Hi everyone! I know, I missed last week. I had to step in for one of my husband's co-workers. His National Guard unit was activated to help with one of the many rioting situations going on right now. :( I am hoping that everyone gets out of there safe and sound.
In the meantime, I'll report on a few things that I've been doing to be thrifty. 1. Harvested swiss chard, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, and some ornamental gourds, as well as basil, lettuce and Bells of Ireland seed. Every year I try to become a little less dependent on the stores for seeds. I've harvested lettuce and flower seeds before, but the basil was a first this year. The packet I bought this spring only cost $0.20, but these days... you never know what might happen. Unlike many homesteaders, I've chosen not to do a lot of canning every year. Since I prefer gardening to canning, I focus on growing fresh produce for nine months out of the year and only preserving food for three months. Practically, this means I only can, dry or preserve garden produce when there is extra. You can read about that below: 2. I made lacto-fermented pickles with extra cucumbers, froze extra beans, dried extra long beans (along with some zucchini we were given) and canned four pints of diced tomatoes. I won't be making any puree or sauce this year, since it is much easier to just use a can of tomato paste and add spices. Four pints doesn't sound like a lot, but the tomatoes are just getting started and I only need 13 weeks' worth of fruit and vegetables to get through winter. I figure we'll use about two pints of diced tomatoes per week, so that's 26 jars as a goal. Four down, 22 to go! Just in case you're wondering, I am reusing lids for low-value products like tomatoes. 3. I harvested and dried elderberries, and also harvested wild cherries, mullein, yarrow, and other herbs good for cold and flu. My medical preps are looking stronger. This isn't thrifty, but I want to share: I bought a quality stethoscope ($25) and pulse oximeter ($20) last week. These tools will allow me to better monitor family members and take care of health problems at home. With the quality and availability (not to mention cost) of healthcare less than desirable, I want to have the skills and tools to DIY what I can. Obviously I won't be running a trauma unit out of our spare bedroom, but I want to be able to tell when a cold/flu illness is serious and when it's not. Just last week, my husband came home with a nasty deep cut on his arm. It was only about a half inch long, but you could see the fat and "guts" coming out underneath the skin. We poured rubbing alcohol over it to prevent infection and put a bandaid over it. Later in the week I was reading through Where There Is No Doctor, and realized that you should NOT pour alcohol over a wound, as it slows healing. And while the cut is healing and thankfully not infected, it should have had a stitch or two, rather than a bandaid. But I lacked the skills and tools to do stitches, and Hubby was not going to spend the time and money to get it looked at by a doctor. So he will probably end up with a nasty scar. Next time, I want to be prepared and able to take care of small problems like that. 4. I'm pretty much done stocking my 6-month pantry, and will go back to a regular food budget this month. I've got enough pantry goods to last until January now, so I can slow down buying food and go back to our regular $30.00 per week. Starting this month, I will just buy perishable or sale items, and start building up my January-March pantry, a few items at a time. For example, this week I added: -Several cans of tuna; $5.00. -A few boxes of pasta; $2.00. -The aforementioned jars of diced tomatoes; free. Now that the basic staples are covered, I've started going through miscellaneous baking items, condiments and spices to see if there are any gaps to be filled in the next 3-9 months. I believe this will be a less frantic process than the last couple of months have been. 5. I made an off-grid laundry system. We already line-dry most of our clothes indoors, but I needed a washer. So I used two free buckets and a $3.00 toilet plunger to make this off-grid washer. I also bought a $7.00 wash board on Amazon that was highly recommended for stains and bad dirt spots. Well, that is all the time I have for this post. I look forward to bringing you more thrifty accomplishments next week! ~Prudence~
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About PrudenceI am a Christian homemaker who lives in the Midwest. I enjoy sewing, gardening, reading and thrifting. Archives
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