Frugal living isn't being cheap

Mpls Star Tribune Mobile ^ | February 7, 2010 | KARA McGUIRE

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Google “purchase lye” - lots of sources.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=purchasing+lye&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&oq=purchasing+lye&fp=a048890d3c90c6fc

http://www.essentialdepot.com/servlet/the-Sodium-dsh-Hydroxide-dsh-Lye-dsh-Food-dsh-Grade/Categories

http://www.essentialdepot.com/servlet/the-Sodium-dsh-Hydroxide-dsh-Lye-dsh-Tech-dsh-Grade/Categories

Where to buy lye for soap making
http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/coldprocesssoapmaking/a/lyesources.htm

I buy ours at a local chemical supply house in 50 lb bags.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Here are some online sources for lye recipies...

Google search...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=homemade+lye+soap+recipe&revid=1365212514&ei=YuB5S9TbIs_8nAfAlv21CQ&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=1&ved=0CDUQ1QIoAA

[hennie pennie]

Thank you very much, I’ve never made soap before, and the first article I read was obviously inaccurate about the availability of LYE.

[Ellendra]

Breastmilk stains aren’t really a problem here yet, but I’ll keep that in mind! I plan to start making soaps from scratch once my house is built, but right now I’m not really in a place for more projects.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Here are some online sources for lye recipes...

Google search...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=homemade+lye+soap+recipe&revid=1365212514&ei=YuB5S9TbIs_8nAfAlv21CQ&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=1&ved=0CDUQ1QIoAA

[hennie pennie]

Do you by any chance know what else that early peoples used rendered fats for?

Once one understands how to boil the fat in several changes of water, until its clean and clear, it can accumulate pretty quickly.

I understand one can make soap with it, if one has lye, but I was curious what else it might be used for?

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“Do you by any chance know what else that early peoples used rendered fats for?”

We do not do “rendering” on the fats we use for making our soap. We might strain it. We have “rendered” beefalo fat trimmings in the oven, and used that for soap making. This was after having a beefalo butchered.

Fat such as the beefalo fat has been rendered in boiling water to make fat for deep frying. It is much healthier than any of the vegetable oils. We use coconut oil for this, because it is the healthiest oil to use for cooking. This, along with other fat from cooking goes into our soap.

Even rancid grease can be used for making soap. It does not adversely affect the quality of the soap.

Rendered fat (tallow) is also used in making candles. I have not tried that, but I am sure you can find info via Google search. You might also search for other uses for rendered animal fat or tallow.

[hennie pennie]

The word tallow refers to fat rendered from BEEF, and the word lard refers to fat rendered from PORK. I’ll have to do some research on the tallow candles.

[Ellendra]

It can be used to make medicinal salves.

[LucyJo]

LOLOL!! I love it!

That sounds like us. Hubby and I are always hearing advice about upgrading our cell phones. We kept the analogs until we had to change. We’re still on the same digitals that replaced our analog phones. We will use them until we must change them.

[LucyJo]

Same here, maine-iac7. “Country folks can survive!” ; )

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

That is generally correct. The fat from my Beefalo (bovine/bison) would also generally qualify as “tallow”.

[LizzyMay]

We've been storing food, but what I wanted to know was what it was going to be like if we couldn't go to the store? What if we needed to live off our food storage? Would we be able to do it?

We did an experiment. We planted a large garden, canned 1500 quarts of our own food, and stayed out of the grocery store and restaurants for a year. We had to make some adjustments in our eating style.

What I didn't realize was that we were going to save a bunch of money. We spend about $1 a day per person to feed our family. The food we eat is good, healthy food.

Last summer I had the feeling to create a website and share the fundamentals of preserving and storing food, growing food, purifying water, and other emergency preparedness essentials. I hope this will help people get prepared.

There's a page devoted to the 10 money saving ideas that we've implemented. We've saved our family a bundle of money. Money Saving Ideas