Posted on 02/09/2009 12:36:11 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny
Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training
I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood
for it’s use in the a-bet-tor shop.<<<
I tell you it is the wheel used for torture, it is where they put the guy who does not pay off his bets.
You’re kidding! You have the patience of a saint to search for and find all these great articles and then post them for us!<<<
I cuss a lot.
From what I see, around here, to get a better internet connection, I need to sign up for a tv/internet package and I don’t want to own a tv.
I am getting on with 45.2 and do the best that I can, but can’t see video’s, that is a night mare and I loose control waiting for the next 30 seconds to load.
Hey it works....but thanks for the kind thoughts.
So, that file was loaded 1,432 times...
Keep up the great work!!!<<<
It is your efforts that earn the readers, now when I am asked about canning, I send them to you.
It is something that I have not done in years and you are doing daily, so with thanks from all of us, I hereby crown you the “KING OF CANNING”.
And several other subjects, I am so glad you joined in this thread.
1432 is a lot of readers, that is wonderful.
Mr Chavez accused some firms of overcharging by refusing to produce rice at prices set by the government.
Will Øbama do that here next?????<<<YES!!!
We will start seeing it any day, as the small business owners will not be able to cope with his new laws, only the giants will survive.
It is something that I have watched for years, as companies that were old and good, were bought out.
We will be like Russia, a few giant companies, controlled by the elite and so called gov.
Sorry, I don’t see a bright future for us, no matter what we do, it is going to go badly, fight back and pay the price or let it happen.
http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/list.html
This is a page of plants that could be planted, when and which beneficial insects that they will attract.
Excellent page.
Home Gardens
* How to Build a Pollinator Garden
* Your Urban Garden is Better with Bees
* Home Made Sweet Homes: how to make your own home for bees
* Hummingbirds
* Pollinator Friendly Practices
* Reducing Risk to Pollinators from Pesticides
* What You Can Do For Pollinators
* Native Butterfly Plants for New York State
* Native Plant Nursery Directory: find a native plant nursery near you
* Wildlife & Pollinators Factsheets: Invasive Species
* Wildlife & Pollinators Factsheets: Song birds
* Pollinator Syndromes
* Link to U.S. Forest Service Celebrating Wildflowers website
* Link to Montana Pollinator Friendly Plantings
* Link to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Pollinators
* Link to USDA-ARS site: Plants Attractive to Native Bees
* Link to USDA-ARS article: Gardening for Native Bees in North America
* Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
* Ideas for Replacing Your Lawn: Petaluma Argus Courier
* Pollinators in Natural Areas: A Primer on Habitat Management
By Scott Hoffman Black, Nathan Hodges, Mace Vaughan and Matthew Shepherd
* Monarch Larval Food: Swamp Milkweed
Hunting & Fishing
* Wildlife Fact Sheet
Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN)
* RFP Announcement
* Participation Form
Just for Fun
* Beebo Computer Game
* Cranberry-Chocolate Pollinated Tart
Mining and Utilities
* Reducing Risk to Pollinators from Pesticides
* Pollinator Friendly Practices
* Trees, Pollinators, and Responsible Pesticide Use for Minnesota’s Woodlands
Medicinal Plants
* Hydrastis canadensis: Goldenseal
* Cimicifuga racemosa: Black Cohosh
* Ligusticum porteri : Osha- DRAFT
* Opuntia: Prickly Pear Cactus- DRAFT
* Cypripedium: Lady’s Slipper Orchids- DRAFT
http://www.pollinator.org/resources.htm
[Above is all live links at the site and they are about 1/9th of the links related to bees and beneficial insects on this page.
granny]
http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?cat=146
Two articles on rain barrels at the top of the page and a simple planter box on legs, could be on rollers for catching the sun.
http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=2348
Interview :: Path To Freedom
1 Comment
By Aaron Newton in Interviews | October 10, 2006
Jules Dervaes and his family are fueling a revolution. More and more Americans are waking up to reality and beginning to recognize that we have real problems at hand concerning energy and the environment. An increasing numbers of these concerned citizens are seeking ways to live more conscious, self-sufficient lives. However trying to transition from the consumer culture towards a more sustainable way of life takes both inspiration and information. That’s were Jules Dervaes comes in. He calls his project Path to Freedom. It’s an attempt to live more sustainably and rely less on factory farming and genetically modified foods. But instead of moving to the country and starting a farm, Jules Dervaes and his family stayed in their own neighborhood to make their change. They live in Pasadena, California on a small urban lot. Their path towards sustainability, the Path to Freedom as Jules likes to say, means making real change right at home.
The family grows much of its own food on 1/10 of an acre of cultivated land- over 6,000lbs of produce! They sell what they don’t use and preserve much of the harvest for the off season. They raise urban chickens, ducks and goats. They brew their own bio-diesel, use solar energy to heat water and produce electricity and cook food in an outdoor oven made of straw and clay. All of this happens not in a remote location as an experiment but in town as a way of life! The Dervaes family also operates a website through which they share the story of how they have been and are continuing to transition from a lifestyle of consumption to one in which they are consciously living and learning about how to do for themselves. Examples of people making real change can help others who are ready to do the same. In fact hundreds of thousands of people visit their website on a regular basis looking for knowledge about how to make this kind of change.
Recently I had the great pleasure of talking to Jules Dervaes about his Path to Freedom project. Feel free to download our conversation to learn more about a man and his family living and sharing a way to live a more conscious life. Prepare to be inspired and informed!
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GreenandMore.com - Eco-Friendly Products
1 Comment
1.
California Heartland Features The Dervaes Family » GroovyGreen.com - Start Today :: Save Tomorrow said,
August 28, 2008 at 6:21 am
[...] We’ve featured them quite a bit here at Groovy Green. You can search for Path to Freedom in our search box to see all the stories. I’ve linked here to an interview we did with them. [...]
Let’s face it. Our world is in deep, deep trouble and we are the “troublemakers.” We have to make real, difficult changes yesterday.
Despite the obvious benefits, we are not going to recycle, compost, or talk our way out of this.
Our leaders, being politicians, are not leaders at all but are bound to be followers, who just won’t be there for us in a crisis. So, it’s up to me and you to make the choice of becoming responsible stewards of the earth.
Let’s turn the world right side up as demonstrated through this website. Join us on our journey towards a sustainable present and future. Let’s walk the path to freedom!
http://pathtofreedom.com/resources/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=210&Itemid=51
Things to do with acorns: Pancakes & Whistles
Contributed by Jennifer Murphy
Saturday, 31 December 2005
by Jennifer Murphy
Acorns, gathered from the Oak canyons of Southern California, were used for centuries by the native Tongva people as a staple food. The acorns were abundant, nutritious, and easy to harvest. A little patience is all that’s needed to cook with acorns yourself.
First gather the acorns, choosing the darker ones without signs of worms. Avoid the soft ones and those with white spots. All varieties of oaks have edible acorns, although some have more tannin than others. Gather at least two cups full.
Pop the caps off and save them for whistles. Dry them by leaving the acorns in a sunny location for a couple of days, turning them occasionally. You can also bake them on a cookie sheet — 200-250 degrees for 1-2 hours. Once dried, they can be stored in a paper bag indefinitely.
When you’re ready to eat them, shell the acorns by placing them on a hard surface like a rock or a cutting board, and whacking them with a hammer or another rock. The hard outer covering will split. Peel it off and discard.
Now grind them. You could do this the old fashioned way by crushing them with a rock until they are a crumbly mash but it’s much quicker to use a blender. Put the shelled acorns in the blender, fill it up with water, and run on high speed for a minute. You will get a light colored thick broth that tastes very bitter because of the tannins.
Washing the tannins out is called leaching. Place the acorn meal in a fine mesh strainer or cloth bag and soak in a pot of simmering water. When the water turns orange, pour it off and add new water, bringing it to a boil again. Repeat as needed. You’ll know it’s time to taste test when the water stays clear. Keep leaching until it’s no longer bitter.
The Tongva leached their acorns by leaving the ground mash in a basket inside a running stream. After a day or so nature had done the washing for them.
When the meal tastes mild and slightly sweet, squeeze all the water out using the cloth or your hands. Viola, your acorn meal is ready to cook with. Use it as soon as possible because it will mold if left out. Refrigerate for up to four days, or freeze it for longer storage.
Acorns are a good source of vitamin C, magnesium, calcium and phosphorus. When compared to wheat, acorns are slightly lower in carbohydrates and protein content but higher in fat and fiber. The meal can be used interchangeably with walnut, almond or hazelnut meal in recipes.
ACORN PANCAKES
1 egg
1 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon of honey
1/2 cup of ground, leached acorns
1/2 cup of corn meal
1/2 cup of wheat or rice flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of water or milk
Mix well, thin with more water or milk if needed. Cook in a hot, greased pan until brown on both sides. Serve with all the usual pancake fixings.
Whistles
If you saved your acorn caps from the previous acorn pancake experiment, or just happened to have one lying around, try making a whistle with it. This is a lot of fun to do with children. A bottle cap will work in a similar way if you don’t have an acorn cap.
Hold the cap between your two thumbs with the hollow side toward you. Your thumb knuckles will make a Y shape and your hands will make a diamond shape behind them. A little triangle of acorn should be visible just above the Y. Now blow over and through your knuckles into the acorn cup. You should hear a loud high whistle. If it’s not working try rotating your wrists back and forth slightly to change the angle. You can vary how much of the triangle of acorn shows, as well as the strength of your blowing. Larger caps are easier to learn on. Keep trying, it takes a little practice to get the right position.
Some of the air that you blow curls around in the hollow of the cap and up, while the rest rushes right over the top. The two air flows bump into each other, and that creates the sound.
These whistles can be piercing so you might want to practice outside.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 01 January 2006 )
About Plants
Just twenty plants provide the majority of food eaten, yet there are thousands of other useful plants which have not reached mainstream attention. You can find details of many of them here.
* Edible Plants Alternative Fruits, Roots, Leaves and flowers.
* Medicinal Plants
* Other Plant Uses Soap, Dyes, Lighting ...
* Top 20 Plants Some of our favourite plants
A daylily
The Edible Daylily
About Gardening
We advocate a style of gardening mimicking a natural woodland system using perennial plants and following vegan organic and ecological principals
* Woodland Gardening
* Vegan Organics and conservation gardening.
* Perennial Plants
* Diverse Habitats useful plants in ponds, lawns and hedges
A woodland garden
A woodland garden
Plant Database
You can search our database of 7300 edible medicinal and useful plants. If you want to use the database at home without using the internet then you can download a copy or get it on CD-ROM for a small donation to the project.
Search for name:
http://www.webpal.org/webpal/index.htm
The New Three Rs
- every one will have to learn after a Nuclear War -
or other world-wide catastrophe
(but that most people aren’t yet ready to even think about)
1. Reconstruction - of society
2. Recovery - of production
3. Renewal - of religion
And a fourth R for the present -
4. Resources - for nuclear war survival
by Bruce M. Beach
Radiological Scientific Officer
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Household_Cyclopedia_of_General_Information/
[Also all book subjects available for reading on line]
Household Information - Past and Present
Household information is what this site is about and there are over 300 articles here. The genesis of this site was a book published in 1881 called the Household Cyclopedia of General Information. Many of the articles are from that book and are fascinating from a historical perspective and for research purposes. At LoveToKnow, we liked the idea of a site for general household information a lot, so we decided to add articles that are up to date and germane to today’s living and challenges.
Select a category below for articles from the Late 19th Century:
Agricultural Articles - Includes soil information, oats, barley, hay making, grafting a tree, etc.
Old Fashioned Recipes - Includes Old Fashioned gingerbread, cake, pudding, home made wine and many more.
Household Advice and Information - Includes articles like: Old Fashioned Cologne; How to live, Avoiding Nightmares, etc.
Paints and Dyes - Includes articles on how to make dyes, paints, pastes, etc.
Printing and Engraving - Includes articles on copying, printing, engraving and etching.
Metallurgy - Includes articles on assaying, casting, methods of steel making and more.
Home Crafts and Necessities - How to make Chinaware, tobacco pipes, stoneware pottery, etc.
Weights and Measures - Information on weight values, gravity of liquids, reading barometers, etc
Miscellaneous - Fishing history, dog age calculation, breeding canary’s, etc.
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/20survivalstrategies.htm
Better Times Survival strategies for low and moderate income people.
It’s not news to anybody with low or moderate income that economic hard times are here. In constant dollars, over the last 30 years the average American worker has LOST 22% of his or her purchasing power, and the less money you have, the bigger the impact this has been on you. For people with low to moderate incomes trying to live a regular American lifestyle, things are going from bad to worse, and then they will get even worse. Your dollars will not buy as much in the future as they do now. We are headed for an economic crisis so terrible it will make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like good times. If you want to protect yourself and your family from these economic hard times, make changes in the way you live.
If people are not worried about this, then they simply aren’t paying attention to what is happening. Our entire economy is a stack of cards that can be knocked over at any time. Instead of looking out for the common good, powerful politicians make decisions that hurt ordinary people but benefit special interests that make big contributions to election campaigns.
The good news is you don’t have to play their game. Even in the midst of these hard times, you can find financial security and develop a high quality of life for you and your family. Here are some basic survival strategies for coping with what is coming at us, and triumphing over it.
People who don’t consider themselves low to moderate income can also benefit by following these strategies, because their ultimate effect is to increase the quality of life, security, and happiness of families. It just isn’t possible to spend your way to prosperity. The advertisements and political talk that encourage this are the economic equivalent of methamphetamine addiction. Sure, you feel better for a while, but then you have to spend more money to get “high”, and then even more money, and pretty soon you are spending your money but not getting any high at all, so you spend more money, and more money, and then comes the crash as the bills come due and you can no longer escape the consequences of your foolish and extravagant lifestyle.
1. Start by closing your ears to the lies of politicians and corporations. Turn off your televisions and ignore all advertising. Your life will not be better if you buy advertised products. Your kids will not be smarter if they wear expensive designer clothes. In fact, if you buy advertised products, your quality of life will deteriorate. You will have less money, more stress, and your family will be at risk of the many evils that derive from financial stress.
2. The borrower is the slave of the lender. Avoid debt like the plague it is. Never finance frivolous consumption on credit cards. Never take out a pay day loan. Stay out of pawn shops unless you want to buy something cheaply..The only real valid reasons for debt are to buy a house or for education that enables you to earn a better living. Pay off such debts as quickly as you can. As long as you have a mortgage, you are not the owner of your house, the bank is the real owner, and a sudden drop in your income could put you out on the street, homeless. By making extra principle payments with every monthly payment, you pay less interest over the life of the loan. Never take out a home equity loan for vacations, remodeling, or any kind of consumer spending. Don’t consolidate credit card debt as a home equity loan - this puts your house at risk for your frivolous consumption spending decisions! Low income people must in particular beware of predatory loan schemes. Never take out a loan that has a prepayment penalty. If your property is paid for, do not, under any circumstances, get another mortgage. Debt-free housing is one of the most important survival strategies for the upcoming hard times.
3. Choose co-housing. This is a fancy name for “more than one family living together in one large household.” The day is coming when individuals of low and moderate incomes will not be able to live alone as single person households, unless they own their own housing free of debt or are in some kind of government subsidized housing. This is also true for single mothers with kids. Two or three smaller families living together can do so for less money than each would spend operating a separate household. Co-housing works for house purchases too. Three families could go together and buy a triplex.
4. If possible, go car free. This is perhaps the one choice that can save the most money. Operating a car, including the capital cost of the automobile, insurance, taxes, repairs, interest, etc. can easily top $3,600/year. It is much cheaper to take the bus or the occasional taxi, or even to rent a car a few times a year than to own a car. This may require moving to an area with adequate public transportation and access to shopping, but that effort is well worth it.
5. Stop buying new stuff. Reduce, reuse, recycle, repair, make it over, made do, do without. Shop at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift shops. Never buy new furniture, new appliances, new clothes, new home decoration items. Always look in the “after market” first, only then, if you simply can’t find what you need, should you consider buying something new. If you shop because of emotional needs, get into counseling, never spend money to cheer yourself up or because you are emotionally upset about something.
6. Use energy with extreme frugality. The cost of energy is going up and over time this will get much worse. Follow the many suggestions given in the section on Energy Conservation in this almanac.
7. Develop a part-time business on the side that can perhaps grow in time to become a full-time job that you own. This could be something simple like baking bread or pies from your home, or mowing lawns, or doing laundry and ironing for other people. Buy stuff cheap and then re-sell for a little more at flea markets or swap meets. Clean houses. Grow vegetables to sell to your neighbors. Don’t be taken in by schemes that want you to pay money for people to teach you how to make money, or by multi-level pyramid sales scams. Develop an honest business, providing a service or product that people regularly need. Teach your kids to do the same.
8. Grow as much food as you can. Plant things that you like to eat, and which are easy to grow and have a lot of value. If you own your property, landscape it with fruit and nut trees and berry bushes, and learn to make your own jams, jellies, and pie fillings. Growing food is like growing money in your back yard. Follow other suggestions elsewhere in this almanac and cook your meals from basic ingredients, shop frugally but wisely.
9. Save some money each month. Even if it is only $5 from each paycheck, stash it away. Life is full of surprises, and unexpected expenses that send you to the pawn shop or pay day loan service or run up your credit cards can be real financial problems for you and your family. Work to build your household savings. Keep some of your savings as food, always have at least 2 or 3 months of basic food staples on hand in your house to insulate yourself from the mood swings of supermarket pricing and the risks of sudden emergencies and crises.
10. Beware of the two income trap. Many families feel they need two incomes to survive, and in some cases this may be true. However, with both parents working outside the home, the family acquires significant additional expenses, including transportation and child care/babysitting. Do the math on your two incomes. Make sure that both parents working outside the home is a net economic benefit and not a net loss over the long run. Understand that a parent working at home is a net economic asset to the family. The additional time a parent can devote to in-home activities makes it possible to save money in many areas of life. A “work at home parent” can also participate in part-time businesses the family may start. Home schooling becomes a possibility, at least through the elementary grades, and this is a great blessing for families.
11. Don’t give in to despair and don’t feel sorry for yourself. Sow blessings and kindness and you will reap blessings and kindness. By living more frugally and sustainably, you aren’t going second class, you will have a first class, worry-free lifestyle. The people to feel sorry for are those, of whatever income category, who are locked into the super-consumer lifestyle. Their self-image is bound up in how much stuff they have. They are never satisfied, they always must have more stuff, new stuff, better stuff. If they aren’t spending money, they feel depressed. They may have flashy clothes and lots of new possessions, but they are in reality slaves to banks, corporations, and credit card companies. Such people will have real problems adjusting to the realities of life in coming years. The more you follow our “Better Times” ideas, the more control you will have over your life, and the less vulnerable you will be to crises and emergencies. By organizing your life in favor of Better Times, you will reduce the amount of stress, risk, and emotional trouble in your life. Robert Waldrop
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/1livebetter.htm
HOW TO LIVE BETTER WITH LESS
People taking personal responsibility for sustainable, simple, & frugal lifestyles are the wave of the future. Catch the leading edge of this epic transformation that will change the face of this nation forever. As it turns out, you are not your stuff.
Wisdom, daydreaming, and risk-taking can introduce you to options that you never felt possible.
Here’s what advertisers are saying to us: “You are your stuff. Your stuff is you. Our stuff is better than their stuff. Buy more of our stuff.” The possibilities are allegedly endless, and somehow, the bill will never be presented for payment.
This is a dangerous illusion. They offer mindless consumerism rooted in greed, lust, and envy, as recommended by advertisers everywhere. And in spite of what people seem to think, the bills will always be paid, one way or another. Americans are famous for accumulating more & more dubious stuff of ever increasing varieties & categories, resulting in big piles of trash & horrendous debts that squeeze household budgets.
You can live better with less - less money, less stuff, less stress, less aggravation, less complication, less velocity. In a world where fast food is the norm, we praise the virtues of slow food - food like your grandmother served, cooked from fresh basic ingredients at least some of which originated in that area, perhaps in her own garden.
What the world needs is more people who are willing to take personal responsibility for creating a better future than the one that is coming at us because of our bad choices. The world is changed one person, one household at a time, as people decide to BE the change they want to SEE.
This transition seems complicated, but here’s the secret clue: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, one thing at a time.
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like. - Will Rogers
The place to start is with the kitchen and the food you eat. We understand that most of us are very conservative in our food habits. And the sad truth of modern life is that many of us have formed bad habits with our food. Our over-processed, chemicalized, mechanized, just in time convenience food system isn’t a free lunch. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, all these are just the beginnings of sorrows. The way that supermarket food is grown and processed ravages the earth, destroys the fertility of the soil, and poisons the land with chemicals.
This agribidness system is also destroying the quality, variety, nutritional value, and TASTES of our foods. So we’re paying more, doing more, and somehow getting less. A better idea is to do MORE with LESS. More joy, more beauty, more wisdom - less pollution, less chemicals, less noxious fumes, less destruction of the natural environment. We got into this situation one bad decision at a time and we will get out of it by one good decision at a time.
This is not just about money. It’s about quality of life. Control over your life. Fun, convenience, healthy and tasty meals. We’re not talking about feeling sorry for yourself, or going second class. We’d like to introduce you to many new tastes and food treasures, better ways to do food - ways that really are fun & once you get used to them they are convenient & easy..
This is NOT about a person being poor. Simple, sustainable, and frugal living is for everybody - rich and poor and everyone in between. The poor can show the rest of us the way to go.
Since you are in control of your kitchen, you can do what you want with your food..That’s why we say, FOOD FIRST! People who let the food industry’s tricks tell them what to do pay more money than is necessary and get a lot less than they should for their money. We say: spend your money differently, have more quality. Imagine that.
Better cooking isn’t everything, but it is something that we all can understand. It is one step in the direction of family economic security. It provides instant rewards either — good food and better health!
Where to start? Prepare your meals from basic ingredients, & where possible & practical, buy ingredients directly from local farmers & ranchers.
Doesn’t this kind of cooking take a lot of time? It’s not like putting a frozen dinner in the oven, but it doesn’t taste like food industry moosh either. Many of these recipes only take a few minutes of the cook’s time. As you practice this better cooking, the learning curve kicks in. You develop time saving convenience skills. Recipes that once seem complicated are now easy. The first time you bake a cake “from scratch” takes longer than the fifth time you do it. By the time you have made ten, you will be cranking them out like they were popcorn. “Slow food” can be amazingly easy & quick to prepare. It helps if you plan your meals carefully.
Your kids can help. Kids need to learn how to cook. There is no better way to do this than helping in the kitchen. As they get older, give them more to do. Kids need to learn that food doesn’t just fall from the sky onto the table. Later in life, they (and their wives, husbands, and roommates) will thank you.
It’s OK to make mistakes. That’s how you learn. You will get better with practice. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. God is on your side. If you get stuck in the middle of a recipe, and aren’t sure what to do next, start your problem solving process with a little prayer, as in, “God, I need help!”
Food is an adventure. You can do amazing things in your own kitchen. Better Times gives you a lot of information to help you find your way. Wisdom, day-dreaming, and risk taking can introduce you to options that you never thought possible. Life is complex. It’s OK if you can’t solve all of your problems at once. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/19mixes.htm
MAKE YOUR OWN MIXES!
Why pay high prices for expensive store mixes when you can make your own and thus control the quality, protect the nutrition, and serve tasty foods that don’t cost much money? Not to mention, they are time-savers. This page has recipes for various common mixes that you can do for yourself.
Basic Biscuit Mix
8 cups whole wheat flour (or 4 cups whole wheat flour and 4 cups white flour, or 8 cups white flour)
1/3 cup baking powder
1 cup oil
4 teaspoons salt
Mix dry ingredients, add oil, mix thoroughly until the mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Biscuits from Basic Biscuit Mix
2-1/2 basic biscuit mix
2/3 cup milk
Add milk to biscuit mix, stir thoroughly, roll out, cut into biscuits (a mason jar makes a nice biscuit cutter, press the mouth of the mason jar into the dough). Bake in a 450 degree oven about 12 minutes until done. Variation: brush with milk before baking. For cheese biscuits, add ½ cup grated cheese. For cheese-garlic biscuits, besides the cheese add 1 teaspoon of garlic powder.
Easy Very Tasty Biscuit Mix Coffee Cake Recipe
2 cups of biscuit mix
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
2/3 cup water (or milk.)
Biscuit Mix Coffee Cake Topping
1/3 cup of biscuit mix
1/3 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. . Grease a 9 inch round pan. Mix the cake ingredients together, pour evenly into pan. Sprinkle the topping onto the batter carefully. Bake for about 20 minutes. Let cake cool before removing from pan.
Hearty Soup Mix
Mix together 3 cups green split peas, 3 cups alphabet macaroni, 1-1/2 cup rice, 2-1/2 cups pearl barley, 2-1/2 cups lentils, 4 cup dry minced onion. Combine all ingredients so they are evenly distributed, store in an air-tight container. For 6 to 8 servings of soup, add 1-1/3 cups mix to 6 cups water and 1-1/2 tbsp. salt. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Add 2 sliced carrots, 1 or 2 stalks celery (chopped), 1-1/2 cups cabbage (shredded), two 15 oz cans of tomato sauce, 1 24 ounce can of vegetable juice cocktail, or equivalent amounts of tomato sauce, and cooked meat (if desired). Simmer 20 more minutes, until vegetables are cooked.
Chicken Flavored Rice mix
Mix 4 cups long-grain rice, 4 tablespoons instant chicken bouillon, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp dried tarragon 2 tsp dried parsley flakes, 1/4 tsp pepper. Stir until evenly distributed, store in an air-tight container. To make 4 - 6 servings, mix 1-1/3 cups chicken- flavored rice mix, 2 cups cold water, 1 tbsp butter in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat, and cook 15 minutes, until liquid is absorbed. Or cook rice with seasonings in chicken stock.
Dry Onion Soup
Mix together until evenly distributed: 4 tsp instant beef bouillon, 8 tsp dried minced onion, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/4 tsp Bon Apetit seasoning. Makes the equivalent of 1 package of dry onion soup mix. Use to flavor dishes or reconstitute for soup.
Basic Muffin Mix
Mix together: 8-1/2 cups flour, 1/3 cup baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 1-1/2 cups dry milk, 1 tbsp salt. Cut in 2-1/4 cup oil until evenly mixed. Mixture should look like cornmeal. Put in a large airtight container. Makes 13 cups of mix; should be used within 10 - 12 weeks. You can substitute whole wheat flour for all or part of the flour. Increase baking powder to 5 tablespoons for whole wheat. Raisin muffins from mix: 2-1/2 cups mix, 1 tbsp. sugar, 2 tbsp. butter, ½ cup raisins, ½ cup water, 1 egg. Preheat over to 400 degrees. Combine mix and sugar, cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Add raisins. Beat egg and water together, stir into dry ingredients just until mixture is moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Spoon batter into greased medium-size muffin pan cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden. Makes 8.
Hot Chocolate Mix
Mix together: 4 cups dry milk, 1 cup unsweetened cocoa, 2 cups sugar, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp instant coffee (optional). Use 1/4 cup mix per cup of hot boiling water. Makes 20 cups total: Store in an air tight container. Variation, add 1 tsp instant coffee to mix.
Taco Seasoning
Mix together: 2 tsp instant minced onion, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp chili powder, ½ tsp cornstarch, ½ tsp crushed dried red pepper, ½ tsp garlic powder, 1/4 tsp dried oregano, 12 tsp ground cumin .Store in an airtight container.
Homemade Burger “Helper”
Mix together: 2 cups nonfat dry milk, 1 cup cornstarch, 2 tbsp onion flakes, 1/4 cup chicken or beef bouillon powder, 1 tsp each dried basil, thyme, black pepper, parsley, garlic powder . Store in an air-tight container. (Developed by Colorado State
University Cooperative Extension )
Recipes using Burger Helper (each serves 4 to 6)
Chili Tomato Mac: Brown some ground beef or turkey and drain fat. Add one cup water, 1-1/2 cups uncooked macaroni, 2 cans chopped tomatoes, 1 tbsp chili powder, ½ cup of Burger Helper mix. Cover & simmer 20 minutes or until macaroni is tender.
Hamburger Stroganoff: Brown some ground beef or turkey and drain fat. Add 2 cups water, ½ cup Burger Helper mix, 2 cups uncooked egg noodles, stir well. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 - 20 minutes or until noodles are tender. Top with ½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt. Serve immediately.
Hearty Potato Casserole: Brown some ground beef and drain off the fat. Add 3/4 cup water, 6 peeled potatoes (sliced very thin), one cup of cooked peas and carrots and ½ cup plus 1 tbsp. Burger Helper. Cover and simmer 20 -30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Uncover, stir, and cook until excess water is evaporated.
Skillet Lasagna: In a large skillet, brown ground beef, drain off the fat. Add ½ cup Burger Helper, 1 chopped onion, 2 cups water, 16 ounce can of tomato sauce, 3 cups dry noodles and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring until thickened. Top with 2 cups mozzarella cheese five minutes before serving; turn off heat, stop stirring, and allow cheese to melt. Courtesy of Colorado Cooperative Extension http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/2funfoods.htm
Fun Foods and Comfort Foods from Grandma’s Kitchen
There is no money waster in the grocery store like the junk food section. You can make your own fun foods for a fraction of the supermarket cost. But wait, there’s more! Not only are these thrifty snacks, they also taste better than any two month old cellophane sack of sugared popcorn could possibly taste. Don’t get cheated by the junk food rip-off! Make your own fun foods for convenience, nutrition, taste, and affordability.
Donuts
Best Biscuit recipe | Cinnamon sugar or Quick White Icing | Oil or shortening
Make biscuit dough and roll into biscuits. Pinch a hole in the middle. Drop into hot oil, fry until brown on both sides. Drain, dust with cinnamon sugar or ice with Quick White Icing. For yeast raised biscuits, substitute sweet roll dough for biscuits.
Hot Cocoa
For each cup of cocoa, mix ½ to 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp cocoa, and 1/4 cup water. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Add 3/4 cup milk. Heat, but do not boil. For an added touch, add a drop of vanilla and beat just before serving.
Onion Ring Batter
3/4 cup flour | 1/4 tsp baking soda | 1/4 cup cornstarch | 1-1/2 tsp baking powder | 1 cup water | 1 egg
Combine ingredients and mix well. Slice onion into rings, dip into batter, deep fry in hot oil. Variation: (1) dip thinly sliced potatoes in batter and deep fry. (2) Use milk instead of water for a creamier batter. (3) Dip other vegetables (sliced zucchini, carrots, whatever) and deep fry. (4) Use beer instead of water. (5) Add seasonings to the batter, such as black pepper, garlic powder, ground cayenne pepper, dried herbs.
Sean’s Should Be Famous Onion Ring Method
1 can beer | 2 eggs | flour| Habanero Salsa | baking powder (1 tsp per cup of flour) | Spices and Herbs
Cut the onions into rings. Mix the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs with the beer and the habanero salsa but don’t mix with the dry ingredients. Dip the rings into the beer/egg mixture, then into the dry mixture so they are thoroughly covered with flour. Dip again in beer/egg and again in dry mixture. If you don’t have habanero salsa, use cayenne pepper in the dry ingredients.
Hot Peanuts
2 tbsp. red pepper | 4 garlic cloves | 1 tsp chili powder | 3 tbsp. oil | Dry unsalted shelled peanuts.
Heat crushed red pepper in oil for one minute. Crush garlic and add to oil, add peanuts. Cover over medium heat for five minutes. Remove from heat, add salt and chili powder. Drain on paper towels.
Caramel Popcorn
2 quarts popped corn | 2 sticks butter | 1/2 cup karo syrup |1-1/3 cup sugar | 1 tsp vanilla nuts (optional)
Mix syrup, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Cook until it is a light caramel color. Pour over popcorn and nut mixture. Press into large pan. Cool and break into pieces.
Oklahoma Peanuts
1-1/2 cup nuts | 1/2 cup sugar | 1/2 tsp vanilla | 2 tbsp. butter
Line a baking sheet with greased foil. In a heavy skillet, combine nuts, sugar, butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for eight minutes or until sugar melts and turns a rich brown color. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla. Spread onto prepared baking sheet. Cool, break into small clusters, store tightly covered.
Beer Nuts
1 cup sugar | 1/4 tsp maple flavoring | 1/2 cup water | shelled raw peanuts (about a pound)
Combine all ingredient in saucepan. Cook until liquid is gone (10 to 15 minutes). Spread on a greased cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
Bread Pudding
2 cups dry bread | 2 cups milk | 2 eggs | vanilla | 1/2 cup sugar or honey | dash salt | raisins | other dried fruit and/or nuts
Beat eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla together. Crumble bread and add to the milk mixture, add raisins/dried fruit/nuts. Mix together. Bake in dish set in a larger pan of water for one hour at 300 degrees.
Yummy Fritter Batter
1 cup flour | 1 tsp baking powder | dash of salt |1 tbsp. melted butter | 1 egg | 1/2 cup milk
Combine flour, baking powder and salt, stir to blend, add unbeaten egg and melted butter, stir until well blended. Add milk, mix well. Let stand 30 minutes. Ham fritters: add 1 cup minced ham, drop by spoonfuls into hot oil and deep fry. Banana Fritters: peel and quarter six bananas, use fruit juice instead of milk (optional), dip bananas in batter and saute in butter until golden on all sides. Apple Fritters: use fruit juice as liquid, peel, core, and dice two cups of apples, add the apples to the batter, drop by spoonfuls into hot oil, deep fry. For peach or apricot fritters, use the canned fruit syrup for the liquid, chop peaches or apricots and mix with batter, fry as with the apple fritters. For beer batter, use beer instead of milk, use 2 eggs.
Corn Dogs
2 cups flour | 2 cups corn meal | 2 tbsp baking powder | 2 tsp salt | 2 -3 tbsp. sugar | 1 egg, beaten | 2 cups milk | wieners
Mix dry ingredients, add egg and milk, mix well. Let b batter stand for 30 minutes. Dip wieners into batter, deep fry in hot oil. When done on one side, they should turn over by themselves. Variation: add 1/4 cup melted butter to batter, and instead of frying, bake coated wieners in 350 degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes until batter is done. Favorite spices can be added to the batter, if you like spicy foods, had some hot salsa or cayenne pepper to the batter.
Beer Batter for Corn Dogs, Shrimp, or Fried Dill Pickles
1 cup flour | 1 teaspoon sugar | 2 teaspoons season salt | 1 teaspoon baking powder | 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper | 1/2 cup milk | 2 eggs
Enough beer for a medium batter
Mix all ingredients together well. For fried dill pickles, use dill pickle slices. Blot them dry with a cloth or paper towel. Dip in flour, then dip in batter, deep fry, flipping them after about 30 seconds, until golden brown.
Pigs in a Blanket
Roll unbaked biscuits into flat rectangles and wrap around wieners. Bake in 375 degree oven until biscuits are done, about 10 minutes. Melt a little cheese into some hot dog chili sauce or chili.. Pour over wieners and biscuits. Vegetarian variation: roll biscuit dough around whole baked/cooked carrots or parsnips, brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with brown sugar.
Beef Jerky
2 tsp onion powder | 1 tsp salt | 3 lb roast | 2 tsp garlic powder | 2 tsp pepper | 1/2 C soy sauce | 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
Trim all fat from roast and slice very thin. Combine all ingredients except meat, mix well. Add meat and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator (cover tightly). Arrange strips of marinated meat over oven rack, directly on the rack (line the bottom of the oven with foil to catch drips). Bake at 200 degrees with the oven door slightly open for six to eight hours. Store in tightly covered container.
Refried Beans
Put some bacon fat in a skillet, add cooked beans, and mash them. If they are too dry, add some of the bean liquid. You can add spices (cumin, garlic, crushed red pepper). To make a bean dip, add some salsa.
Hot Dog Chili Sauce
Cooked Pinto Beans & liquid | Barbecue sauce | Beef Bouillon | Spices
Mash the cooked pinto beans like you were making refried beans, and add liquid until it is the typical consistency of canned hot dog chili sauce. Add chili/garlic/onion powder, beef bouillon (about 1 tsp/cup), and some of your favorite barbecue sauce. Make a bunch and freeze in portions for use later.
Pizza Dough
1 tbsp yeast | 3 to 3-1/2 cups flour | 2 tbsp oil | 1 cup warm water | 1 tsp salt | 1 tbsp sugar
Mix sugar & warm water, sprinkle yeast on the water, let sit for 5 to 10 minutes, until yeast bubbles up. Add salt, oil, flour (in that order). Knead until smooth and let rise 1 hour. Roll to desired size of pizza (makes 1 thick, or 2 thin crusts). Top with tomato sauce (or spaghetti sauce), add cheese, fried hamburger or sausage, or whatever else you like on a pizza. Bake at 350 degrees until done (about 20 minutes).
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/7steps.htm
7 Easy Steps to Kitchen Frugality and Tasty Food!
1. Understand that food is not just fuel, food is the way we maintain life. It speaks of our families and our culture, our identity as persons, families, communities, “You are what you eat”, as they say. Eating is an agricultural act, and eating is a moral act. Our food choices have impacts far beyond our own kitchens. The nice thing about that is what’s best for us in the kitchen is also best for the planet too. This is why we are abandoning manufactured fast foods in favor of slow food, true food, good food, loving and healing food, nutritious food, tasty food..
2. Develop a certain level of organization in your kitchen. Plan your meals and organize your shopping. In the beginning, plan more, as you gain more experience you can improvise more but in the beginning it is best to write everything down and make lists and schedules. The busier you are, the more necessary it is that you do this. Most of us waste a tremendous amount of money in groceries stores because we buy on impulse, or because we think we might need something sometime in the future for some unknown recipe. Then we get home and find we forgot something we actually needed, so we go back to the store and end up with more junk that we didn’t really need because we went in to get “just one thing.”
3. Start cooking your meals from basic ingredients. Stop buying mixes and prepared foods Use the strategies described in this publication to reduce your monthly supermarket food cost.. Shop smart, and shop wisely. Practice does make perfect in these activities.
4. Start a garden. If you have no land, find a community garden. Get some food processing equipment, learn weekly, monthly, and seasonal food processing. Grow as much food as you can, and preserve food you grow in the summer for eating in the winter. If you don’t have a freezer, get one Share one with a neighbor if necessary.
5. Stock up on basic staples and increase the amount of food you keep in your pantry so that you are not vulnerable to weekly or monthly mood swings in supermarket prices. Note that this is the equivalent of having your own in-home grocery store. The more times you go to the store, the more money you will spend, so shop less and you will spend this. To do this successfully, you must keep more food on hand in your pantry.
6. Set aside one or two afternoons a month and “cook ahead”. Look at your meal plan, and do what you can ahead of time on these “cook days”. Use your freezer to help you prepare quick meals of “slow food” later in the week or month. You can make bread dough for a week in 20 minutes. If you will need 4 pounds of fried ground beef for 3 meals, fry all 4 pounds on Cook Day and freeze it until you need it. Make soup stocks and freeze them for use later. Keep a bag of cooked, frozen meatballs, and a bag of cooked, frozen hamburger patties in your freezer, and there are the basic ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs, Oklahoma meatballs, hamburgers, or Redneck Salisbury Steak. Do one or two projects at a time, don’t attempt too much at first. Don’t be afraid to start small, that’s the best way.
7. As you get more experience with this Better Times way of doing slow food easily and conveniently, you will save money on your supermarket groceries because you are changing your shopping and cooking habits. Now you can look for better quality ingredients from local sources, even if they cost a bit more. You will find that you can spend a little more for quality local ingredients (depending of course on your access to them) - such as locally grown organic produce, free-ranging and grass fed meats, olive oil instead of shortening, butter instead of margarine - while at the same time spending less overall on your groceries. My household now gets 80% of its food directly from Oklahoma farmers, and we aren’t spending any more money than we did when we used to get everything from supermarkets. Some of this savings is possible because we have a garden and grow vegetables, we also have fruit and berry trees and bushes. Having fruit and nut trees and berry bushes is like having money grow on trees right there in your own yard.
Robert Waldrop
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/casinoshopping.htm
CASINO SHOPPING!
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO VEGAS TO GAMBLE! JUST WALK INTO A SUPERMARKET!
It’s always easy to spend money in a casino. The same is true for grocery stores. Suppose you need milk and eggs. Are these items located conveniently at the front of the store? No way. You have to walk all the way to the back of the store. Chances are, you’ll end up at the cash register with more than milk and eggs. . . especially if the kids are along for the ride. . . If you walk out of a supermarket with money in your pocket, you’ve beaten a clever scheme whose purpose is to separate you from every dollar in your wallet. Here are some common store merchandising tricks and how to avoid them. LET THE BUYER BEWARE!
Wall of Values. Many stores feature large displays of “special” items in the front. The only way to know if these products are really good values is to compare prices. Sometimes items up front are higher priced than other items elsewhere.
Mixed Pricing. Higher priced items may be mixed with lower priced items. Know what you are buying and how much it costs.
Price Tag Problems. Lower price tags may be located a few inches away from the item they refer to. The item directly above the low price tag may be more expensive. This is a big problem in deli sections.
Missing Tags. The high price item — and alternatively — the low price item may not have a price tag. Selection is price roulette. Put those items in a special part of your basket and check their prices as you go through the checkout line. If they are more than you want to pay, tell the clerk you don’t want them.
Large Sizes Aren’t Necessarily the Best Buy. Carry a calculator with you (or do the math with pencil and paper or in your head) to compare prices. Figure the price per ounce or pound or whatever the measurement. Large sizes can be more expensive per unit than the smaller sizes. Large sizes are may be the best choice, the only way to know is to compare prices.
Fiddling with the Package Size. Sometimes they keep the price the same, but reduce the amount.
Big Displays Aren’t Always the Best Buy. Big displays may offer big deals or no deals. The only way to know is to compare prices. A big display only means the store bought a lot of it.
Brand Name Games. Big corporations spend billions of dollars to convince you that Brand X is better than Brand Y. In reality, the brand name and the generic or store brand come from the same food factory, they just get different labels. Buy canned goods based on price.
Coupon Games. This is the first cousin to Brand Name. Even with a coupon, the item may be more expensive than the store brand. If you just have to have the name brand, coupons are better than nothing, but don’t fool yourself that you’re getting the best deal. Stores that offer double coupons may have higher prices in general than other stores, so compare prices.
Look high and low on the shelf. The high priced items are usually placed at eye level on the shelf. Low priced items will be either high or low on the shelf.
Meat Goes Down, Canned Goods Go Up. There’s no such thing as a free bag of groceries. If meat prices are low, the prices of canned goods have probably gone up. And if canned goods are cheap, the meat is expensive. This changes every week. Buy extra supplies when items are on sale. By keeping a month’s worth of basic groceries on hand, you are insulated from these regular “price mood swings” at the grocery store. If canned goods are high, don’t buy canned goods that week, wait until they are cheaper.
Watch out for the 1st and the 15th of the month. Many people get government benefits and paychecks on these dates. Stores nearly always have some great deals at these times, but other items may go up. Take advantage of the deals, but you may want to wait for the rest of your list. Watch the price of powdered milk at these dates and just before. Also, powdered milk is often much less expensive at suburban stores.
The Snack Food Game. The biggest money-losing games - the absolute worst deals - in the grocery store are the snack foods. You pay a big price for a few cents worth of popcorn and sugar or potatoes, grease, and salt. It is always cheaper, and it is always more tasty, to make your own snack foods.
Look for alternative ways of getting food. Shop at farmers markets, or join a food cooperative that features local producers, and most importantly, grow some of your own food. Gardening is like finding money growing in your back yard.
Don’t blame the grocer too much. He’s just trying to make a buck like everybody else. He profits from the fact that many people have more money than time. And some of the problems (especially in the meat and deli sections) may be caused by customers moving things around. But don’t be fooled by the merchandising games. The store has a legal right to price its merchandise. You have a legal right to buy or not buy the merchandise. The store won’t go broke because you decided to get a better deal and save money. By shopping smart, you encourage grocers to offer real deals, not trick deals. Be fair to yourself and your family. Genuine deals are out there, but you must look carefully, with your eyes wide open and your calculator and pencil in hand,
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/energypage.htm
BETTER TIMES ALMANAC ENERGY SECTION
ENERGY PRICES CLIMBING!
FAMILY BUDGETS THREATENED BY RISING PRICES!
No relief in sight. Next year will be WORSE!
How will your family meet this challenge?
Three years ago we published the 3rd edition of the Better Times Almanac of Useful Information that focused on energy. We said (about the then high prices for energy): “(There is) No relief in sight. Next year will be worse. Over the long term, everyone should plan as though the price of energy will continue to increase.” We hate to say “we told you so”, but we were right in this prediction. And we make that prediction again: three years from now, energy prices will be higher than they are now.
High prices for natural gas, gasoline, and electricity are not a temporary phenomenon that will go away soon. Plan as though the price of whatever energy you use will continue to increase over the long term. That’s what is going to happen, so you might as well get ready for it right now. If you procrastinate, your delay will cost you big money. Energy prices are climbing because demand is exceeding supply, and the energy markets are being distorted by irrational and unjust economic structures. With about 3% of the world’s population, the US devours 25% of the world’s annual oil supply. Production in the US peaked in 1970 and has been declining ever since, so 60% of our oil is imported. With demand showing no signs of abating anywhere, expect higher prices over the short and long term. Some petroleum geologists are saying that within 10 years, world oil production will peak and start declining. Less oil means much higher energy prices, so energy conservation is critical to preserving the health and safety of our families and neighborhoods.
Start by talking with your family and making a list of everything you do that uses energy. Every bit of energy you don’t use is money you can spend on something else. Even small things you do (or don’t do) add up over time. You can make changes in the ways that you do things that add up to big savings every month. It won’t happen without some effort, but aren’t we all tired of high utility bills? It’s your choice. Even if you’re renting, there are many things you can do to save money on your energy bills. Think of ways to do things differently so you use less energy, discuss them with your family, and get busy. Don’t try to do everything at once (although the more things you cut back, the sooner your energy bills go down).
Remember, it’s not only how you use energy that matters, it’s also how you waste energy. If your home or apartment is not well insulated, you’re piling up one hundred dollar bills and setting them on fire. If you are a renter, the lack of insulation is like an extra tax added to your rent. Your most effective way of saving money might be to move to a different house or apartment that is better insulated, has more efficient heating, and is located closer to your work or to public transportation. Generally, you can get an estimate from your gas and electric utilities about the energy bills for an address. If you own your housing, you will save the most bucks by insulating and weatherizing. If you are a low income homeowner or renter, there are programs to help you insulate your house.
Your utility bills may seem mysterious, but you are the one who controls the amount of energy you use. To spend less money, use less energy.
Because of the high price of energy, and the hard times in the economy, more people are seeking assistance from charities to help pay their utility bills, BUT generally the amount of money that charities have to help people with has not increased. More needs are chasing less help. If you need assistance in paying your utility bills, start looking for help early and be persistent, but you may not be able to find the help you need. Thus, it is imperative for low income people to do everything they can do lower their utility bills, otherwise people may find their utilities cut off in the middle of the winter.
TACTICS TO REDUCE YOUR UTILITY BILLS
Size Counts. Your largest use of energy is generally for heating and cooling your living space. The bigger your house or apartment, the more energy you will use and the more money you will spend. One advantage of smaller houses and apartments can be lower energy bills. If there are unused rooms, keep their doors closed and shut off any heating/air conditioning vents in those rooms. If your energy budget is severely restricted, heat or cool only one or two rooms in the house.
Thermostats. The higher the thermostat in the winter, & the lower the thermostat in the summer, the more money you must pay. If you are going to be gone for several hours, adjust the thermostat so that less energy is used keeping an empty house cool or warm.
Co-housing. This is where two or more families live together. Two or three families could pool resources and buy or rent a large house that could be subdivided, with the families sharing some facilities like the kitchen and living room. The group could save money by cooking and eating together, not to mention the time savings when there are more hands and feet available to do the work and the cleanup.
Dress for the Season. It is easier to keep your house at a comfortable temperature when you dress for the season when you are indoors. In the summer, go barefoot in the house and wear loose-fitting light clothes (t-shirts and shorts) made from natural fabrics like cotton. In the winter wear several loose layers of warm clothes while you’re in the house. If necessary, wear a hat and a sweater or light jacket inside. People have been known to curl up with fluffy blankets on the couch or a favorite chair. Clean clothes keep you warmer than dirty clothes.
Plug the Leaks! Many houses & apartments are poorly insulated & have lots of air leaks. To find air leaks, light an incense stick and slowly move it around doors, windows, baseboards, electric outlets, switches, shelves, and places where pipes and electrical conduits go through walls and cabinets. Most home supply stores have inexpensive products to help plug such leaks. You can get little foam pads to put inside electric outlets and light switches (if you can scrounge a larger piece of foam, cut it yourself to fit your outlets and switches).
Caulk! Use caulk to plug leaks around windows. Wood putty or caulk can be used along baseboards. Read the label to make sure the caulk is suitable for the materials it is being used with. Latex caulk is the cheapest, doesn’t give off fumes, and before it dries it can be wiped off with a damp rag. Foam comes in cans so you can spray it around pipes going through walls and fill miscellaneous holes.
Weatherstripping helps seal doors tightly — a 1/4 inch gap at the bottom of the typical door is equal to a 3 square inch hole in the wall! If there are holes in your floors or walls, plug them as necessary. If you have nothing else, fill them with crushed newspaper or styrofoam (packing beads work) and cover with plastic and lathe (strips of wood sold by the bundle, they’re cheap) or duct tape. Patch (’tuckpoint”) broken or missing mortar in exterior brick walls. Brick mortar is very cheap, just add water, mix, & if you don’t have tools, use a kitchen knife to fill the gaps with mortar.
Super-insulate! If you own your housing, you will save the most bucks by insulating. If you are a low income homeowner or renter, there are programs to help you insulate and weatherize your housing (contact a charity or Community Action center for a referral, the waiting list for these programs is long, so get in line right away). If you don’t own your housing, start planning now for how you can get into a place of your own. If you are low income, there are programs that can help you achieve home ownership. Sometimes you can “rent to own” a property. There are many different kinds of insulation, so you’ll need to give some thought to what you need in your particular situation. Start with the ceiling/roof, and the more insulation you have, the more money you will save on energy.
Wood Stoves. A wood stove may be an effective choice for winter heat. Wood can often be found for free, even in cities, it is a renewable and sustainable resource.
Doors. “Airlock” your doors that go outside. This requires going through two doors to get inside the house. Don’t open the interior door until the outer door is shut and thus cold or hot winds don’t blow in the house. It can be a temporary structure made from plastic and 2 x 4 boards and a door you find somewhere, or you could build permanent structures at your doorways (on the porch, or just inside the door).
Maintenance. Keep your heating and cooling equipment clean and in good repair. Change the filters as necessary, or wash them (such as the filters on window air conditioners). If the sun hits your air conditioner, rig a shade over it — but don’t block the air intakes. If you are renting, remind your landlord about this. And if it doesn’t get done, that’s another sign that you need to look for another place to live.
The Bottom Line on Energy is...You must be realistic with yourself about the resources you have available to pay for energy.
In the COLD of the Winter. . .
Windows. Stop air infiltration through windows by covering them inside and outside with plastic held in place with staples and strips of lathe. Hang heavy curtains, quilts, or blankets over the windows at night. These could also be hung over walls to help insulate a room. We make indoor winter thermal curtains using those shiny mylar auto sun screens and heavy blankets or curtains. Duct tape the sun shades together so they cover the window. Lay a blanket on the floor, put the sun shades on top of it, and then add another blanket. Put a 1 X 2 across the top and nail the blankets/sun shades to the 1 X 2, and then hang or nail that at the top of the window so the window is covered. During the day, if the sun shines through the window, roll up the thermal curtain (you can use wire coat hangers nailed to the 1 X 2 at the top to hold the curtain up, simply bend the wire down to accommodate the thickness of the rolled-up curtain.) Note that this was obviously designed by a guy, people with more decorating sense can make something like this quite attractive. Fabric stores carry a product called “Warm Window” which is composed of several layers of insulating material and a metal foil liner. This can be easily made into indoor thermal curtains. A well insulated window would have plastic on the exterior, double-paned windows, indoor thermal shutters or curtains, which could simply be one or more wool blankets or quilts and a heavy curtain.
Walls. Blankets, newspapers, and extra mattresses can be used for insulation for walls, windows, and doors. Check regularly behind any such materials you hang up to see if water is condensing and if so, dry the walls regularly to keep mold from forming. If cold air is coming up through a bare floor, you can improvise “carpet” by putting down several layers of newspaper and covering them with blankets or quilts. (If you do this, tell people to be careful about slips and falls.) Even better, learn to make rugs from rags and cover your floor with something you have created yourself.
Waterbeds. If you have a waterbed, get rid of it. But if you must keep it, insulate it during the day - it will try to heat the whole room and can use more energy than a water heater and refrigerator combined. Use heavy comforters on the top and sides.
Recover Heat. If you use an electric dryer, vent it indoors during the winter (don’t do this with gas dryers due to the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning). Put some nylon hose on the end of the exhaust duct (secured with a large rubber band or duct tape) to catch the lint and dust. When you take a shower, put the stopper in the tub. Let the water cool before you drain it. Air dry your freshly-washed clothes inside the house. Don’t pour hot cooking water down the drain, let it cool first. These practices will add humidity & heat to the inside of your house that would otherwise go down the drain or out into the cold back yard.
At Night. . . Turn the thermostat down or the heater off and pile on the blankets. Dress warmly for bed in sweat pants and shirt, socks, and maybe even a cap (depending on how cold it will get and how low you set the thermostat).
Get the right eats. Adequate nutrition is essential. To help you stay warm, adequate food and water is a must. Drink plenty of water and eat frequent meals with lots of carbohydrates. Winter is a good time for comfort foods like casseroles, stews, soups, and home baked bread.
The sun is your friend in winter. Use solar heating whenever possible. Open the shades and curtains on the sunny side of the house. If the sun can shine on some heavy masonry (like a brick or concrete floor or wall), so much the better — it will soak up the heat during the day and radiate it at night. You can improvise a heat absorber with buckets or plastic bottles painted black and filled with water (if the bottles are clear, you can use food coloring to darkly color the water). If you’re using 2 liter bottles, put them in trays so they don’t fall over so easily. Keep your windows clean so the sun’s rays aren’t deflected.
In the HEAT of the Summer. . .
Shade is your friend. Keep the sun’s heat from hitting windows, doors, walls. Install window shades on the outside of your windows. Be creative and you won’t spend much money. An inexpensive bamboo roll-up window shade works fine, and there’s always aluminum foil and those automobile window shades with reflective surfaces. One or more curtains inside will help, and choose white or another light color (sheets are do-able and cheap, & more is better). Don’t forget to shade the doors if you don’t have a porch. The best choice for your wall shade is vegetation. Although it takes many years to grow a tall tree, vines grow in just a few weeks. Morning glories provide plenty of shade plus flowers that are beautiful to look at. There are many varieties of pole beans which will climb right up your walls as well as cover windows. Put up a trellis or some chicken wire for the plants to cling to.. You get shade AND fresh green beans to eat! Plant trees around your house for shade, and bushes up close to the house. If you plant fruit or nut trees, as an added bonus you get an annual high value crop.
Stay hydrated. Drink lots of water. If you don’t drink enough water, you will feel hotter and a lot more uncomfortable. Avoid alcohol, soft drinks, and caffeine, these will dehydrate you. The idea that an ice cold soda pop is the perfect solution to thirst is a delusion fostered by hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising and its purpose is to enrich the stockholders and management of soda pop corporations at your expense. The more soda pop you drink, the more thirsty you will be, the hotter you will feel, and thus the more uncomfortable you will be in hot weather. Soda pop advertisements are LIES! This is a problem with both sugared and sugar free soft drinks.
Dress for the season when inside your house. Wear shorts and a light shirt. Loose fitting clothes are cooler and more comfortable than tight fitting garments. Go barefoot or wear sandals. Natural fabrics are cooler than synthetics. At night, use light cotton sheets on your bed. Minimize indoor fabrics, as fabric increases interior humidity. This is good in the winter, but bad in the summer. People living without air conditioning should probably opt for no carpet on the floors; during the winter they can lay down area rugs, but roll them up and put them away during the summer. Using a damp sheet also helps you stay cool at night, especially if you have a ceiling fan.
Minimize heat buildup inside the house. If you have a dishwasher, don’t use it or at minimum don’t use the heat dry at the end of the cycle. Take cool or lukewarm showers, rather than hot steamy showers. (If you aren’t using AC, you won’t want a hot shower in the summer anyway.) Check your electronic equipment. Many devices such as “instant on” televisions draw current all the time, and thus create heat. Plug them into an electrical outlet strip and turn it off and on with the switch on the electric outlet strip, and thus eliminate the secret “hot plates” that add heat to the indoor climate. Don’t use the clothes dryer, hang your clothes on a line outside to dry. If you smoke, do so outside. Turn your computers off when not in use.
Cook outside during the summer. One of the biggest contributors to indoor heat and humidity is cooking, so during the summer, we cook outside, on the porch. I set up a “summer kitchen” on our shady front porch (on the north side of the house). This consists of a small two burner camp stove, and a conventional backyard gas grill. Both are hooked to 20 pound propane bottles, and are thrifty with their propane consumption, especially the 2 burner camp stove. To use a 20 pound bottle with such small stoves, which usually run on a small one pound bottle, you need a special adaptor, sold at most propane and outdoor supply stores. We also have a large gas ring (advertised as a “turkey fryer”) for boiling larger amounts of water. When I make pickles in the summer, my boiling water canner fits it perfectly, and it brings the water to a boil much faster than the natural gas stove in the house. A little roller cart, bought at a garage sale, completes the setup. I have a cast iron skillet with a cover, it makes a fine “dutch oven” so that the gas grill becomes an oven for baking casseroles or biscuits. I do the prep work in the regular indoor kitchen, load everything onto the cart, and roll it out onto the front porch for cooking. When I cook outside, and see the large clouds of smoke and steam rising from the pans, I am reminded about how much heat and humidity cooking contributes to indoor atmosphere. Cooking outside also makes sense for people with air conditioning, because the AC will have to work hard, and consume energy, and thus cost you extra money, every time you cook a meal.
Shade interior surfaces that will soak up heat. If you have indoor thermal mass, such as concrete or brick floors, a masonry fireplace, etc., make sure it is shaded so it doesn’t soak up heat during the day. (The opposite of what you want to do in the winter, of course.)
Keep the air moving around inside. We use ceiling fans and rotating fans to create breezes in the house during the day and the night. Moving air can knock ten degrees off of the apparent temperature, so fans can add considerably to indoor comfort. They can also be used in conjunction with conventional air conditioning. With breezes inside, you can set the thermostat temperature higher than would be the case without the fans. Box fans are good for use in windows, but for other indoor uses, they are inefficient and usually noisy, rotary fans are better. Variable speed fans will help you get the right amount of air.
Gettin’ by WITHOUT air conditioning. The basic rule is: keep the house closed up during the day when it is hot outside, and ventilate it in the evening and at night when it is cooler. At night we put box fans in the south windows to pull hot air out of the house, and in north windows to blow cooler air into the house. Open every window and door to facilitate cross breezes. During the day we close up the house to keep the heat out, usually about 8 AM, depending on the outside temperature. We open up the house again whenever it becomes as hot inside as it is outside, but we wait to turn the window fans on until it is definitely cooler outside than inside. We sometimes run a small window fan in a window that pulls air that has been cooled by our shady trellis during the day, but we keep the rest of the doors and windows closed. You may find exceptions to this rule, so in the beginning you will want to experiment to find the right combination for your own particular situation, which is influenced by the design and construction of your dwelling and the microclimate of its site. Ventilating a non-air conditioned building is as much art and science, and it may take you a couple of summers to get the hang of it. We are better at it now than we were 4 years ago when we first stopped using air conditioning in Oklahoma.
If you are not using air conditioning at home, try to stay out of air conditioned spaces. I am most uncomfortable when I come home from my “perfectly” air conditioned office. But on my days off, when I generally stay out of air conditioned spaces, I am more comfortable. You body does acclimate itself to your surroundings, whatever they may be.
Ventilate your attic. We did this during our third summer without air conditioning, and it
added appreciably to the indoor comfort level. Insulation and weatherization help moderate indoor temperatures in the summer too.
Window AC. A window AC is more efficient than a whole house central air conditioner IF you only use it to cool 1 room. If you can’t afford to cool your whole house, then cool only 1 or 2 rooms, and use the other strategies listed above in the rest of the house. Another strategy is to wait for the hot heat of July and August to use your air conditioner.
Even if you don’t abandon air conditioning completely, using these ideas can help you use less air conditioning so you save more money. The more shade you can get on the outside of the house, the less work for the air conditioner to do. You could wait until the heat of the day to turn it on, or you could have one or more “no air conditioning days” each week. If you are low income, you may need to turn the air conditioning off during the day and go to an air conditioned library or other public space to meet your energy budget. Even if you did this only once or twice a week, every week, you would save money, plus you would gain the many advantages of spending time in libraries. It’s not for nothing that people say: “Read More, Learn More.”
Keeping warm in a winter weather emergency
For when there is no electricity or gas due to a utility shut-off or natural or man-made disaster. If the electricity or natural gas is disrupted during the winter, you must take action to protect your family. Depending on the weather, lack of heat can be life threatening! Don’t try to heat the entire house in a winter emergency. First bundle up your body. Then heat a single room. Hang blankets over doorways and use plastic sheets, blankets, quilts, & newspapers over windows. Blankets can insulate floors without carpets. Don’t seal the room so tight that no fresh air can get in. Even if it is cold, you need fresh air to stay alive.
Layer clothes, in loose layers. Beware of wind and wet. Keep dry. Wet clothing loses its ability to insulate, and can suck heat right out of you. Stay out of the wind as much as possible. Clean clothes keep you warm better than dirty clothes. Make sure your head, hands, and feet are protected.
Use newspapers for emergency insulation. They can be wrapped around legs, arms, torso, taped over windows, laid on the floor. The best place for babies is on their mother’s bodies. in their arms or using one of the many ways of carrying a baby and still having your hands free.
For emergency backup heat, the best choice is wood heat — IF you have a fireplace or properly installed wood stove. If you don’t have one, the next choice would be propane and kerosene. These fuels have been used for indoor heating and cooking for many years. Look for this equipment at a flea market or thrift store; propane bottles are sold in most discount stores. Even when bought brand new, this equipment can be relatively inexpensive. A free-standing natural gas heater can be converted to run on propane. Ventless propane heaters certified for indoor use are also available.
Ventilation. Any form of indoor open flame heating requires adequate ventilation. Always place the propane or kerosene heater in front of the ventilation opening (such as a window open 1/4 inch). If you place it away from the ventilation, the fumes will first fill the room before they start to exit from the window. Always have a carbon monoxide and smoke detector in rooms where you use kerosene heaters.
If you are in a winter emergency without any backup heat, use candles or “canned heat” like sterno or chafing dish fuel. Even the flame of one candle can generate enough heat to keep a person from freezing to death. NEVER LEAVE CANDLES BURNING UNATTENDED OR WHILE YOU ARE SLEEPING. Make sure there is nothing burnable close to the candles, and that they are secure in a candle holder that can’t be knocked over.
NEVER USE CHARCOAL BRIQUETS INSIDE A HOUSE FOR COOKING OR KEEPING WARM IN A WINTER WEATHER EMERGENCY. People die every year from carbon monoxide poisoning when they fire up charcoal briquets inside the house to keep warm. Carbon monoxide detectors are cheap; if there is a chance you may be using improvised heating, get one. Pregnant women and unborn babies are particularly at risk for carbon monoxide poisoning. While using any kind of inside heat with an open flame, if the room seems “stuffy” and you begin to feel headachy and lethargic and/or your vision gets blurry, get everyone out of the room and ventilate it with fresh air immediately. With all forms of alternative open flame heating, beware of the fire danger. Place a fire extinguisher where it can be quickly used. If you don’t have a fire extinguisher, get a couple of large boxes of baking soda and a bucket of sand.
MISCELLANEOUS ENERGY SAVING DETAILS
Cooking. If you are stuck with a big energy hawg of an electric stove, turn off the burners before the cooking is finished. It will continue cooking as the burner cools. Crockpots, roaster/toaster ovens, and electric frying pans are more efficient than full size electric stoves. Large ovens don’t cook small meals efficiently, so use those small appliances. When you do heat up the oven, cook several dishes at once; alternate their placement in the oven so that air circulates easily. Minimize pre- heating. Glass or ceramic oven pans are the most efficient. Make sure the flame on a gas stove is blueish, a yellow flame indicates the gas isn’t burning efficiently. Pressure cookers use less energy for stove top cooking because foods cook in less time. Uncovered pans can use 3 times as much energy as a covered pan to cook the food. Defrost frozen foods before cooking them. Use the smallest pan that will fit the recipe, and match the burner to the pan if possible (use a small burner for a small pan). Keep the metal splash guards under the burners clean, blackened guards will absorb, not reflect, cooking energy.
Hot Water. Use less hot water (and water in general) by installing low-flow shower heads and faucet aerators. This can cut your hot water requirements as much as 50%, saving 14,000 gallons of hot water per /year for a family of 4. They are cheap and easy to install. Insulate the hot water pipes. Insulate the hot water tank with a special “jacket” made for the purpose (typically $10-20 at home supply stores), or wrap it with insulating materials. Do not cover the top or the bottom, the thermostat or the burner compartment of the tank. Lower the temperature on the water heater to 120 degrees or less. Take quick showers, not baths. You can make a simple solar heater: get a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a tight fitting lid, and paint it black. Fill it with water and set it in the sunlight. Voila, easy and free five gallons of hot water.
Lights. Your grandfather was right: Turn off the lights when you’re not using them. Compact flourescent bulbs work in regular light fixtures, last longer and use much less energy. They cost a bit more, but they use 75% less energy than regular bulbs & last for 1000s of hours. Use less electrical lighting during the day when natural light is available. Use more “task lighting” — smaller lights focused on what you are doing, rather than the entire room.
Washing Clothes. Whenever possible, wash clothes in cold water. Wait until you have a full load, don’t do small loads. Instead of using the dryer, air dry your clothes. Get some racks to use for indoor clothes drying when its raining or too cold outside. Wash small amounts of clothes by hand.
Dishwasher. The best thing to do with your dishwasher is disconnect it and sell it to somebody else. Washing dishes by hand should be a family affair — when many hands pitch in, the work is less tedious and gets done faster.
Small batteries. Avoid spending money for small batteries. For $30 or less, you can get a solar powered battery charger and rechargeable batteries. Or you could use a recharger that runs on household current. Small batteries are expensive — the fewer you have to buy, the more money you have for other things.
Beware of the Energy Draining Ghosts! Many appliances have “ghost loads” — even when they’re “off”, they are still “on” and burning up dollar bills of electricity. This is common with televisions, for example. Plug them into an extension cord that has a switch and put it in an easily accessible place. If you use the extension cord switch to turn it off and on, you avoid wasting power. One of those “plug strips” with an on-off switch also works well for controlling these kinds of energy wasters. If you have “wall warts” - those little boxes that you plug into an outlet in order to charge something like a cell phone, always unplug them when they aren’t in use. If you feel them, you will notice they are warm even when not charging something. This means they are burning up dollar bills while you sleep.
Be wary of bringing more electrical gadgets into your house and scrutinize what you already have. Do you really need that stuff? If you have a computer, don’t leave it on when it isn’t being used. Instead of an electric blanket, use more regular blankets or quilts (and never leave the electric blanket on during the day). Never use the television for “background noise” while you’re doing something else; a radio consumes less power. Sell your garbage disposal, or don’t use it. Compost your vegetable food scraps for your garden. Sell or don’t use your garbage compactor.
Watch Out for Indirect Energy Expenses. Everything you buy takes energy to grow, manufacture, transport, store, and sell. As energy prices go up, other prices will follow. So Use Less Stuff and you Will Use Less Energy, and thus you will Have More Money. Your trash is an indicator of how much money you are wasting. The more trash from your household, the more you indirectly pay for energy. More packaging equals higher prices. Use less stuff, or as your mother advised: “Use it up, wear it out, do without.”
Minimize the number of times you go shopping each month. Car pool with friends or take public transportation for shopping. The more times you go into stores, the more money you will spend. Always shop with a list, & avoid “impulse buying”. Buy at thrift stores and flea markets, start avoiding “new stuff.” Plan your shopping, and never go to the store for “just one thing.” Stop using disposable plates & cutlery, use cloth rags instead of paper towels. Save bottles for other uses, re-use gift wrapping, ribbons & bows, & be creative in reducing your trash load..
Ignore advertising. Your life will not be better because you buy advertised products, but you will be poorer. Teach your kids about the lies of advertisers.
Take the bus to work if possible, or car pool. For some people, a bicycle will be a cost effective option. If you have a gas guzzling car, look for a car with greater fuel efficiency. Drive slower (above 55 MPH, fuel economy crashes), accelerate gradually. Living close to your work can save you hundreds of dollars every year.
Learn how to read your meters. This will help you manage your energy expenses, because you can tell exactly how much you will owe at any given time. The electric and gas utilities can tell you how to do this and calculate your bill as you consume the energy. If necessary, read it every day and adjust your energy use to meet your budget. Stop wasting energy, and you will start saving money. You will also give planet Earth a break from the pollution.
Refrigeration
A refrigerator works best when it is correctly maintained and optimized for efficient use. If it isn’t working correctly, it will use energy inefficiently. It needs to be repaired. It won’t get better by itself.
A manual defrost refrigerator uses less energy than “frost-free” models. If you have a box freezer, use the refrigerator’s freezer compartment only for short-term storage and ice. For this kind of minimal freezer use, keep the fridge freezer at 20 to 25 degrees F — but if you are using it to store meats, the freezer temp needs to be at 10 degrees F. The main compartment of the refrigerator should be in the 37-40 degree range.
To measure this, you will need 2 small inexpensive thermometers. Put one near the center in the freezer compartment and one near the center in the refrigerator. After an hour or so, check both temps at the end of any cycle (when it stops humming). Record those temperatures. Then turn the appliance’s thermostat up a notch, & check the temperature again at the end of the next cycle. Keep doing this, up or down, until you get the temperatures right. If your refrigerator has an adjustable opening between the freezer and the refrigerator compartments, you can experiment with the width of the opening as part of this regulating process.
Make sure there is space around the refrigerator for air to circulate — at least 3 inches between the refrigerator and any nearby counters or walls. If your refrigerator is in a constricted space, don’t pile things on top of it, that will restrict air circulation even more.
The refrigerator is most efficient when it is full, but not over-crowded (food holds coolness better than air, but air must be able to circulate around the refrigerator). Freezers work best when they are full. Fill empty spaces with 2 liter pop bottles filled about 3/4ths full of water. Try putting bottles of frozen water in your refrigerator and see if it runs less. Check the temperature regularly with a thermometer. Don’t let the frost build up — when it is 1/4 inch deep, defrost the freezer. Move the refrigerator away from the wall once a year and vacuum the coils - they work most efficiently when they are clean (do this more often if you have a pet that sheds a lot).
Let hot foods cool before putting them in the refrigerator, and make sure that all dishes and foods are in airtight containers. Don’t hold the door open while you decide what you want to eat, especially during hot and humid weather. Locate the refrigerator away from the stove, out of direct sunlight, and away from any heating ducts. If you use an extension cord to power your refrigerator, it must be the same gauge (thickness) of wire as the house wires, 14 gauge. Ideally, the refrigerator should be on its own circuit (breaker or fuse), with no other appliances or lights using that circuit. If there are additional electrical outlets on that circuit, don’t use them if you can avoid it. The freezer should also be on its own circuit. Plug your refrigerator into a “Power Planner” This is a small box that plugs into an electrical outlet, and then you plug the refrigerator into it. If provides surge protection, smoother starting (less wear and tear) and saves electricity. They are available at most hardware and home supply stores. See www.energysmart.com for details.
If the door gasket isn’t fitting tightly, replace it. If your refrigerator has an automatic ice maker or butter warmer, disconnect it. Thanks to Clarence Yusik, The Fridge Doctor for help with this refrigeration section.
CUTTING GASOLINE CONSUMPTION IN AUTOMOBILES
1. Avoid sudden jack rabbit starts and stops. Accelerate slowly. If you see a stop coming, take your foot off the gas pedal, don’t accelerate and then suddenly break hard unless it is an emergency stop..
2. Fill your gas tank when it is half empty. Don’t overfill the tank.
3. Keep your tires inflated to the manufacturer’s specifications.
4. Don’t buy a higher grade of octane gasoline unless your engine manufacturer recommends it.
5. Change the air filter and oil regularly and get tuneups as needed..
6. On the highway, keep a steady speed and drive slower. For many vehicles, fuel economy goes way down when you drive faster than 55 MPH. Cruise control helps reduce gasoline consumption.
7. Don’t carry extra weight by leaving stuff in the trunk or back seat that doesn’t need to be there.
8. If you will be idling more than 2 minutes, turn off the engine.
9. Small vehicles get better mileage than big ones.
10. Keep the windows rolled up, but avoid using the car air conditioning. Use the vents. The car heater doesn’t impact gasoline consumption.
There are no gas additives or special gee-whiz gizmos that you can buy that will significantly increase your gas mileage.
For more energy conservation resources, visit
www.energyconservationinfo.org
Better Times Almanac Home | Better Times Website Index
MISCELLANEOUS Good things to eat we couldn’t Classify Elsewhere
These miscellaneous good things to eat ended up here ‘cause there was no space elsewhere.
Easy Dressing Side Dish
Brown 1 onion, chopped, in 3 tbsp bacon grease or oil. Add 1/3 cup chopped celery, 1 tsp sage, 2 cups chicken stock, and mix well. Pour this mixture over 8 to 10 slices of very dry bread cut into cubes. Pour into well greased baking dish, cover, and bake at 325 degrees for one hour. You can add shredded and sauteed squash (zucchini, yellow squash) or carrots to this.
Rice Loaf
2 cups cooked rice | 2 tbsp minced onion | 2 cups dry bread crumbs | 2 tbsp minced green pepper | 2 cups stewed tomatoes |1/4 tsp sage | 4 eggs, beaten | 1/2 cup peanut butter
Mix all togther and bake in a heavily greased and floured loaf pan for 1-1/2 hours at 350 degrees. Serve with a white sauce made with tomato juice instead of milk, add some chopped green onions to the sauce.
Refried Beans
Cooked pinto beans | salt and pepper | oil or bacon grease
Put oil or bacon grease in skillet, drain the liquid from 1 cup of the beans, and put them in the skillet, mash thoroughly, add ½ cup of the liquid from the beans. Keep doing this with more beans until you have enough for the meal. The general rule of thumb is one cup of beans, one-half cup of liquid. For bean dip, make refried beans, add some salsa, chopped onions, and maybe some cheese.
Chillaquillas
Corn tortillas | onions | enchilada sauce | cheese
Fry onions in oil, tear tortillas into pieces and add to onions. Fry a few minutes. Add enchilada sauce and cheese, stir until cheese is melted.
Rice Pilaf
2 cups uncooked rice | 1/2 cup spaghetti broken into pieces (about 1” pieces) | onions, garlic, chopped hot peppers | thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley | 6 cups stock
Place some oil in a skillet and add the onions, garlic and sliced hot peppers. Saute until the onion is clear, add rice and broken spaghetti, saute a couple of minutes more. Add seasonings and stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer until the water is absorbed (about 20 minutes). Fluff with a fork and serve.
Friday Meatless Loaf
2 cans beans | 2 cups oatmeal | 2 eggs, beaten | minced onion | barbecue sauce or ketchup
Drain beans (save liquid), chop them with a knife. Add the liquid back to chopped beans, add oatmeal, eggs, onion, and a half cup of ketchup or barbecue sauce. Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or so. You can substitute 3-1/2 cups cooked beans and bean soup for the 2 cans of beans. You can also add ½ cup peanut butter.
Okra and Tomatoes
4 slices bacon | 2 small onions — chopped | 1-1/2 pounds small fresh okra, washed, stemmed — cut in 3/4” rounds | 4 ripe but firm large tomatoes — peeled & chopped | 2 teaspoons salt | salt/pepper — to taste | 1 small hot red pepper
In a skillet, fry the bacon over moderate heat until crisp, drain on paper towels, crumble, and set aside. Add the onions to the skillet, reduce the heat to low, and cook 10 minutes, stirring a couple of times. Add the okra, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and hot pepper, stir well, and simmer till the okra and tomatoes are just soft, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle the top with crumbled bacon. If the okra and tomatoes end up too soupy, thicken them up slightly with a few dry bread crumbs or crushed croutons.
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/9misc.htm
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