Reducing Dependence on the Grocery Store

What would you do if you couldn't get to the grocery store? What if the grocery store was empty? What if it closed? Could you eat? What would you eat?

Most of us depend on restaurants and grocery stores for all of our food. Without them, we'd go hungry. In an age of climate change, economic instability and a terrifying dependence on cheap oil to grow and distribute food, we leave ourselves in a precarious position. By increasing our self reliance and learning new skills, we can increase our security, eat better and have fun! Here are some ways you can take control of your food.

* Learn to cook. If you are dependent on restaurants or convenience foods, the best place to begin is to learn to cook. Start simple, start small. Learn to fry an egg. Learn to make chicken noodle soup. Progressively challenge yourself. Pinpoint your favorite restaurant meals and see if you can recreate them at home. My favorite things at a Chinese restaurant are wonton soup, egg rolls and crab rangoon. These are all really easy to make from scratch, and so I do.

* Learn to make things you think have to "come from the store". Many store-bought items can be made easily at home. Sour cream, butter, pasta, hot chocolate mix, creme fraiche, yogurt, bread, cakes, and more can be made easily. They are usually tastier when made from scratch, and often cheaper.

* Grow some herbs. Whether you want fresh herbs for cooking, or herbs to dry for medicinal teas, growing herbs is a great gateway into growing your own food. Many kinds of herbs grow well in containers or even indoors,so you can get growing even if you live in an apartment.

* Plant a fruit tree or two. If you have the space in the yard, plant some fruit trees for beauty and produce. Apple trees are a sight to see when in blossom, and you can get loads of fruit for snacking, applesauce or pies! Cherry trees are also lovely, and cherries are not cheap in the stores. It'll take a few years to provide a harvest, but then you'll get a harvest for years.

* Grow vegetables. If you have a little sunny spot in the backyard, plant something yummy. Tomatoes fresh from the garden are beyond compare. So are the hundreds of varieties of lettuce, the many varieties of radishes and carrots, peppers of all sorts, eggplants, cucumbers, and zucchini by the bushel! By growing it yourself, you control what goes in them and on them and ultimately into you. You can eat them at the peak of freshness and they don't travel 1500 miles to get to your stomach, either.

* Go to a farmers market. Not only will you find top-quality produce, but you can support small, local farmers. Sometimes you can find produce much cheaper than the grocery store, too. The best way to get great prices is to buy something that is in it's peak season. Since every booth will be offering it, the price will be lower. Ask questions and try new things.

* Get to know a good, local farmer. Whether you meet them at the market or stop by their farm stand, get to know the people who grow your food. You can then make sure that it is of a good quality. It benefits both you and the farmer to cut out all the middle men. The farmer gets a reasonable amount for the food they produce, and you get top quality veg, fresh from the earth. Look for farm stands along your work commute or near your home.

* Preserve it. When you have a surplus of a perishable food, preserve it for later when you won't have as much. During the summer and autumn months when harvests are at their peak, put up food that you grew or found a great bargain on at the farmers market. Canning is a great way to put up tomato sauce, jams, jellies, and pickles, but is intimidating for beginners. Fermenting is also a great way to extend the life of food, but again, intimidating (I still haven't gotten up the nerve to give it a go). The best intros into food preservation are freezing and drying. They are easy, quick to learn, pretty much foolproof and quite safe. Freeze peppers and onions for stir-fries and omelets. Freeze bananas and berries for smoothies. You can also freeze homemade foods. Freeze muffins and breads for later use. Freeze pancakes and waffles for a convenient breakfast food that doesn't come in a box. Dehydrating food is my favorite way to preserve. I use a dehydrator but you can also use the oven or just put them outside or in a car on a hot, dry day. Apple chips are a favorite snack food and dried tomatoes are to die for. I also dehydrate cucumbers, peppers, pumpkin, zucchini, onions, mushrooms, strawberries, plums, peaches and pears.

* Have family preserving/cooking days. If you have fruit trees that produce more fruit than your family can eat, or that you can put up alone, or if you find a great deal on a 100 pounds of tomatoes, get the family (or a group of friends) together for a day of preserving food for everyone to enjoy throughout the year. Make jams and jellies to give as holiday gifts. Cook apple sauce like my family does on our apple processing days.

* Plant some edible landscaping. If your homeowners association or zoning commission doesn't allow formal vegetable gardens, mix some edibles into the landscaping. Nasturtiums are a beautiful edible flower. Rosemary bushes can double as hedge and flavoring. Lavender is beautiful and makes a calming tea.  Asparagus ferns could be worked in as a lovely background plant.

* Get a few hens for entertainment and breakfast. Nothing compares to a honest-to-goodness, fresh egg from a loved hen. The yolks are a rich orange and stand up tall and taste worlds different than that crap they sell at the grocery. If you are less queasy, you can also get into raising a few chickens (or rabbits) for meat. If you aren't caught up in the cute-fuzziness of rabbits, they can be a great source of local, ethically raised and humanely slaughtered meat.

* Get a bee hive, especially if you live in the city. Cities have a lot more flowers for the bees to visit, don't take up much space and you don't have to worry about composting their manure. In exchange for a home, access to flowers and a bit of attention, you can get honey. Sounds like a bargain to me! If you start raising bees, adapt all of your recipes to use honey instead of sugar.

* Forage for wild food. Foraging is an incredibly fun hobby, especially fun with friends or children. Pick mulberries, crab apples, wild apples, forgotten pears, acorns, walnuts, and blackberries. Learn to identify wild greens to use in cooked or fresh salads. Dandelions are my favorite wild food and can be used in many recipes, from flower fritters to bud soup to muffins.

* Speaking of dandelions, the roots can be cleaned, dried and roasted to use instead of coffee. They are earthy, nutty and slightly sweet. While most of us can't produce our own coffee (although you can roast your own!), dandelions grow all over. It's a great way to use an invasive weed, is often raised without chemicals, and as local as they come.

* Buy produce from unconventional sources such as a neighbor's produce stand by their driveway or a produce auction in farm country (these are for bulk purchases, so they pair well with family processing days or canning marathons). Approach feed stores for cheap prices on bulk oats or wheat.

* Brew your own alcohol. With practice, you can brew craft beer on a cheap-nasty beer budget. Country wines can be made with foraged or home-grown ingredients. And if you have bees, mead is definitely something fun to try.


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How Frugal Living Makes Your Life Better

Many people associate frugality with deprivation. They assume that they'll suffer without the things they want and be miserable. I've found that the exact opposite is the case in my life. I'm what you'd call a "Black belt" frugalista, but I've found that my life is richer because of it. Here's some of the top ways that being frugal makes your life better.

1. Ability to work fewer hours. If you have lots of expenses and debts to repay, you have to make as much money as possible so you can pay everyone. If your debts are minimal or non-existent and your expenses low, you can chose to work fewer days or hours each week. This time can be used for hobbies, fixing up your house, reading, spending time with the kids, time with significant other or friends, or exercising.
2. Ability to retire early. If you keep your expenses low, but continue to earn a higher amount, you can bank that excess in a combination of retirement and other investment accounts. Once the balance is high enough, you can retire, and live off of your savings. You could actually retire while you're young enough to make the most of it.
3. Better health. The cheapest health care is preventative health care. Treating a heart attack is expensive. Preventing one through proper diet and exercise is cheap. Many frugal practices are great for your health. Perhaps you bike to work to save on gas and the cost of owning a car, but a side benefit is that you get a rocking workout twice a day five days a week. Or you want to save money on meat by eating more vegetarian meals, smaller portions of meat or stretching meat with TVP. This will lower your overall fat consumption and help to maintain weight and cholesterol levels. You can garden to save money on groceries, and the side benefit is that your kids get excited about eating vegetables because they grew them.
4. Higher quality time with loved ones. When you save money by going on a picnic instead of a movie date, you save money, but you also get to spend time talking and laughing. If you cut the cable, you can spend more time playing with your kids. I love it when my friends and I get together for cooking (see my post on my family's Apple Processing Day), foraging or crafting. It's much more fun than going to the mall.
5. You own you. Consumers are owned by their stuff. If you learn to want less, you own you. You can still get stuff (I'm still obsessed with books), but you are in control of them, not vice versa.
6. Freedom to switch jobs/careers. If you live a lifestyle that requires a high income, you are stuck in your job, or have a narrower pool of available job/career choices. If you have low expenses and a bank of frugal tips to fall back on, you can quit your job to take something that's a better fit, even if it pays less. If you regularly complain about how much you hate your job, or daydream often of owning your own business, frugality can free you to live your dream. 
7. Freedom from some tough choices. If your wants are in control of your life, you can have some tough decisions. What happens if your favorite band is releasing a CD right when rent is due and your bank balance is low. Do you buy the deluxe edition CD and hope the landlord is understanding? If you are frugal, you know that within a month the CD will be cheaper and eventually you can find it at thrift stores. Or you could check it out from the library. 
8. Option of having more or better. If you spend money as soon as you make it and don't practice frugal tactics, you're limited in options. If you have $25 for a book, that's all  you can buy new. If you have $25 for books, but shop at a thrift store, you can buy 5-10 for that price; a yard sale could yield 25-100 books for that price. If you are willing to buy clothes from the thrift store, you can nicer name brands or even designer apparel for the price of Wal-Mart clothes regular price.
9. Better food. When I was less frugal, I wasted money on fast food and junk food. It tasted like crap and cost me a lot. Now that I'm frugal, I get much better food. The money I used to spend on a fast food meal can make a pretty elaborate meal at home. I shop at farmer's markets and scoop up whatever is in season and cheap, and have thus discovered Jimmy Nardello peppers, dragon's tongue beans, and Sicilian eggplant. I've tried new recipes to use up garden surplus, bargain purchased goods, or trash (roasted squash seeds!). 
10. You get your life, not the Jones'es. When trapped in the consumer mindset, you have to have the latest gadgets, even if you don't use half of the features, the flashiest car even though you hate to drive, and a house in a fashionable neighborhood with impeccably fashionable landscaping and decorating. When you are frugal, you chose what is important to you and put your money towards that. If you want to have elaborate landscaping, you can do that, but if you'd rather live cheap and travel extensively, that's an option too. Your money is spent on what makes you happy.

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Not Buying It

I don’t shop on Black Friday (and definitely not on Gray Thursday). I like to save money, and I love to find a good deal, so why wouldn’t I love Black Friday?

Most of my purchasing is for things that I need, but I also do allow myself some things that are just wants. However, I do not buy things that I don’t really want. Black Friday and related days are about buying stuff that I’m supposed to want.

Most people buy things that they think they want, things they are told they need: fancy cell phones, flat screen TVs, and high-power blenders; 50 pairs of jeans, 100’s of T-shirts and even more shoes; New luggage, new computers, and new gaming systems; DVDs, name-brand sneakers and toaster ovens.

Do these things really make anyone happy? Has anyone ever gotten a high out of using their new blender? Do you watch all of your new movies and conclude that your life is awesome? Do you jump higher when wearing your new basketball shoes? Does your new cell phone really make you more connected? Do your family members enjoy those Christmas gifts so much that they are glad you skipped Thanksgiving dinner so you could go buy them?

Black Friday is a scam. Just like television commercials and programs that show us all of the wonderful, shiny, delightful things we just must have, Black Friday is about making us think that our lives will get better if we buy this stuff. Our food will taste better when prepared with power blenders and fancy coffee makers. Our friendships will be richer once we have an iPhone to chat with others. Our sex will be better if we wear the right underwear. We’ll finally feel rested if we cover our bed with the right high-thread count sheets.

Full-color sales ads are delivered to every house shouting out ridiculously low prices on great things. There are extremely low stocks of the “good stuff” for which people will wait in line for 12 hours, but that doesn’t stop the hunger for more goods. People trample each other, vying for the best position to get the newest gadgets. Fights break out. People die. Somehow we turn into more primitive versions of ourselves.

And at the end of the day, our cars are packed full of all these attempts at happiness. We drive home, unload the car and spend the evening alone in our house. Our only companions are silent; somehow they don’t seem quite as dazzling now as they did mere hours ago in the store. But never worry, soon the credit card bills will come in. The phone will ring off the hook as the collectors come calling.

Non-Shopping for the Recovering Consumer

I used to be a consumer. I liked to buy stuff. Good stuff. Stuff that made me happy. A lot of it. Especially books. My favorite thrift store used to sell books for $.10 apiece, and I would stop in every payday to spend a few dollars. Eventually, I realized that I had to get my spending under control, or be buried under a mountain of books.

When I go to a used bookstore just to browse (or while waiting for them to make an offer on my old books), I practice non-consumption. When I find a book that sounds interesting, I resist the urge to buy it. Instead, I take a photo of it with my bottom-of-the-line camera phone. Later I visit my library's website and put a hold on that book. I get to enjoy reading it and usually find that, while I enjoyed it, I don't need to own it. I get the pleasure of reading the book without paying a penny.

Sometimes I find the book so amazing that I know I'm going to come back to it again and again. In that case, it goes onto my wishlist on Paperbackswap. If after six month or so, I haven't received it from a fellow swapper, and it still sounds just as amazing as it did before, I might check out Amazon's Marketplace to buy it from an individual seller. Otherwise, I keep waiting for it to either become available at a good price, or I may find that I lose interest in owning it. However it works out, I always save money over just buying whatever books sound interesting as I shop.

I do the same thing with movies. I have a "Films to Watch" file on my computer. Whenever I see a trailer that looks good or hear of a new movie, I add it to the list. I then request these titles from the library. Some aren't available, but most are (I love my library). If I watch a library movie and find that it rocks my world, it goes on my Amazon wishlist or perhaps my birthday wishlist. I do the same thing for CDs.

Sometimes it's not a book or a movie that I want to try out, but an appliance or gadget. I will post a request on Freecycle and watch for listings from others. Sometimes I get items for free to try out. If Freecycle doesn't provide, I will start to keep an eye out at non-traditional outlets such as yard sales and thrift stores. Since I don't know how I'll take to the item, I don't want to spend big bucks purchasing it new.

If you are a recovering consumer, it can be hard to stop shopping cold turkey. Practicing non-shopping can not only keep you from making a purchase, but get you to think about why you want something, or even if you do.



For further reading, check out Penny Pinching Party, Frugal Tuesday. www.None.com

Spend-Free Challenges

How much did you spend last month? How much did you really need to spend? Most of us have a tendency to spend without thinking. We spend money on things we don't really want and then we have to work longer hours and don't get to attain our goals.

A great practice that I commonly participate in is Spending Free Months. For the entire month, I don't spend anything except for utilities and rent. No going out to eat. No groceries. No shopping. No gas except to commute if the weather is particularly nasty.

It takes some planning to pull this off. Before the month, I make sure I have food in the house, especially staples such as flour, sugar, cheese and milk. I fill in any obvious gaps (such as no pasta), but don't spend extra to stock up. I make sure I have refilled any prescriptions and filled the gas tank. In general, I make sure my basic needs are met. Also, in preparation, I may put a temporary hold on services such as Netflix, if possible.

Once the month begins, I plan meals around items in my pantry. It helps me to grow as a cook and I try lots of new recipes. I particularly like to use up any items that have been in the pantry for awhile. On a recent month-long challenge, I found a can of garbanzo beans that I had forgotten I had. I made hummus for dipping and veggie sandwiches. Once I roasted a 15 lb turkey that I had bought during the Thanksgiving sales for $7. That made for many sandwiches stir-fry, casseroles, omelets, wraps and a big pot of amazing turkey noodle soup.

I don't spend a penny on entertainment. I go to free concerts or movies in the park and free community theater productions. I go for bike rides and hikes. I have friends over for dinner or tea instead of meeting them out. I also look online for free fun in my city such as festivals and free days at local museums. I check the free local daily for any announcements of giveaways at restaurants (Once I found that a large coffee chain gave away free coffee if you bought a travel mug).

Since I am not spending time in stores, I have lots of time for frugal tasks. I darn socks and replace buttons. I harvest wild foods to supplement my pantry or to stockpile for winter. I work in my garden. I walk or bike to work when the weather is cooperative. I clip coupons and dumpster dive.

I visit the library often. I get lots of free entertainment. I check out a lot of good books and will pick a new skill to learn or subject to explore. I check out movies and documentaries. I check out CDs, and try a few new bands each time. I can also read the newspaper or magazines. Some libraries have free concerts, lectures, movies or classes.

The benefits of these challenges are great. I save around $600 extra each month that I complete a challenge. In the next few months, I am more aware of my spending, and as a result, don't spend as much as I did beforehand. This enables me to save an extra $200 a month for a few months after. I learn what things mean a lot to me that I missed greatly (having coffee at my favorite locally owned coffee house) and which things I didn't miss at all (commuting by car).

By doing a challenge every 4-6 months, I keep my spending in check all year round. This helps me speed up my savings for big goals. When I am not up to a full-month challenge, I may take a week-long or weekend-long challenge. Since my days off are usually my biggest-spending days, taking a two-day challenge has a high yield for the duration.

By doing a challenge every 4-6 months, I keep my spending in check all year round. This helps me speed up my savings for big goals.

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Alternatives to Shopping

Our consumer culture is fixated on going to the mall or shopping online. For those with limited funds or a desire for a less financially precarious life, there are many ways to get things that will enrich your life without spending money or stepping foot in a store.

PaperBackSwap. If you love to read, this really should be your go-to source for reading material. I have hundreds of books that I bought years ago and will never read again. I listed them on the site, and now I'm getting more books to read at no cost (besides shipping my books to other readers). A lot of the books that I've requested were impossible to find at used book stores and expensive on Amazon. Add to this the rich community among swappers and this site has my official recommendation.

Dumpster diving. This isn't for everyone; I know that. For those of you who aren't queasy, jump right in. There are all sorts of goodies waiting for you. Of course, you can't expect to find exactly what you're looking for; you are subject to the whims of those cleaning house. However, sometimes you do find exactly what you're looking for. One night after a concert, Trucker and I were taking a walk around the neighborhood. I decided right then and there to godiving and reached in to a dumpster. I pulled out a lovely, working lamp with lampshade. This was just a few days after I had decided to find another lamp for the living room.  Another time I found a copy of a novel that I had loved as a kid, and enjoyed reading it again.

Library. Get your books, movies and magazines for free instead of paying for them. My public library system is so amazing that I cancelled Netflix and rarely rent movies anymore.

Freecycle. Join your local branch of Freecycle. You can clear out stuff that you no longer want or need and ask for things that you do need. Some of the items I've seen offered are quite generous, such as pianos, bikes and office chairs. Added benefits are the environmental impact of less waste and fewer items being produced and that wonderful community feeling.

Crackle offers a rotation of movies that you can watch for free. You don't have unlimited selection, but I often find something that I'd enjoy watching. I don't have to pay for the DVD, rental fees or the outrageous prices for a movie theater ticket.

Project Gutenberg is a great source of free ebooks either to read on your PC or portable reading device. 38,000 free books in the public domain are waiting for you; you're sure to find something you'll enjoy reading.

Free boxes. Anytime I'm at a coffeehouse or a yard sale and I see a free box, I check it out. I've found good magazines and books, silly little kitchen gadgets and even clothes in my size in these free boxes. Once I found a Marc Jacobs jacket that was my size, in a color that looked great on me. It was missing a button, but I had some buttons at home and easily swapped them out.

Swaps. Have similar friends over for a swap meet. If many of your friends are film buffs, bring DVDs. If they are science fiction readers, bring novels. If you have several friends of roughly the same size, bring clothes to try on and trade; if your friends are all different sizes, swap accessories or jewelry. Make sure you each bring some booze or chocolate to really make it a party.

Why I Stopped Shopping

Years ago, I liked to shop. I would hit the malls or shopping districts a few times a week, always bringing home lots of cool stuff. My tiny studio apartment quickly became overloaded with all of these things that I thought I should own. For me, consumption was about trying to make myself feel better, to get a bit of happiness in a very unhappy life. I was working a job I disliked and I tried to assuage that frustration with clothes, books, movies and trinkets.It didn't work.

I am now an active anti-consumerist. I rarely buy things, and when I do, I consider whether it's needed or even really wanted. This aversion to buying stuff has enriched my life in many ways.

1. I save money. I used to spend a couple hundred dollars a week on things that I didn't use. That's over $10,000 a year. Instead of the money being spent on things that clutter my home, the money goes into savings for goals that really matter to me, like traveling, paying off debt, retirement, and buying a house.

2. My home feels better when it's clean. It's hard to keep a clean house when there's a lot of stuff.

3. I have more time. I am no longer spending time at the stores, so I have time to read, paint, hike, bike or go to concerts.

4. I have the option of working less. People commonly assume that the more you work, the more you can spend, but it's really the reverse. The more you spend, the more you have to work. By reducing my mindless consumption, I can work fewer hours each week and spend more time doing things that bring me pleasure. Alternately, I can work the same number of hours and bank the excess money and retire early.

5. I can spend ethically. I can spend my money at local places and support my community. I can buy organic produce or shop at farmers markets. I also refuse to buy anything from companies that don't live up to my high standards in the areas of environmental responsibility and worker wages/respect.

6. I save money on housing. The more stuff you have, the bigger your house needs to be (and the bigger your house is, the more stuff you'll be tempted to buy). Since I am no longer bringing "stuff" into my house, and am constantly looking for things that I no longer need to keep, I can get away with living in a smaller apartment or house. This saves hundreds of dollars just in rent/mortgage each month, and additionally saves on heating, decorating, property taxes and electricity.

7. I can have better things. Since I'm no longer buying for the sake of buying, I make sure I really want or need something before I buy it. Rather than having a dozen pairs of black dress shoes, I have one pair that fits well, is comfortable and that I get compliments on frequently. Rather than having an entire room filled with my books, many of which I will never read, I have a collection on topics I'm fascinated by and favorite authors. I read or reference all of my books often.

8. I can spend higher quality time with friends. I used to go shopping as my main social outlet. Of course, as soon as we walked in the stores, my friends and I would split into different directions. Now I can enjoy concerts, exercise, crafting and talking with friends.

9. I have more control over myself. Shopping is a lot like chocolate, alcohol or tobacco. It's not necessarily bad, but addiction can take hold and ruin your life. Just watch Hoarders. They feel that they can't stop shopping, even though they feel guilty when their kids can't sleep in their own beds or they can't get to the bathroom because of all the stuff. When I stopped mindlessly shopping, I regained control over myself. I still go to the stores occasionally, but I decide rationally what I need and what doesn't deserve a place in my home. I am in control.

10. I can really be happy. Even good stuff is never enough to fill the aching void. Eventually, I had to stop trying to fix my problems with shopping and figure out how to really be happy. Happiness isn't found at the mall or the mega box store. It's found out here.

Some inspiration and information on anti-consumerism:

George Carlin on "Stuff"

Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping (one of my personal heroes)

http://www.revbilly.com/

















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Homesteader's Hop

Finding Worth Beyond Money

Whenever I talk with people about frugal living, anticonsumerism or self sufficiency, it seems that they can't quite understand how it's possible to be happy in that life. They can't understand what they should do with the money they aren't spending, or how someone could give up a high paying job to voluntarily live in on the lower end of the income spectrum.

We don't know how to be worthwhile by ourselves. Our advertisers have told us that the way to get laid is to drive a luxury car or to spritz the right cologne on our necks. Our parents told us the way to make it was to get a good education and then a high paying job. Our employers expect us to work hard so we can climb that ladder or at the very least, spend every waking moment striving for it. Where does that leave us? It leaves us thinking that we aren't complete until we buy something, earn more, or have more power. It leaves us insecure in ourselves and creates a void that we can never fill.


Is it any wonder that we work more hours even if we hate our jobs? We want to be seen as strong workers.
Is it any wonder we have to see a movie the day it comes out? We'd hate to be seen as out of the loop.
It it any wonder we wear designer clothes? We'd hate that cutie we're chatting up to think us frumpy.
It is any wonder we have to watch the latest TV drama? What else could there be to talk about?

As Tyler Durden said: "You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis"

So what are you? A loyal friend? A passionate lover? A fun parent? A caring heart?

If you make $100,000 a year, you are not worth 5 times what you were when you made $20,000.

Happy living.