President FD Roosevelt declared a nation wide bank shut down for four days.

Without access to their own money, the Great Depression eventually left many homeless and hungry.

Could it happen again? It could. Whether it will or not is another question, but if if did, what position would you find yourself in?

When the banks close for an extended period of time, debit cards are useless and checks are just pieces of paper. Bills that can't get paid will add late fees.

Would you be out of cash in a day's time? Would you have enough gas to do what you need until the banks opened again? Most stores would be closed, so very little would be available to buy. All commerce, except that which could be conducted by cash, would stop.

Not only would many people be doing without critical things, there would very probably be some panic to deal with.

Of course, this is a theoretical scene, but it's taken from history and history is what we're supposed to learn from, so let's see if we can learn something.

There are a few things that some people did before the crash that helped them survive.

They had cash on hand. It would have taken a lot to survive the entire Great Depression, but even a little, used very carefully, helped.

Food and other needs were already stocked up and/or available. Pantries were naturally better stocked then than now, when a lot of people canned and dehydrated food for the winter. Most families even in cities had a backyard garden and many had a small flock of chickens.

Families didn't need disposable paper products and very little medicine they couldn't create themselves. Wardrobes were smaller and more practical than most now and expenses for makeup and "personal hygiene" items were minimal to nothing.

Bartering skills were already established and a lot more common than they are now, so people traded a lot. Services for goods and goods for services and any combination of those two kept people going.

How do you compare, theoretically speaking? How long would you survive? It might be time to think about it.

Save NOW for Christmas Decorations

Nope, I'm not too far ahead of the season. If you want a wonderful and frugal Christmas, you have to start ahead of time, so here goes...

Things you can save to make ornaments and decorations for Christmas:

Old keys. Spray paint them gold, silver, red, green.... glue glitter all over them (or both) and insert a chain, ribbon or wire for hanging on the tree.

Card Stock. As in, greeting card backs and things like paperboard from tablet backs or cereal boxes. Cut shapes like stars, bells, angels, trees, gingerbread men, houses or wherever your imagine and preferences lead you. Spray paint and leave as is, or cover with salt, sugar, baking soda or glitter.

Aluminum soft drink cans. With a pair of tin shears or heavy duty scissors, you can cut shapes of any kind. Wear gloves and be careful because the edges are sharp. These are great for outdoor decorations.

Jewelry. If you have costume jewelry of any kind that you don't wear, use the parts to create one of a kind ornaments. A big roll of florist's wire is inexpensive and goes a very long way to thread old beads or fasten decorative pieces together. 

Styrofoam. As in the kind that meat is packaged on. These are great to use as trays for small displays like tiny villages or skating scenes. Use a mirror, surround it with baking soda and create a scene with whatever you can find.

Pine cones, weed seed heads, dried grass. You will find many uses for these. Pine cones can be spray painted or used as-is, weed seed heads can substitute for trees or bushes in miniature displays and dried grass makes an awesome bed for baby Jesus (which could be a roll of white cloth with a wooden bead or something similar for a face).

No, it's not even close to Christmas, but it makes sense to think ahead and be ready to do it up right, frugal style!

Appreciation of the Small Things

I had an apple tree. I even got an apple from it and it was so amazing that I blogged about it.

The relativity of an apple harvest

What was true then is true now. All things are relative!

Never did the lesson ring so true as it was today when I gathered five tomatoes. The garden was late this year due to rains and a cool spring and early summer so the tomatoes are just now getting started.

Yes. I know it's September 1. I'm hoping the predicted early frost will hold off, but if it doesn't? A small harvest will be greatly appreciated and well taken care of. I won't waste one small tomato and I will eat each one (and the tomato sauce I make from them) with much appreciation.

How's your harvest this year? Are there things you got little of that you really appreciate?

Yeah, I love those tomatoes!

Budget? The Truth is Critical

Creating and living by a budget is nothing more than using an efficient system of running your household. It may not be easy to see the forest for the trees at first, but with practice you can see where your money should be going and where it should not be going.

The key to any budget, whether it's for a household, a business or a government (listen up, Washington!) is sometimes painful honesty about what you really need and then let the things that you don't need take a back seat for awhile.

What do you need? Food, clothing, shelter, medical attention at times, insurance, taxes... make your list (you'll need different categories and more of them) and then look back over your last few months and see where you spent what. Did it fit into your categories? Why not?

Write it all down and keep working at it until you can make sense of it. That's the hard part. We have a tendency to fool ourselves. That new shirt might have been a necessity, but it might very well have been an indulgence. Be honest with yourself, as much as you can.

Yes, honesty can be brutal. It can hurt, but you can't really control your money until you understand what you're really doing with it.

Five Ways to Save on Food This Fall

Sometimes I feel like I sound like a broken record, but food prices are just ridiculous right now and they're not going down any time soon.

What's a frugal person to do? We still have to eat! Luckily, right now is a good time to find some local bargains on food and if you can do it, stock up for the winter.

If you're in farming country, ask a farmer if you can buy produce (anything from beans to lettuce) straight from him without going through the retail merry go round. Some will let you; some won't, but it won't hurt to try. Concentrate on produce that keeps well.

Gleaning is another way to get your hands on cheap food, in this instance it can be free except for gas and some time.

If you have a garden, of course, you have a good source of inexpensive food. If you don't have a garden, let your gardening friends know that you will accept whatever they don't want.

If you have a local farmer's market, go there near the end of the day, when they're almost ready to leave. Don't be afraid to bargain with them. Quite often, they'd rather sell leftover produce for a much reduced price than haul it home again.

Gather wild food and put it up just like you would garden produce. Some people think it's not worth the effort, but it is. It's mostly healthier and it's free. If you're not familiar with wild food, read up on it. Just don't eat anything you're not sure of.

Now is the time to start gathering up food before winter hits, just like our ancestors did. We may have different ways to do that, but the wisdom of it still stands, especially with the grocery store prices still going up!

Related posts:
Why We Will Experience a Food Shortage
Gleaning 
Stock Up On Free Food 

Saving your garden.

Maybe. The weather has been unusual for much of the United States and part of the world. If you're trying to garden, it can be disheartening to watch the rain drown your plants or the hail strip the leaves or the sun burn it up. With all of that comes pests and lots of them. Insects and slugs tend to attack plants that are not as healthy as they could be, so plants that have been stressed by the weather seem to attract all kinds.

First on the defense (or offense, if yours hasn't been attacked yet), is a spray made of dish soap and water. Use from one to several teaspoons of dish soap to a gallon of water and spray the plants thoroughly, under the leaves, too. Start with one teaspoon and if that doesn't seem to work, use two and then three or more.

If that isn't working, go to a hot spray made from a couple of cloves of garlic, a small onion and a tablespoon of hot pepper flakes or liquid pepper. Use the hottest you can find. Pulverize or blend the onion and garlic, then add the pepper and mix well. Put it all in a gallon of water and spray the dickens out of your plants.

If it isn't raining where you are (or won't be likely to in the next 48 hours or so, use diatomaceous earth. DE is the skeletal remains of diatoms, with sharp edges. It's so tiny that it looks and feels like powder, but it will kill bugs, slugs and snails. Animals won't be affected by it. Use a dust mask when you apply it, to keep from breathing it in because it could abrade the lining of your lungs or bronchial tubes.

Ways to Put Up Fruit for the Winter

Our ancestors got it right when they learned to preserve the wonderful abundance of summer and fall fruits for the long days of winter. Think toast or biscuits with your own home made jelly and jam, pies or cobblers for cold evening treats, or a bowl of crispy apples for afternoon snacks.

You don't have to spend time canning over a hot stove to have the best of summer and autumn produce on your table all winter. While your family might enjoy traditional jams and jellies, don't stop there. Dry some plums, freeze some peaches, store apples in the cellar (or basement or closet)!

Jellies, Jams and Butters

Making fruit into spreads is the way most people become acquainted with preserving fruit. It's a fairly simple and straight forward approach to keeping fruit and takes little extra equipment. Use fruit that's not in the best condition for butters, jellies and jams, but never use fruit that is old, moldy or dry for anything. You can cut away bruises and other damage.

Sweetened fruit can generally be canned in a water bath canner, or any pot large enough to cover your jars with water for a couple of inches. You will need to find recipes or instructions specific to the fruit you want to can. Don't assume that because one fruit takes a certain amount of time or is prepared a certain way that all fruits can be done that way. Jellies, jams and preserves are not canned as such, but heat sealed. Find and follow instructions for the specific fruit you have.

Freezing Fruits

To freeze, use ripe but not overripe fruit and wash thoroughly. When you're preparing it to freeze, you will find that cut or peeled pieces darken in the air. Put them into a bath made of a tablespoon of vinegar to about a quart of water. You can also use small amounts of flat (or not) citrus based soft drinks, or unsweetened lemonade in the water to keep fruits from turning colors. You can buy a product to keep fruit from turning but why buy it if you don't have to?

If you're preparing several packages of the same fruit, cut, peel or slice enough into the bath for one package at a time. You can use the same bath over and over and even freeze it for later use, so don't drain it away, but lift the fruit from it with a slotted spoon or strainer. Cover the prepared fruit with sugar syrup made to your taste. If you don't use sweetener, cover with plain water, then get to the freezer quickly.

Whole fruits can be frozen without water. Put them on a tray or cookie sheet to freeze, then store in an airtight container.

Dehydrating Fruits

Whether you use the sun, your oven or an electric dehydrator, wash fruit, peel if necessary, and pretreat in a bath as explained above to keep it from discoloring. Place fruit on racks, keeping individual pieces from touching, and dry at 120 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Different fruits will have different qualities when they are dry. Some types will be brittle, others will be leathery. If you are going to keep dehydrated fruit for several months, pasteurize it before storing by putting it in a 175 degree oven for 10 minutes. Don't overdo it or it will turn to charcoal!

Don't wait much longer or the abundance of summer fruit will be gone!