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Donna, I thought you might be interested to know that UK landlines are replacing the analogue system with digital. Which of course means in major power outages there will be no phone line to fall back on. Of course this has been a problem with "cordless" phones for a while. 

I am out of debt for the first time since I was 18 (I am now almost 60) and have no intention of going back. I am living on my own a lot of the time (my youngest daughter is at University) and I eat more simply when she isn't here (and yes I know I should be stricter with her) I guess in time she will learn. 

I've been meaning to get back to more simple eating because the past month that has slipped away from me.

Other than that, I have ordered my seeds for the year, and gotten some peat pots for transplants. I bought them on sale, so they weren't too expensive. I also love peat pots since i don't have any issues with transplant shock when I use them. With a short growing season I really need to rely on starting seeds indoors.

Today is a bit of a rough day for me (physically) so I am going to focus on some crocheting. I am making a nice wool sweater I hope to have for many years.

With everything in the world I am trying to focus on simple things, like buying what is in season and local first, starting the garden, crafts, and volunteering. Simpler living, and staying positive. And dealing with the strange weather! There is ice on the ground, but it is above freezing. Then it is supposed to go back down again tomorrow!
Maybe this weather is what is triggering migraines...

I recently took some money out of my bank account in cash, and I am trying to use that as my spending money. Unfortunately I am running into places that don't accept cash, only debit. -_- Also I got a nice notebook for a ledger to keep track of finances. It's not very hard to do, but it keeps me on track.

GDonna the fence is sure coming along nicely. I'm sure you both will be grateful when it's completed. I'm sorry to hear about Elizabeth and her seizures. One of ours had quite a spell a while back for several months and our vet who is very good determined that it was from stress or a stressful event. We couldn't figure out what would trigger it, but we just keep things very quiet..well it's hard to do that sometimes as we all know. 

I have never heard of a potato onion before or a Monique shallot. I wrote down the names to see what they look like and where you can grow them. Debt is so awful and can be just a burden on the entire body. We still have some business debt, but it should be gone soon enough after all of these years. It's very difficult in our industry to come in cash and it just always has been. Luckily the loans are only on 5 year terms generally. It's a hard 5 years at times, but there's just no other way around it with the cost of our machinery. We have to remind ourselves that they pay for themselves and without them we don't have a business. I too have a hard time with things such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. Can't count how many inappropriate things I have seen before and I never see friends on there such as there posts and such. Our land line is our business line and we have our cell phones. It's always so important to buy locally and support them. Sometimes you could be that sale that they were praying for because the budget is so tight for them. We have found out in our community that many many small businesses should've closed ages ago, but there parents are funding them each month to keep them around. Some though just need to trim their budgets is what we have heard multiple times and others are just a constant struggle to keep the doors open. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that since the 2008 crash that nothing has truly recovered and we can't seem to get ahead. 

I'm trying my best to get a better handle on things, but just when I do something seems to break. We had a plumbing clog this past weekend in the wall and wound up buying a snake to fix it ourselves. The kitchen was down for quite a while which was hard as it clogged at 10pm. After trips to the hardware store and such we now have wonderful water pressure that wasn't there before and 2 drains that flow amazing now. No matter what we did for the last 8 years we couldn't figure out those 2 issues. I'm very thankful we saved on a plumbing  bill and I'm grateful for this blog to learn and grow from. :)

my garden has gotten smaller over time as it’s become overwhelming for me. However, I’ve have a ton of fruit growing. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, grapes, kiwis, apples, figs, quinces, rhubarb,etc. I like to garden design with edibles. I’ll be starting my veggie seeds this week. I always overplant, so let’s see if I can limit myself this year! Your garden is an inspiration. 

It just made my day to see a new blog post from you! Your posts always make me feel calmer.   Thankfully we are debt free completely.  I am concentrating on using what I already have:  cleaning products, clothing, food, etc.  I get a little depressed when I go to the grocery store because of the prices of things and I'm afraid it's going to get worse.  Your privacy fence is beautiful, you and Charles have done a great job on it.  Is Charles still planning to retire soon?  I pray that he can.  I've never heard of a potato onion!  God Bless you and Charles!  

Bobbi in Virginia

Edit:  I just Googled Potato Onion.  How interesting.  Another thing that I am doing is when I use an onion and get down close to the root end, I plant what is left of the root end into soil and sometimes it grows another very small onion.  

I’m happy to see the fence is coming along nicely for your safety. Prayers for sweet Elizabeth 

It's good to hear from you again!

I'm sorry about Elizabeth.  We had a 15-year old dog that started seizures and had them until she died at 16.  We gave her medication and it helped, but I think for her, it was just her body starting to shut down.

I'm buying things on sale in bulk more often these days and buy more from local farms than I used to.  I also am still gardening in spite of some pretty severe weather challenges in the last two years.  I will plant what I can and harvest what I can.  I am adding to my fruits as well, similar to Lisa T.  I have blackberries, boysenberries, blueberries, grapes, mulberry "bushes", elderberries, and one of each of the following:  Meyer lemon, Satsuma, nectarine, plum, Japanese persimmon, fig, pear, and loquat.  I pick self-fertile tree varieties so I don't need so many trees, plus I am training them to be dwarf trees.  I also have two olive trees, which need each other for pollination, but I am keeping them small as well.  

I was pleased to see a Carolina wren hopping in and about my greens, looking for worms and bugs.  Free pest control - I hope they keep it up. I keep bird feeders and water out for birds.  They pay me back by eating bugs, especially in nesting season.  I once saw a nesting cardinal pair grabbing a huge tomato hornworm off the vine.  They also provide free entertainment. They are so fun to watch.

As I replace things that wear out and break, I now look for the least "bells and whistles" models.  Our appliances last less and less time, and the more fancy features they have, the faster they seem to break down.  

I am also washing most small loads with my handy little manual washer and homemade detergent.  I have a portable manual wringer to wring the excess water.  Then I hang them on the line outside or the big, 22-year old Amish-made rack inside. 

I don't know if this was mentioned here before:  for those with English ivy; the leaves can be used to wash clothes, as they have saponin in them.  Following an internet recipe, I have boiled them briefly then steeped them overnight, strained the "tea" and used it in the laundry.  It won't stay good for all that long, so refrigerate it or make small batches.  The clothes came out clean, though. 

Well I have been ordering very few plants for my garden beds this year.  One reason is to cut down on the cost and another to keep me from enlarging flower beds.  I already have too many to easily manage the upkeep of them these days.   I only ordered 10 things but 5 of those are bare root so less expensive and ordered "early specials" so more for the money.  Lots of seeds ordered and already here, mostly annuals.  One that  I have never grown, is amaranthus. This variety is a dwarf most grow quite tall and so I've just skipped by them.  This one, Pygmy's Torch, though has a mounding habit and only grows about 16 inches tall.  The most beautiful color, a dark saturated burgundy, with spiky plumes held upright.  So a clump of those somewhere will add a real pop of color without totally overwhelming other nearby plants with all the height of the usual sized plant and will make an interesting addition to bouquets.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows here.

I do have some spring ephemerals up and blooming and some perennials beginning to poke up out of the ground despite the terribly cold weather that we had in January and February.  So I am hoping that spring comes on without much in the way of bad, cold weather and discourage the early risers.  Despite the cold weather a few warm days have allowed the opportunity to do some winter pruning of shrubs and some cutting back of the tops of perennials.  But cabin fever is running high here and I'm really looking forward to spring.  The days though are lengthening and houseplants are beginning to perk up and are looking more alert so that is very encouraging.

I was a stubborn holdout and continued to use a landline as my primary phone until about a year ago.  I only gave it up because as the lines in my neighborhood aged, the call quality became worse and outages more and more frequent, and the best the phone company would do was "sort of" repair it.  There were so few customers left in the area, they were no longer maintaining infrastructure.

I already had a cell phone to carry in my car for emergencies, but it didn't have data or free minutes so I literally only used it when my car broke down.  

I was also paying for a separate internet plan for my laptop at that time.

Being forced to give up my landline actually worked out great financially because I ended up combining three services into one and saving quite a bit of money.  I moved my cell phone from a $15 a month (as long as I didn't actually use it) plan to a $45 plan that includes talk, text, and data AND allows it to be used as a modem for my laptop, and canceled the internet and landline at the same time.  Turned out to be a net savings of around $50/month.

My only real regret (but it's a big one and something I'm really struggling with) is that once people found out I had a cell phone, they started texting instead of calling, which doesn't really do the same thing for me in terms of social interaction.  It used to be friends or family members might call for a specific thing, but then we would go on to have a whole conversation.  Texting is a very poor replacement for that, and has left me feeling more isolated this last year than I've ever felt in my life :(  

It's gotten to the point where I just see a text, feel sad about it, and don't even want to respond.

G’Donna, you mentioned canceling subscriptions, and that is something I did as well.  It is so easy for them to creep up.  For example I buy on Amazon, then I did a trial that turned into six months of Amazon prime.  I also had let other expenses creep up, first one hair color, then a nicer hair cut etc.  I did my 2025 budget two months ago and was horrified at what I was spending on things I could live without.  So over the past two months, bit by bit, I am chopping away.   I am doing it slowly because I know if I cut all the extras out at one time, I will feel deprived.   A lot like dieting, better to go slow.   But I cut expenses down by one third.

I love potato onions! We grow regular onions to use the regular way and I plant potato onions when I plant the garlic in the fall. In the spring I use the potato onions as my green onions so the regular onions can be left alone to mature. They finish in the summer and die back and we save the bulbs with the garlic until we start all over again in fall. They are very hardy and very prolific. We get so many bulbs that we eat those too, but they're hard to peel because they're small. 

I hope your fence is making you happy!

What a perfect blog post for everything I'm feeling right now. I know some people have said this is their safe space so I don't want to say too much about being worried, but I am. I take so much comfort in knowing Grandma Donna is here helping me think these things through and giving me very good ideas which really help! 

EDIT: I wanted to add that you can plant potato onions in the spring too. They're fast growers. Our winters are getting so cold that we lost some of our bulbs this past winter and I might start planting them in the spring instead the fall. I'm going out today to replace the dead ones with some of the extra bulbs we have. 

I had no idea about english ivy for that use. I always wanted to keep some in a pot since they are very much an invasive plant. I will know do that. I find it amazing how many things God gives us and for what purposes. 

I have learned a lot from you over the years Donna, although I think I was always an "old soul" who loved learning skills from the past.  I learned to quilt and sew clothes as a teenager and still use those skills.  I cook my own food from scratch and find it is the only food that agrees with my body systems so I just don't bother with anything else anymore.  Recently I even learned to make my own kimchi and I am also going to try to make some fermented sauerkraut this weekend.  Over a long time I also learned about healing herbs and how to make medicines, how to play fiddle and ukulele, gardening and starting my plants from seed, and really just so much more.  I still work a full-time job but enjoy spending my free time immersed in physical activities that ground me and support my nervous system rather than going out, shopping, watching shows, etc.  When I don't need to have internet for work I am going to cancel it and just use a hotspot on my phone when I need to. I think that my life will be even more peaceful, not to mention it is a real savings.  

Recently I started a commonplace book because I read something about them.  Now I have a little book started and I am filling it with poems or quotes from writers that inspire me.  I love adding things to it and having so much inspiration to have with me whenever I want it.  I am working towards repurposing my house so that what was the living room will be more of a work area where I can have projects laid out and instead of a TV it will have a wall of books and a couple of comfortable reading chairs with lamps and tables nearby for a cup of tea.  

I may have to live in the 2025 but it doesn't need to live in me.  

Thank you for the post, I always enjoy them so much. 

Grandma Donna Wrote, HI Everyone!  I have been reading along here in the forum every word you all have written.  I just love seeing you here and reading your ideas, things you are doing to reduce expenses, getting out of debt, digital phones and yes the potato onion.  As of when I am typing this one of you has or is growing potato onions too.  This year I am determined to get the bunching and "Multiplier" onions going.  I will keep popping in to read.  Hugs, Everyone!

GRANDMA DONNA WROTE,  Sara M, I think you may be the first one to mention Music instruments.  You said that you learned to play the fiddle and ukulele, that is wonderful :) 

Do any of you here in the forum play an instrument?  Sing or have special talents you would like to share?  I play the piano but not great at it, I play by ear.  Charles and I have Native American flutes and sometimes we sit out on our back porch and play to the wildlife.  They actually seem to like it.  

I miss the landline also.  I had actually put one in our house but the bill kept going up and up.  When it hit $80 a month I cancelled.  We had terrible service as it was a digital line so if we lost power we lost the phone which was one of the reasons I wanted it.  But because we didn’t have a ‘package’ the phone line was expensive.  We had cable until recently but cancelled that also.  That bill hit my break point.  We still have an TV so I bought an Roku device so I could watch the local news.  A $40 investment annd no monthly fee.   Our smart phones don’t have reception in our area unless they are connected to the Wi-Fi.  I hate being tied to a phone for any reason.  I would love to not have them either.  Remember when you could leave home and not have a telephone and if you needed to make a call there were pay phones everywhere.  Not anymore I can’t remember the last time I saw a pay phone.  

Oh Donna, what a timely post. I have been pondering what I need to do to stay afloat in the future. At the beginning of this month, I paid off my house so now I have much less debt and more security about having a home. I am thinking deeply about what my household and I are consuming - what is needed? What is wanted? And so on. 

I feel like I need to purge a lot of my belongings (the extra clutter) and just shed a lot of dead weight as we go further into the year. 

I'm sorry about your sweet Elizabeth. It's so hard seeing our 4-legged friends down for the count. 

I've been sewing small things that will be birthday gifts for friends and family throughout the year. Hand sewing, because that suits me, and using repurposed fabric. 

In the garden, my sweet potato is finally recovering. A scrub turkey had got in and ate the leaves, then dug up and ate the potatoes. I haven't seen him in weeks now, so I think someone less tolerant than me may have relocated him

I haven't any subscriptions to cancel but I do have both cell and landline. I have to keep the landline for the time being until I can get better internet thru cell service. Right now they are working on acquiring more towers so maybe soon I will be able to cancel soon. The landline gives very poor service, I have had techs out to fix lines 2 times in the last month,12 days of no service.

I am increasing the size of my veggie garden this year. I just feel the need.

I do have a question though, what do you and others do about trash and recyclables? We pay for trash pick up and 3 families use the container. But recyclables cost another fee for another tote.

We do have a recyclable depot about 3 miles away so use it, my question though is how to store them until taking them to the depot. Right now I am using a damaged tote in the garage but I just can't believe how many I have and I don't buy processed foods or ready made foods.  It seems everything is over-packaged and there is so much plastic on everything. I even have to buy veggies on a plastic tray with plastic film around all of it. I re-use most glass bottles and try to limit the amount of plastic packaging but it is everywhere. I save the net bags from potatoes and onions for reuse. Now the oranges available are in plastic bags. It is just unbelievable, and that plastic is going into our food supply.

JC

Hello Donna, although I do not comment much, I try to read as often as I can.  Our lives have changed over the last 6 yrs of moving back to AR. God is very good and faithful. We do not garden as we did; praying as to what and how much and following what the Holy Spirit tells us. Charles' mini stroke in 2022 brought great challenges in our lives of much change. He has improved greatly, yet there are still issues I keep check on daily. We have 4 of our special needs children still, one went to Jesus last July.  

Change of various degrees has brought me to be more prayerful, constant communication with God the Father, Jesus and intently listening what the Holy Spirit directs me. As one man said once and I have hung to this, "it is all the school of God that you never graduate until you go to heaven."  So true, as it is daily. 

I still have a great dislike of much technology, but with situations as we have, I am thankful that I can do some online shopping for things I need. I do not like to be long away from home when I go on errands. One issue is a very bad left knee will not allow over 2 hours of walking, getting in and out of the vehicle on these errands, and I do a lot of sewing, in which this is an area I order on line.   

I appreciate your sharing as you do, I agree with you in your views.  

As our life has changed, we are in our mid 70's we are seeing many of our friends pass, which is daunting. Our grown children are not in AR and our living friends are in much worse health than we, this too is very daunting and can be depressing. But, I keep to the word of God, I have several flower beds and a rose garden I am creating. I learned of phenology recently and have begun a phenology wheel calendar that I have to draw, paint or pencil color something I have observed out in the yard and abouts. This has been so good for my mental well being. I had never heard of it but saw a lady on youtube sharing about it. God is using the solitude greatly, for me, although Charles has always been a loner of sorts, though a pleasant man "), he is fine with solitude,  I have always had people of friends that I have no longer but it has been good for me for what I am learning.

Well, my goodness, I have gone on too long, I apologize. It was good to visit and again thank you for all you share with us.  Glad you and Charles are well; hope your Elizabeth improves.  Take care.

In Joy

Vivian

I loved the article, and I wish I had time to read all these lovely comments; I am so grateful to have people who are soothing, common-sensical, and care about God's word. You guys take a tired mama's life and make it a little more sweet, thank you!

Hi Grandma Donna and everyone; G Donna, I agree with everyone that you and Charles are making a beautiful job of the fence!

Recent stand-outs for saving money in our household have been:

Making yoghurt (using a small amount of good quality shop-bought yoghurt as a "starter".

Making our own washing liquid for the laundry. It also works as a stain-remover and can be used for cleaning when mixed with bi-carb soda.

Buying pets' medication online.  Even with the cost of postage, I saved around 30% on the shelf price last time.

Learning how to use herbs and spices to "jazz up" lentils and other legumes as a substitute or supplement for meat - and reducing the amount of meat we eat.

Thank you for this low-key, supportive community.

Kellie 

Thanks, Donna for another great post!

I noticed people commenting about giving up their landline phones. I have the Straight Talk Home Phone. You buy the device once for about $60, then it costs $15 monthly. It has nothing to do with any phone company or cellphones. You can buy the device at Walmart. You can plug any regular phone into it, and you can even talk on a rotary phone with it. I refuse to become part of the cellphone generation, so I use this landline phone option. You don't need the internet for it either.

I shop at a salvage grocery store to save money. Today I was able to get 5 pounds of peeled garlic for $5.49. I will be dehydrating some of it and putting some of it in the bean soup that I can. I do a lot of canning so I always have plenty of food on hand. With the price of eggs the way they are I eat fewer eggs. I have a friend who farms and gives me eggs sometimes so I have them then. However, I'm not going to pay $5 a dozen for eggs. I do have pickled eggs I canned in jars though. I eat whatever is cheap to save money. For example, right now I can get organic milk for $1.00 a gallon so I have been having milk-based soups instead of the usual soup. I also canned some of the milk according to the directions in the 1943 Kerr canning book. I can also get ham ends and pieces for .99 a pound and I seem to find good deals on dry beans so I can a lot of ham, bean, and vegetable soup. I am also trying to be more aware of not wasting food. A few days ago I cleaned out my refrigerator and used all of the bits and pieces to make soup. I had a lot of vegetable bits that were getting soft so I threw it all in my soup and it was very tasty. Some of the items were things I would have thrown out in the past. After I ate my fill I had three quarts of soup left. I have been cooking on my wood stove to save electricity. The rising cost of living is worrying but I try to remind myself that this is what I have been preparing for. I could eat for a very long time without setting foot in a grocery store. However, I keep going to the store to see if there is anything new that I can preserve. At salvage grocery stores you never know what you will find. You may find a lot of one thing but you might not see it ever again. Like, I don't remember ever having seen five pounds of peeled garlic so while it is here I should preserve as much of it as I can. Or right now I can get a good brand of yogurt at 4 for $1. When it is gone then I will eat whatever other yogurt is cheap. I rarely shop at regular grocery stores as I can't afford it. I do check Dollar General because they often have half-price bagged salads or meat. I encourage everyone to Google "Salvage Grocery store" or "Discount Grocery store." Even if you have to drive a ways to get to one it will probably be worth it as the prices are usually at least half off the regular store price. Our store also has markdown bins where stuff is even cheaper. I routinely pay .25 for a bottle of salad dressing. Today I got a box of Cheerios for $1 and a half pound of beef jerky for $2.19. You never know what you will find so it pays to check the store often.

I hang my clothes on the line and I also have solar lights hanging all over my house to save electricity. I store my dirty dishes in a large canning pan and I wash them by hand when the pan fills up. I heat my dishwashing water on the wood stove to save on heating water. 

I also try to live by the motto: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." I buy most of my clothes, shoes, and household items at thrift stores and I try to be creative in re-purposing things. The window in my dining room is very old and only has a single pane of glass. It was letting a lot of cold air in. I found a window at a yard sale for $1 so I bought it. It isn't the exact size of the dining room window. It isn't as wide or as tall. However, I set the window in there and I put foam around the sides. On the top, it perfectly fits my solar lights that need to be charged. Other people would think that it doesn't look that great but it keeps out a lot of the cold and that is what counts to me.

I am completely debt-free including my house and vehicle and I don't plan to ever go back into debt again. To me, it simply isn't an option.

I enjoy hearing what others are doing to save money.

Becky Sue

Hello Donna, I enjoyed reading this post.  I think we have to be very wise about our spending these days.  I appreciate that your blog seems to address issues of frugality and  being self sufficient.  I have a lot to learn but your blog always seems to inspire homemaking ideas that are useful.  

     Thank you kindly. 

Like others I no longer have a Landline due to infrastructure changes causing poor quality. What has been really great for keeping in touch with people I care about (and when you need more than a text) is using WhatsApp on my cell phone to make a call to them. It's free. It's international and you can either choose audio call or video call. When I have a video call with my son (who is working in another country) it's as if he is in the next room! He shows me around his apartment whilst we are chatting, pointing out what he's been doing, showing house plants etc. I enjoy these calls and know that neither one of us is paying for them at a time when we're trying to be careful with spending. 

Oh yes, public pay phones.  Yeah, dinosaurs.  I also hate feeling tied to a phone ( always reachable by someone else) and so I almost always have mine turned off or am not carrying it with me at all.  The thing is that so many people seem to think "Oh well, no problem, we don''t need those pubic pay phones, because everyone has an iPhone!"  Well, no that simply is not true------lots of people either can't afford an iPhone or, like you, would prefer to live their lives without one!  But when you think about it you need cash to use a public pay phone.  Have you noticed how many people just don't carry around "real" money anymore?  The number is growing and more and more businesses are no longer accepting  cash.  It's legal tender,  it says so right there on the dollar bill "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private".  More and more, little by little, we are all being fitted to this mode of life with not so much recourse except in our own tiny private sphere.

Dear Donna, I am sorry to hear about Elizabeth and the seizures. Really hard to see when it happens and not able to help. Our tomcat Lenny had seizures around every 3 months, and no idea why. I made some researches and then switched to cat food without grain because it seems that gluten can cause seizures. He still has seizures but the time between is getting longer to around 9 months now. But I assume it`s also because he is elder.

I love to read your post and see the pictures. Happy to see that you and Charles are doing well

This was timely! It reminded me of a subscription I needed to cancel before this month's renewal. Thank you!

I am so shocked to hear about landline infrastructure not being reliable any longer. Like so many others have stated this cell phone is becoming a burden to me and seems to pull me in to too much scrolling. Even when I don’t want to. I am considering getting a flip phone, although I use this phone also as my “computer”, which I no longer have at home outside of my work laptop. Unfortunately it seems every doctors’ office and business require us to do everything online or through apps on a phone…I wish at times we could go back in time. Although I don’t know if that is healthy thinking. I will be getting back to gardening this year, at a new home, and currently planning what to plant and where.

Hello Donna from Australia,

Just to let you know I have been reading along for sometime and love the commonsense way you approach life by being frugal and cutting expenses where you can :) .

We live in the country on acreage and often get flooded in where all the roads in and out of town go under water in heavy rain. It takes us an hour of driving each way to reach a supermarket here so it is necessary to build up a small stockpile of food and other items we need should we not get to town. We have bought all of this food on specials and have a few extras so mostly we never have to purchase food at full price and when we have used a few of something we replace them when we see them on half price sales and or markdowns. 3/4's of the meat in our freezer is markdown meat bought at 50% or more off retail price.  We find this saves us a lot of money on groceries and other items we need. 

As for our trips to town we do those when my husband has medical appointments which we get all our fuel and a meal allowance each time we go paid for by DVA as he is an army vet so we do our grocery and other shopping on the same days so it cost us nothing to do our errands and we can have a nice lunch out together considering going to a medical appointment can often take a full day with travel and other errands we need to run.

We have a basic prepaid mobile phone that costs us $70 a year with no apps/internet, home internet and laptops that we use here at home to access the internet. The internet and home phone costs us $89 a month and we make all our phone calls on our landline phone which costs us nothing. Here in Australia in the country we do still have public telephones that are free to use all across Australia for those who don't have other forms of communication which is good.

We are upgrading our garden beds to be 90cm high at the moment as both DH and I have back injuries so it will be much easier to work without bending. We also have previously blanched and frozen all our produce in meal sized portions for meal ingredients.

Hope this gives some some helpful hints on saving more.

Lorna.

Oh my...so many good comments.  Like others, I have been whittling away at subscriptions. I have a love/hate relationship with Amazon - many items are less expensive (and available) yet when I have the subscription, I find I spend more. I canceled this over a week ago again and plan to add items to my cart. This gives me time to really think if I need it, time to perhaps find it at the local store and time to acquire goods to meet the free shipping minimum. I truly don't want a life where everything is purchased online.

I am mourning the closing of a favorite craft store and recently purchased extra supplies to have on hand once they close. This was an added expense this month but gives me a stockpile with which to work. I make many gifts and like to knit our socks, hats, gloves, blankets, etc.

I  try to make most of the food we eat and tend to buy ingredients rather than premade items. This truly saves money.  I just made another batch of soap from infused calendula oil (Rhonda's recipe from Down to Earth). We now have enough for probably the year. Soap is silly in its priciness - it's just soap! 

The cell phone is another love/hate item. I see its usefulness yet despise the tether it keeps me on. I tend to leave it in the car when I grocery shop and leave it on the counter at home. The information on how it's designed to keep us coming back (a hijacking of our brain of sorts) is sickening. The landline brings back such wonderful memories - the avocado green phone on the wall with the stretched out cord (from talking all over the house). Those were the days!

Thank you for this wonderful community. I read everything but don't often comment. I appreciate all of you!

Any time I see a treadle sewing machine, I remember Mom’s machine on which I learned sewing.  Unfortunately, she traded it in the 70s for an electric cabinet model.  When she passed 12 years ago, I knew I wanted that machine but didn’t learn until after we moved it that it was missing the presser foot.

So sorry about your Elizabeth.  Fur babies are so important to our lives.

I would love to do some gardening, but my really bad hips have made it impossible for me to get outside or down our steps.  On the positive side, I’m scheduled for hip replacement in June.  Having been through it before, I know it’s not an easy process (pain, therapy), but I also know the outcome will be worth it.  

I try to be thrifty and choose healthy foods, but my dear husband to addicted to “new, new, new.”  He is easily swayed by advertising and brand names, although he is sometimes is ok with generic.

Greetings Donna and Community. :-)

I am writing this from Australia where I am visiting our son for 10 days from New Zealand where I live.

In about 10 weeks we will be totally debt free and the scissors are at hand to chop up our credit card. With a Debit Card there is no need for a Credit Card I feel.

Gardening has changed with a health diagnosis for me but I'm very blessed my dear husband is still able to keep things ticking over and I can still grow the plants for the gardens.

My cellphone is for not only phoning, texting but also as the only Internet device I use. In saying that at times I've wanted to throw it at a wall when it pings!! When I return to NZ I'm figuring out a plan for me that it will only be a communication certain days of the week . I've cut right back on online shopping.

There is an online company starting with "T" that a lot of people we know are almost addicted to due to the cheap prices and they can't see that buying from them causes people in our own country to lose their jobs.

The fence is looking fabulous Donna. Such an encouragement for others wanting to do things themselves and you're taking beautiful care of your Elizabeth.

Before I sign off I'm making gifts for a few people I know to put away for Christmas time and they are spice mixes for meat, chicken and vegetables. They're not expensive to make either of you shop at a bulk food supplier.

Karen NZ

It's lovely to read a new post from you, Grandma Donna and to read all of the comments. We are waiting out the tail end of a tropical cyclone here and it is still very wet with grey skies. 

I am sorry to hear that your dog, Elizabeth hasn't been well. I hope her seizures settle. Dogs hold such a special place in our hearts. I have a young border collie called Scout and I absolutely adore him.

In regards to phones, aside from my parents in law I do not know a single soul with a home phone. I miss having a landline. My elderly mother is starting to have cognitive issues and often doesn't remember to charge her mobile phone. She lives two hours away and I do not have any other way to contact her to check she is okay. We would not have that issue with a landline.

I try and grow something exciting each time I purchase more seeds as well. At the moment my novelties are solar yellow carrots and atomic red carrots which I am growing in my tomato pots to get a second usage from the potting mix. They are growing really well. It is fun to grow new varieties besides the regulars. :)

I use an envelope system, have no debt, buy in bulk and do all of the things many others are doing. I make my own yoghurt using UHT milk and yoghurt culture, make sourdough bread and use the discard for pikelets, and make soft cheeses such as quark and feta. I really like dried fruit to have with porridge in winter and unsulfured dried fruit is very expensive here so what I do is I buy marked apples from the apple grower and dehydrate them and make plum jam and apricot jam in summer to have instead. I make my porridge, place a big spoonful of yoghurt on top and then add a teaspoon of jam. Let me tell you, a spoonful of apricot jam on porridge on a cold winters morning is like a taste of pure sunshine. I just love it.

Sara M. I love the sound of the commonplace book. I used to enjoy keeping books like that and writing long letters to friends when I was younger. 

Kind Regards,

Michelle in Australia.