The Carters - Extreme Frugality

When it comes to frugal living everyone has their own definition.  For some it means getting the essentials for free or very low cost, ideally the cheaper the better.  For others like us it means getting the best value for our dollar.  I came across this video by Gourmet Magazine on the Carter family of Maine.  They are a family of six who have recently adopted the frugal lifestyle.  They have cut out all unnecessary expenses like buying toys, going out to eat and birthday parties.  While this seems like a logical plan they really have set themselves up for failure by trying to drastically change their lifestyle.

The Carters live on 40 acres.  Like many newbies adopting the frugal lifestyle they are focusing on their food costs which in many ways is their first mistake.  They plan to grow all they eat in that space.  This is unrealistic at best for many reasons.  While they are raising their own chickens he did not do a cost analysis as to whether doing so was really frugal.  Speaking from experience over more than three decades, even the best planned gardens simply cannot produce all the produce a family of six needs annually.  They don't want to buy any greens or fruits until at least December but in Maine this would mean going without a lot of fruits as you simply can't grow all that is needed and without greens unless growing indoors.  Nothing is mentioned as to home preserving (eg. canning, freezing, drying, fermenting) either although I suspect at some point they would have had to consider preserving their harvest for later use.  I honestly don't agree with buying something that is less expensive then putting it into a more expensive container basically for show.  Sorry, but this is a superficial keeping up with the Jones' attitude that will spell disaster when changing to a frugal lifestyle.  What they have missed is on 40 acres there is a wealth of free food available for foraging.  What I do agree with is cutting down on eating out especially with a family of six.  Speaking from experience raising a larger family eating out is costly.  However, we chose to give our kids that experience at least once a month and it was rarely fast food but rather sit down restaurants.  Here's their video talking about their beginning aspirations into the frugal lifestyle.  Enjoy!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2011

Kitchener Stitch to Finish a Sock

Learning new knit stitches and stitch patterns greatly expands the items you can knit.  Video tutorials are great for learning new knit stitches because the provide a good visual of the technique.  At some point I will be making my own video tutorials but for now I'm relying on those already made.  The following video shows how to do the Kitchener stitch aka grafting.  This stitch is used to finish socks and other items where grafting is needed.   Start with about 12 inches of yarn to close the stitches using the Kitchener stitch.  When you are finished closing the stitches, pull the end through to the inside of the sock.  Weave the end through several stitches and them trim the end.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Etsy How-To: Fuse Plastic Bags!

Tomorrow millions world wide will celebrate Earth Day 2010 so continuing on the theme of re-using common household items.  I have read a lot about making fused plastic material from shopping bags and have see a lot of completed projects using the resulting material.  Today's video shows how to make fused plastic material from shopping bags.  Once the material is made it can be cut as desired and sewn together to create other items such as heavy duty shopping bags or wallets.

Note:  I have not made fused plastic material although I plan on trying it when I can set the ironing board outdoors and actually have a couple of bags.  My concern is any fumes created may be toxic so I don't want the fumes in the house.  Once the plastic is fused and cooled there would not be a problem with toxicity however I would not recommend using the material where it will come in direct contact with food.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010

Green Bags

Earth Hour 2010 is March 27 at 8:30 PM with millions worldwide turning out their lights for one hour in solidarity for this environmental cause. Earth Day 2010 is April 22 with many communities worldwide planning special events for the entire weekend. Both of these events are designed to bring an awareness to environmental concerns in the hopes of individuals adopting a more eco-friendly lifestyle. What is important is each small change we make towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle can make a huge difference not only in our personal lives but also in the health of our environment.

It isn't often that I get to use a video on this blog. In North America we have become accustomed to using plastic shopping bags but these have long been the focus of environmental debate, especially the debate between plastic verses paper grocery bags. In fact The Canadian Green Consumer Guide (1989) even discussed this issue so the debates have been going on for well over 20 years! Adding fuel to the plastic bag issue is some stores have been charging 5¢ per bag for ages. However, recently it became mandatory that all stores in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) charge 5¢ per shopping bag. What is interesting is if you look outside of North America many shoppers use wicker baskets and cloth bags for carrying groceries.

In recent times cloth bags have become a popular eco-friendly statement not only by the grocery store chains that see one more way of getting their store branding in front of people but by those wishing to eliminate the use of plastic shopping bags. Using cloth shopping bags is an easy, low cost and cost effective method of reducing your carbon footprint. Most grocery store chains and even department stores are selling cloth or coated shopping bags usually ranging in price from 99¢ to $1.99. On the low end a bag will pay for itself after 20 uses while keeping 20 plastic bags out of the landfill. So it is a win/win. At the same time when you participate in certain eco-friendly activities such as recycling toners some companies will reward you with a free cloth or coated shopping bag. My husband has empty toners from office equipment picked up and in return receives a free coated bag for each pick-up.

I haven't done an actual count but we have somewhere around 30 of the cloth or coated shopping bags. We use them for any shopping not just groceries. We also use them to cart things back and forth to the boat, carrying my latest knitting project to work on while traveling, carry library books back and forth and so much more. My husband has one given away free as a promotion for the Detroit Redwings that he carries his lunch and any other things needed to the office in the morning then brings home any dirty lunch dishes, drink bottles and that sort of thing back home in the evening. So these bags are very useful and they can easily be washed as well. The down side to using the cloth bags is it takes little time to run out of plastic bags for garbage which simply means re-adjusting how to deal with garbage, something I will discuss in a future post.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2010