[NEPA-Suburban-prepper]

Shop around. Try store / generic brands. Learn how fix things around the house, change the oil on the car, rotate the tires. Stay at home and cook rather than going out or having Door Dash deliver. Check the temp on your water heater. Can you turn it down? Shop around for your TV provider. I found YouTube TV to be $30 cheaper per month over satellite and better quality. Learn to grow and preserve foods.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by  NEPA-Suburban-prepper.

[MartHale7]

I use propane to heat my water, and heat my room, because we have so few cold days here in Florida I use 4 20 lb tanks a year to heat my water. I am sold on instant hot water heaters, as I have long long hot showers yet use very little fuel.

[MartHale7]

I am also building a solar hot water heater with pex. I am planning on setting up a shower outside next to the solar hot water heater so I can take a shower there. I have a tent for this and I have tested it and it works. ( I used a rocket stove to heat the water for that ) Finding cheaper ways to have hot water is important.

[Yankeeredneck]

Pretty much the same as you with having bought essentials a while ago. Buying now what ever we can thats on sale in qty. We have a local IGA that runs sales and has family bundles on meat that we take advantage of to stock the freezer. 10 five gallon cans of gas (non ethanol) and four diesel cans along with my sixty gallon truck tank. All fuel I top off and rotate as I use it so not to be hit with massive cost. There’s a gas app my daughter in law turned me onto that I have to check out. I hate to admit this but I’m buying stuff on Temu because it’s the same stuff as in the stores or on Amazon at about a third of the price. Repairing things as well as all maintenance on my equipment myself. Ordered the parts a while ago. Utilizing solar generator on appliances that draw a lot of energy. Every time I get 15 to 20 squirrels ravaging my chickens scratch I hunt clean and freeze for stew. Hunt deer and pick up road kill…just kidding on the road kill 😂

[MartHale7]

Now roadkill is great to feed black soldier fly larva, then they can feed your chickens 🙂 I don’t harvest road kill myself. Yeah I have been listening to preparedness channels for years and have put way stuff. I have been targeting growing food because it is my greatest expense of my budget, but then again I eat organic, so I pay the price for that. Finding cheaper places to buy from sounds good as well…

[Yankeeredneck]

👍 on the roadkill

[SLINGSHOT]

Nothing wrong with roadkill just as long as you cook it at 500 Deg for 5 hours lol. I do a lot of the same stuff. Now is a good time to stock up on some gasoline while the price is down a little. I try to keep about 10 gallons around. Gas doesn’t seem to keep as good as it used to, must be some chemicals in it.

[Yankeeredneck]

500 degrees for 5 hours 😂🤣

[Orangeball]

I have gotten back into penny shopping. (I slacked off for a while since there wasn’t much on the list that I wanted or needed) This week I was able to pick up barrels of cheese balls and pretzels as well as a bunch of Valentine’s candy. Spent less than a dollar for a huge pile of things. I bought my seeds last fall for a penny per pack and have my tomato starts well on their way to going into the garden in a month or so. I get 50 lb bags of potatoes and leave at least 5lbs in the bag to produce my seed potatoes. Those will be going into the ground this week. I just got back from the local butcher because they had on their website that chicken breast was $1.99 per pound… thought I was going to pick up 15 or 20 lbs but they said they hadn’t updated their website and it was $2.99 per lb…only got 10 lbs but it will go into jars this afternoon or tomorrow. Also stopped by Aldi’s and picked up a spiral sliced ham for Easter at 1.49 per lb. Leftovers will go into soups and be canned.

[Orangeball]

We also have a couple of boats and a couple of “spare parts cars” that we have been filling with gas and adding stabile to for use in the generator. Wish I had solar something but I’m afraid it’s a bit out of my league on social security income. I have plans to get a few chickens this year but I’ve got to make sure I have a predator proof pen for them (lost 2 flocks to coyote and racoons a few years back). I have a 10 x 10 dog lot I’m going to turn into a chicken pen with a pontoon boat top to use as a shade roof. Haven’t figured out all the details yet, but I think about it constantly. Will start cleaning out the garden this week and hopefully get it tilled up a bit…can’t even imagine having to buy “fresh” produce at the grocery store.

[Yankeeredneck]

I used an old dog pen to but like you said the boat top is a good idea. Just don’t leave any openings on top. I lost all my chickens from them getting in an opening.

[Redcap]

We do everything we can to simply not need much money for our life. Because I am old and remarried and he isn’t content to live on a couple of acres in an old schoolbus, we have expenses. We live on about $1000 a month – when I’m not spending extra on supplies to put aside for future or things like storage jars.

The only things that have really made us cringe are:

car and home insurance (they just keep going up by hundreds a year)

natural gas (we now heat our home with wood from downed trees in the neighborhood)

water bill (we’re on the lowest usage tier but the city added $20 for sewer and now we pay more than we ever have)

The main thing is that we don’t buy anything, really. And we enroll in all programs to help seniors: property tax refund cuts my bill in half, internet is half, VoIP phone is reliant on electricity and internet but it’s less than $20 a month. We have no TV, no cell phones.

And still, the bills are 3/4 of what we spend.

Plus we decided in 2020 to start living more like pioneers or hunter-gatherers or mountain people. We forage, make our own medicines, eat almost no packaged foods (I never did really anyway), eat very little grain, have laying hens, barter for venison. My husband does all the fixing and building and I do all the sewing and food preservation (including poultry butchering) and fixing things that don’t require heavy lifting.

I can’t say I do a lot of things to beat inflation other than switching to wood heat because I’ve always lived so simply: hang my laundry, do one load a week, eat simply, no magazines, use the library, darn socks, mend clothes, tarps, etc.

We do barter and use a couple of local buy and sell groups and that’s been great.

[MartHale7]

Nice. yeah I have been building different rocket stoves to help cook. Wood warms you a few times cutting the tree, busting the logs, bringing in to the fire…..

I am hearing from multiple people their insurance is going up.

[Romans828girl]

Someone in another group — I think it’s called The Homestead — asked for advice on darning socks recently. She hasn’t really gotten any good answers yet. The discussion is called Gosh Darn It. You might be able to help her out.

[Redcap]

I will do that. 🙂