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Hello, I haven't commented in a while since I have been very busy with our business, but I have read and reread each post due to taking lots of notes to improve certain things. I did hear about the hurricane coming and I'm half nervous and half not. I'm thankful Charles hip has been doing better and thats a wonderful idea regarding those old fashioned underwear for men.we had prayed things would go well. I can remember my grandparents wearing those types and especially the overalls. 

I was looking at a collage of photos in our living room last night and some of the relatives on their I've met and were my best friends and others I didn't meet because of how far back in time they were living. I couldn't help but wonder what they were like, the cost of things in there area, their homes, etc. I know one relative documented and its been a tradition since the early 1800s in my family, but I didnt know who started it, is to have excellent table manners and dress the table nicely for each meal. I learned finally who that was from after all these years. Now I know why I am the way I am. Its a family tradition. You can see there log cabin if you Google kemper log house in Sharon woods, cinncinnati, Ohio belonging to the kemper family. The mom is who had the table manners and I got a chance to tour the house one time.

 We have been doing things around our home to try and do even better with stocking up, organizing where something might be out of place or just need to be in a better spot. There's skills that we are constantly and I mean constantly having to read or watch a video on how to do something because it wasn't passed on to us especially in things such as building, roofing, repairs. Many people have told us I could never fill in the blank, but you really can once you educate yourself and just jump in and do it. The importance of knowing just the basic things is worth it. 

We learned yesterday that our neighbors who have an extremely fancy house, has fancy features such as a wifi heated towel rack for when they get out of the shower to all sorts of electronic gizmos and gadgets. Its nice, but those things are always breaking it seems like. I wouldnt want to have their electric bill or heating costs. Im grateful for der vehicles we can keep running and a much simpler life. 

We purchase majority of our items from local very small farms including our raw milk, eggs, meat and majority of our produce that we can't grow.  Things like grains, beans, etc I order from azure standard whose prices are excellent and quality. I love using ghee and its so simple to make. I recently did a big batch of bread baking. Some were sourdough. If anyone needs a recipe it was from gubba homestead on YouTube. The other is honey wheat bread from taylormadefarms.blogspot.com

Thank you grandma Donna for another wonderful post. :)

Oh that pie and bread look good.  I live in Maine and I'm almost always prepared as well but in my case, for wind or snow storms, rarely a hurricane.  To me, there is nothing better than a fire in the woodstove, soup on the stove, and a clean house when there is bad weather outside.  

Stay safe.  Although I know you are prepared, I hope you keep power. Enjoy the pie!

Lisa

Another good post! 

I live in the Big Bend of Florida and we are predicted to get the east side (dirty side) of it.  Everyone in my county is cringing, since we were the site of almost identical landfalls for Idalia, Debbie and Helene in a 13 month period.  I am very conscious of the need for making preparation for outages.  To that end, I keep individual sized packets of tuna and chicken, crackers, dried fruit, peanut butter, dried vegetables and water on hand.  As I've said here before, I put a hand pump on my well and I have a kerosene cooker.  Also as I said, I plan to start canning water, but it has been too hot and my kitchen is in disarray, getting ready for the new cabinets, so that will have to be later.  I feed my dogs a mix of dry and wet food, but during outages, they are fine eating dry only.

Over the years I have gone on a number of local farm tours of small farms and buy regularly from three of the farms.  I get eggs from a family friend who raises chickens and I raise some of my own produce, but I have to purchase most of it, even in good years, because I just can't manage that much of a garden on my own.  I also order from Azure Standard.

I read recently about some Samsung "smart" refrigerators that got a software upgrade and the refrigerators in people's homes stopped working!  It was a glitch in the program, but it reinforced my belief that I do not want smart appliances.  I don't want to download apps to run things in my home.  I don't want my data collected, and I don't want to be exposed to outages caused by computer glitches. 

I recently bought a little table lamp that is solar/rechargeable for outages, and so far I'm pleased with it.  It's bright enough to read by.  

I had relatives who grew up with no electricity or running water, but by the time I came along, they had it.  I do remember the clotheslines, and electric wringer washers, small refrigerators with little freezer compartments, washing dishes by hand, and no microwaves, toaster ovens, air fryers or electric pressure cookers.  The coffee perked on the stovetop and the way to get crushed ice was to use a manual crusher that fastened to the wall.  Little stores, some with little meat counters with custom butchering, were on many streets in residential areas for the families with no car or because their one car was being used during the day by the breadwinner.  

I feel better knowing I have what I need to get by, and that I have or am developing the skills to manage with less.  This site helps me with that, and I appreciate it.

I'm happy to hear you found the issue with Charles' infection.  Clothing can do a number on incisions for sure. I'm glad he's so willing to wear what works!  

I was also thinking about that hurricane and how it'll affect you.  Nice to not be the crazy ones shopping for basics. I never quite understood that other than expense for those who have difficulties.

Okay, so I looked up farms here and LOL.  Oh I miss Wisconsin.  I always went to farmer's markets that were everywhere - even when I visited my mom. So many corner stands.  I don't need lavender and I don't want to purchase chickens or guinea pigs and I don't care for Mesquite honey. So that's just about it, although some fresh lavender in my house would be nice, but I did stop there two years ago and the price... well.... One is at least an hour's drive. There's an apple/peach/pumpkin orchard which I've been to when my daughter was young, but that's a two hour drive one way. Slim pickins here.  There are two farmers markets one about 30 minutes and another an hour. I have been to the close one in the summer (so hot) but it's insanely expensive. I used to buy strawberries - a quarter flat and it was $30 about 10 years ago as my daughter and I hate tons of them. They didn't have a lot though - onions, $4 cucumber...  I hadn't really gone since because the prices were so crazy due to sellers traveling from California - not local.  Local items would be cactus jelly which I don't like, mesquite honey which isn't worth an hour's drive, so eh... I have not been to the farmer's market an hour away so I don't know what that entails, but with gas, I can't justify that expense at a 2 hour round trip for what is most likely the same outcome.  Tucson just isn't good for much of anything. lol. Why do I live here?  Oh yes... when it's snowing, I am in heaven here.

We don't really have storms here much. We did have a few fire scares at our home 2 years ago and that was a first; a neighboring town got hit with a pretty bad fire the same year, but overall the mountains or up north country to be problematic with dry lightening.  Flooding happens more in town, but we do have a wash (dry riverbed) upon entry to our place that can flow a little to a 30+foot spread. It's pretty rare out here for the biggie, but certainly not out of the ordinary, so we're pretty good about weather issues.  Drought is big, then fire.  

Joan S: quote: I read recently about some Samsung "smart" refrigerators that got a software upgrade and the refrigerators in people's homes stopped working!  It was a glitch in the program, but it reinforced my belief that I do not want smart appliances.  I don't want to download apps to run things in my home.  I don't want my data collected, and I don't want to be exposed to outages caused by computer glitches. I can't fathom buying a wifi fridge and having to update it. I can't even wrap my brain around such nonsense.  What has happened to our society?  The tv is bad enough, which is a big loser too.  I don't want my data collected or download yet another stupid app. 

And this: makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.   I do remember the clotheslines, and electric wringer washers, small refrigerators with little freezer compartments, washing dishes by hand, and no microwaves, toaster ovens, air fryers or electric pressure cookers.  The coffee perked on the stovetop and the way to get crushed ice was to use a manual crusher that fastened to the wall.  Little stores, some with little meat counters with custom butchering, were on many streets in residential areas for the families with no car or because their one car was being used during the day by the breadwinner.   

Okay, so I did watch a movie with Tom Cruise that I can't remember the name of. They were all wondering who this guy is, because he had no credit card or online presence and they made fun of it as if it's such so weird to be that way. Well, THAT is what I aspire to be.  Off everyone's radar!  The older I get, that is my goal.  And if stores actually had stock or a selection, I'd use cash.  I went to Kohls two days ago and people had rummaged through it so bad the floors had product all over it, I had to walk around the entire isle to get to the area I needed. (still looking for socks. lol)  Some areas were so rummaged through... no one keeps up with making you want to be in a store. I walked out. I dislike Kohls anyway. I'm surprised they're still open. lol

Oh, Andrea B... that bread... looks wonderful! 

Maybe you already do so, but if not, freeze half gallons or gallons of water before a storm which will help the freezer stay cold.  Or you can pull the ice from the freezer and use it to keep the refrigerator cool.  It could also be used in a picnic cooler for eggs etc. from the fridge.  

I washed diapers by hand in 1961 when my son was born.  A couple years later my dh brought a used Maytag wringer washer home from an auction and to this day I consider that the best gift ever.  I wouldn't mind using a wringer washer except the wringer can be death on zippers and buttons.  I last used a wringer washer in 1972 when my auto washer stopped working and no money to fix it.  My dad arrived with my grandmother's wringer washer since she'd moved into an apartment.  I was washing for a family of 5 including diapers for youngest and packing house uniforms for dh.  Also, I was standing in basement that had water running through, carrying clothes up the steps to the clothesline or using lines in the basement.  The washer was the least of my problems!!

Still, I'm glad I lived through those times as it gave me great appreciation for what I gained through the years.  At one time we had two foster babies (actually 4 only 2 at a time) and had them in cloth diapers.  My friends were appalled that I didn't use disposables.  First cost and second having a washer and dryer I didn't consider cloth diapers a problem.  Having washed them by hand gave me perspective!

I am so glad that Charles is better. The button down the front underwear was a very wise choice. I haven't seen that style in ages.

We buy our beef from a rancher. There are some small producers here but the prices are incredibly steep. I understand the production costs, however.

I looked up local farm markets earlier this year, we have 2 and the prices are eye-wateringly high....I just can't, we have 11 in the family and although we grow most veggies and DD1 can get farm raised/butchered beef the rest has to come from local stores and the local fruit/veg market.

I will and do buy many things from markdown racks and can or freeze. We all can veggies and pickles. We do eat pretty simply because we like it that way and I do bake most bread and cakes or pies or cookies.

We just returned from a 6 day trip down your way, chasing family history and researching ancestors in the civil war. It was sobering and so very interesting, I am a firm believer that one should try to know their history and where their family is from and how they came up.

I think I finally have my home situated for the best use. I can always change it again if needed.

I just want calm and quiet, I don't mean without people and children's voices I mean without everyone having their phones in their face and outside troubles interrupting our peace. I want to be informed and prepared but not scared or panicked. 

I so agree with you, JOYCE C, we do have farmer's markets close to us, plenty of roadside stalls and no problem to get to them but sometimes the prices, particularly for a side or portion of beef or lamb is out of the question for most of us.  Although we have grown our own vegetables in the past, now water is so expensive and we're older so bucketing water from our small tank isn't worth the effort - add to that, a lot of the seeds you buy are now 'doctored' so don't give a decent crop.  I know you can save your own but we no longer have the means or the ability to do this at our age.

I buy what I can from the local farmers who often have a small stand on the side of the road, and this I know is freshly grown and much cheaper than the supermarkets.  However it's not always possible to do so.  When we lived up north, we had a great butcher who slaughtered his own beef and my neighbour and I would buy a beast between us for a mere hundred dollars and then have such a variety for months on end.  Sadly now that cost has risen to thousands and I no longer live up north, and my butcher is no more.

I hate this age where people simply cannot walk along without having a mobile phone glued to their ear or face - and I don't allow my so called 'smart television' to have access to the internet  - as we don't stream anything at all and only watch free to air television we turned that function off.  Again I do NOT want a fridge that does everything for me and records it all.  No way will I do that.

I love this post so much! I am in Tampa, but we won't get anything from the hurricane. Maybe some rain, but we need it.
I have checked out some small farms in our area, but they are so expensive. I try to buy from them still though. I can't, for the life of me, get the sourdough thing down pat. So I buy it from a wonderful baker in town. The farmers around here are mostly starting on the strawberry feilds though.So most small farms, with this pas weather (heat, drought, etc.) don't have surplus. I am hoping to move next year though and hopefully there WILL be little country store that I can buy from. I would love my own chickens again, but I am not sure about them yet.

Barbara D, your post regarding the baker reminded me of when I was 20. I lived in this small town and before work, I'd stop at the local bakery for a fresh donut every so often.  20cents.  Fresh.  Ah, those were the days. It was cheap by comparison then.  

Phones in the faces is so noticable when you take a haitus from your own phone like we did last October.  It was astounding and actually a pretty sad site.  I usually grab a magazine at an office while waiting, but sadly they don't have many of those anymore either.

Northwestern Wisconsin - tons of farmer's markets, but they can be fairly spendy.  I get eggs from a co-worker for $3.50 per dozen (which is fairly inexpensive here) and raw jersey cow milk from a farm 30 minutes from me for $6.25 per half gallon.  

Getting ready for winter here - no hurricane prep necessary!  Need to drain garden hoses and clean out rest of our very small garden and containers.  We are able to garden for fresh eating, but not enough to preserve much.  Did get a decent crop of tomatoes this year.  Put into the freezer to process over the winter when I'm stuck at home due to snowstorms!  We rarely lose power during storms where I live (buried powerlines) but there is always the chance.  Gas stovetop works when no electricity, so at least I can cook and keep the house warm that way.       

Ran out of venison this summer, so hoping to get 3-4 deer back into our freezer before too long!  Been eating beef from our local shop, but it's so expensive compared to venison - even when we have it processed by a local processor.  Hoping to can some this year instead of freeze it all.  Stew, chili, etc... all heat up easy on the stovetop.

Oh! All these beautiful loaves of bread ~ I'm gaining waddling power as I read - yum!

We do have two or three local "farms" but the prices are often quite high.  Example: local corn in the store is 33 cents each & at the farm is $2 each.  It takes 2 ears per pint canning jar.  Local honey is about $20-22 per quart and is $18 for half pint (1 cup) at farm store.  I try to find individuals who have excess and buy directly from them or from Azure Standard which is almost local to me.  I do very much try to buy local, but I have to balance it with what is reasonable for the budget - think we all do that to some extent.

Question: why do butternuts in the pantry always look so welcome :-)  I have a basket right now sitting with butternut, delicata, and another yellow squash.  It just looks "right."  We are not big fans of pumpkin or I would be all over those also.

Keep safe during the storm - I know you will and are prepared, but I'm telling you anyways just in case you were thinking of being to wild and adventurist (haha).

Blessings all around ~

I forgot to mention that if anyone has trouble making ghee on the stovetop to try it in the oven. That's been the only way I have had success so far. I just bake 4 sticks at 250 for 90 minutes and then gently scoop off the top film and then put the oil/butter into a jar without scraping the bottom pieces. Every time I tried it any other way I can't get it to work. I'm glad it works for you Grandma Donna because I've struggled until I found that method. 

I don't know of any local farmers that raise anything other than corn or soybeans.  Most farm wives work in town, and most do not have gardens.  Those that did quit because of over drift of sprays of chemicals from farm fields.  A lot of the spraying is from planes these days.  

The farmers markets are extremely expensive although the products are excellent.  Mostly, I raise what I want veggie wise, and we are not a huge fruit raising area except for apples.  There are a few pick-your-own strawberry patches.  I rely on grocery stores for fresh stuff although I totally avoid any lettuce from anywhere other than my garden.  My spring crop was a failure, and I left it to go to seed, so I now have a good-sized patch growing.  Fingers crossed I get some before frost.  Our first frost date is 9/15 and here we are 10/9 and no frost and 80º F days.  Lovely weather!!  I think we did get down to 39º one night but mostly been in the 50s or 40s.  Tonight, 61º is forecast.  

I keep thinking I'll start baking bread but living alone and not eating much bread makes it seem more work that profit.  

Currently my cell phone is dead.  Not battery dead, dead dead.  I had to use it last week since my landline was down AGAIN for a week.  The day it was fixed the cell phone died.  Thankful it waited!!  Not sure what I'll do as I do not want to spend anything on a new "emergency" phone.  I never turned it on except when my landline was down or I had an emergency away from home.  Since I'm home 99.99% of the time it was seldom on.  Well, I guess it has been on a lot lately with constant landline problems and slow service fixing problems.

When trimming my hedge, I accidently cut the electric cord.  It has been cut many times before by my late dh, former s-i-l and others, but this is the first time I've cut it.  I gave it to my handyman today to fix for me.  Another of the frustrating old age, arthritic hands issues ... I know how to splice a cord, but my hands say no way.  I could not even cut to remove the insulation.  Doubt handyman will charge me much since I told him to take it with him to fix rather than having him haul tools here to do so.

Wow, you have amazing local resources! That's fantastic! I live in the Lowcountry right outside of Charleston, SC. We have farms, one being Boone Hall Plantation. I sometimes stop there for produce, but it's very expensive. Certain vegetables are affordable like squash and tomatoes in season. They do sell eggs at $10 a dozen, honey for $20 a jar, and sourdough bread for $16 a loaf. I just can't (and won't) pay those prices. Butter beans were almost $20 for a bag! 

A local farm sells meat. It has chicken breasts for $30 a pound. I'm sorry, that is not affordable. But, I live in an affluent area. I'm just not affluent lol

Growing up we stopped at farmer's markets. Even when on vacation if we saw one we stopped. It was better & cheaper than the store. 

They have farmers markets here but they are expensive.  Sometimes I'll treat myself to something maybe once a summer. The one I went to yesterday had loaves of bread for $8. I made 2 loaves the day before using King Arthur's bread flour for $1.50. My husband thought it was fantastic! Lol Cookies the size of my palm were $4. One woman bought 3 for her 3 kids. You know how many cookies I can make my husband for $12!!?

The produce looks nice but it's not affordable. I certainly couldn't buy a week's worth. I did buy some garlic. I seriously need to figure out how to grow my own. 

I try to buy what I can in bulk (Azure,Frontier, etc) and lower my food costs by making my own. 

We're going to an apple orchard tomorrow.  We've already been once this season. They grow 40-50 varieties. October they have the most varieties available.  No picking as the apples are ready picked & in bins. You pick your bag size and pick from the bins. I love it. So many interesting varieties. It works out to around $1/lb if you get the seconds. Guess what I get.

I'm not familiar with ghee. I'm going to teach myself how to make sauerkraut, sourdough & mozzarella in the next week or two. 

Melissa wrote "I live in an affluent area. I'm just not affluent lol". I hear ya! 

Praying for you both and for any others in the path of the hurricane x

I hope everyone is okay after the hurricane!

We have lots of small farms and fruit orchards around here, but unfortunately, they have gotten very pricey.  So much so that an occasional indulgence is possible, but buying fresh to process is not practical or cost effective.  I used to buy bushels and bushels of apples and peaches every year, eat lots fresh plus can a year's worth of peaches, applesauce, apple butter, make dried apples and peach fruit leather.  As recently as the early 2000's, I remember paying $3/bushel for apples (u-pick, gleaning at end of season) and $8/bushel for peaches (seconds or gleaning) This year apples were $60/bushel and peaches $90/bushel, no gleaning or seconds offered on either.  At those prices I might get half a bushel as a treat, if I'm really craving the fresh fruit, but I'm certainly not buying the 6 - 10 bushels of peaches and 12 - 20 bushels of apples that I used to get in a year.

It's partly because of teriffs on everything from fertilizer to tractor parts, partly because of high fuel costs, and partly because wealthy tourists from the Chicago area are building more and more lakeside vacation houses here, and the local farms are marketing to them instead of to neighbors.  Can't really blame the growers - they need to make a living and of course they're going to ask for the highest price they can get - but it's still a huge bummer how much the area has changed. 

Grandma Donna, let us know if you're okay from this hurricane when you can. Looks like a lot of flooding, trees downed and power outages. 

I have found that actual farmer's markets are very expensive - I prefer to buy from the farm gate.  We're a couple of hours away from the biggest citrus growing area in Queensland so we'll make a trip involving an overnight stay somewhere, stock up on that and any roadside stall along the way and have a car full of fresh grown produce to bring home - you might say that's an expensive trip staying overnight somewhere but we look at it as a mini-break so it serves a purpose in that respect as well.  Along the way we drive through avocado areas, pumpkin growing areas and peanut growing areas so we can pick up plenty of variety as we drive - plenty of variety all round.  

We also live in an area where strawberries and pineapples grow in abundance, mangoes are always at roadside stalls in season, and we really can find most products if we care to look, including poultry farms where you can buy eggs and fresh chickens etc.  We also have a small supermarket, not one of the big chains, where we can buy local produce at a fraction of the price charged by the bigger stores.

I have noticed that you call butternuts 'squash' - we call them butternut pumpkins here.

Hi Everyone, I just caught up reading the comments this far, it seems like the consensus on purchasing food from farmers markets is that it is too expensive.  I feel the same that it is unless we can find a grower that we can go to with a fair price.  It is so sad that fresh food costs so much.  This makes me even more determined to keep trying to get our own vegetables to grow.  I am desperately trying to figure out ways to grow with the the constant weather issues and soil problems but it is interesting as well. 

Charles and I are okay, this was a scary storm that came with much damage and inconvenience to many.  Thankfully, our home is not damaged, it was a shredding storm as it seemed to shred much of its limbs and foliage before it landed on the ground making a real mess.  However there are many many people with serious damage.  Our daughter and her family in Pensacola have underground electric service but they still lost power and are still without power.  They lost their wood fencing that went all around the back yard along with all of the neighbors fencing, trees down, roofs damaged and frightening constant wind that shook the house.  

Trees that have made it through many hurricanes did not make it this time and the ones left standing are shredded. and very sad looking. They have to boil their water as often happens after a hurricane and something to remember and easy to forget about.  But they are safe as we are safe.  Our son and daughter in law experienced the same thing with the scary winds and shredded trees and debris.  They are still without power as well as so many.

Our power has come back on here at our house but across the street has been different. 

What we did not expect, is to lose our communication.  Our cell phones stopped working, we could not call or text our family for many hours.  Living in the city is quite shocking when total outages happen, the blackness of the power outages, no street lights, cloud cover, no moon, no light anywhere.  We were okay here because we have the things needed but sad when I looked out, our neighborhood completely dark.  One of our storms a few years ago I was so surprised at a neighbor that did not even have a flashlight.

Our communications are back up now (here), so I wanted to get this out to let you know we are thankfully okay here and let us know how you are doing as this storm is still working its way up and across along with others elsewhere in this world.  Grandma Donna

GrDonna, it breaks my heart to hear of so much destruction. Thankfully everyone is safe if inconvenienced.  I cannot imagine not having any flashlights, especially given the location...

Here in Indiana, it continues to be dry, and we do have a good breeze today and 71 degrees.

It is interesting to read that so many others are finding the farmers markets so expensive. Sad also as it used to be cheaper at a farmers market around here. I just heard that our propane costa are expected to rise over 50% this winter. Very disheartening as most of my family uses propane. It's really all that is available around here. A few people have electric heat but it is going up in price also and most people are saying it is because of the data centers. I don't know if that is true only what I have heard. 

I continue to try to research 1942 and keeping costs down, I keep telling myself if they could survive the war and rationing at such a dark time surely we can also.  I am trying to limit my news intake as it is depressing to me and I have always been a "worrywart". For me it is not healthy to be constantly bombarded with bad news and violence.

I saw a video of the destruction in Pensacola. So heartbreaking. I'm glad your family is ok, G'donna

I paid $26 for 1/2 bushel of apple seconds today. I got a variety of 2 dozen different apples. Six years ago I paid $22. These are our treat for fresh eating. I bought 3-4 pounds of apples last week supposedly fresh Michigan apples for 99c per pound which is a rare low grocery price around here. Such a disappointment.  Those will become cinnamon applesauce for the grandkids.

I have been so good about staying off of the internet that I didn't even know about the hurricane until today. I immediately came here to see if an update was posted because I saw that Dothan had outages and street closings. And here I find a wonderful post! I am so glad to hear that the power is back on and everything is okay! Whew! 

I looked up farms near me and got listings of farms to buy. :) So I tried farms selling produce near me. It's pretty much just farmers' markets, and I agree with everyone else that they are too expensive. I quit going to the farmers' market the year that cabbages were priced at $8 each. There are a few pick-your own fruit farms but they offer blueberries, strawberries, and peaches, and I already pick my own of those in my backyard. :) There was one listing for Stone Hill Farm, and I got very excited about such a farm-y sounding name, but it turns out that they grow flowers. We are blessed with good dairy farms, though. 

My head had been stuffed with numbers lately concerning amps and voltages and watts and capacity and outflow and a bunch of other things. I was trying to figure out how to maximize our solar energy use. I was thinking about a two-week power outage. Solar generators will give you only a few days of keeping the fridge running, unless you are willing to spend a lot of money. I'm not, so I told my husband that in a long outage, we'll keep the fridge running two-three days, but after that, too bad for you fridge! I'm diverting my power at that point to other things. I told him that instead of relying on solar for the fridge, we should invest in an electric canner and spend a few bucks buying plastic water gallons to freeze in the fridge. I've still got my old pressure canner, too, for canning on propane, but the electric makes it much easier to can, and prepare ahead of time for quick-heating meals that don't use up all of your power. And less than ten dollars (four water gallon jugs) got us an assurance that our freezer food would last two days with no solar intervention at all. 

We are in another heatwave. This time for a week. I discovered, since I'll try anything, that leaving the windows open and closing the blinds and curtains over the open windows actually makes it feel cooler inside than shutting the whole house up. I think it's because you still get moving air. Doing that meant we could keep the air conditioner off during the day and only used it at night when the outside temperatures were cooler than the inside temperature, and we opened everything up and turned on the air conditioner to vent the hot air out of the house. I am trying really, really hard not to use paid for electricity if I don't have to. I want that simpler time.

Is that a new bunny I see?

Home safely after aortic valve replacement surgery. Thanks to our grandparents’ generation for the NHS. 

Comfort in the little things, DH’s wholemeal bread, toasted, and my marmalade, and a pot of tea without the scum of tea bags, for breakfast. 

So good to visit friends here. 

Stephanie G, I understand how your brain is working the numbers, I am right there with you and besides Amps, Kilowatts as usual for me it is liters and gallons for water use.  This storm we just went through put me back to figuring again.  

Janet W, I just read that you had surgery, I am glad that you are home from hospital and I hope that you have a good recovery.  It sounds like hubby is being very helpful.  Sending prayers and love your way.

I live on a dirt road.  We have very little traffic except during planting and harvest season.  The negative of living on a dirt road is the dust from the road.  We have planted trees between the yard and the road to stop the dust.  

I have found a small local farmers' market.  There are only 3 people selling produce, a few selling baked goods, one woman selling goat soap and several crafters, but the prices were in line with the grocery store on the vegetables.  I grow most of my vegetables, but I did shop here for things I didn't grow and they were very fresh and tasted good.  

There is a strawberry pick your own farm near us but my knees don't want me to go there any more and I have heard the price has gotten high.  I go to an orchard that is about an hour drive and I buy apples there.  I have not been this year, last year I got a bushel of seconds for $30 which is a little high for seconds, but there apples are so good.  They do pick your own or you can pick your own apples our of the large bins out front under a roof.  They also grow peaches, but I have not gone for peach season.  They have some other vegetables too, but it is too long to drive to get vegetables.  

Our local regional grocery store has an area in the produce department of local farmers.  They had butternut squash with the stem on them so I bought them for the winter storage.   Ours didn't do well and you need a stem to store.

We are getting rain from the hurricane yesterday and today.  To the west of us there is a flash flood watch.  I hate to say this with all the damage in the Gulf, but we can use the rain.  We still have drought.  We use a well so it is not good when the water table gets low and the well can run dry.  The lake near us is 6 feet below full pond so hoping the rain will help.  

Hope all are safe from the hurricane.

Oh I'm so glad, Gr Donna you got back to us here and you are safe and well.  I had found a news station for your area and was keeping myself posted.  I'm so sorry to hear about your daughter's place and others.  I could never in a million years live there. It would scare me to death.  Wisconsin had tornadoes sometimes, but it was kind of rare for a touchdown, although one did hit last spring I think where my mother lived.  In Tucson it's mostly just heat. This hurricane "season" would just be a no. You are a trooper and all who live around them.  

I cannot fathom not having a flashlight or lack of means of light much less anything else that are basics. Maybe not in your neighbor's case, but I believe all this minimalism stuff, has put some people in a position that they have nothing to fall back on - food, water, etc. and just rely on cities.  I can't fathom.  I'm a "just enough" person, but also do have enough back-up. 

Grandma Donna, I am so glad to hear you and Charles made it through the hurricane (which I only knew about tangentially from your post) with minimal damage, and that your family members are safe even if they did have damage.

We’ve had a whirlwind of weather in October, from record breaking highs over 100°F last week to 1.5 inches of rain in the past 24 hours and more to come.  Having not looked at the news, I didn’t know until just now that we had a tropical storm make landfall.  We were driving in it last night and it was scary at times — I suppose our preparedness for that situation was having put super beefy all terrain tires on the van, which grip the road very well even when wet.  Every time it rains now I see the lost opportunity to harvest the water, but we aren’t yet on the same page as far as what infrastructure to invest in.  The trees and lawn are happy for it, regardless.  If we have a wet year we’ll likely have roses blooming at Christmas.

For decades now, most farmers markets in Southern California have had higher prices than grocery stores.  Farmers markets are aimed at the “Whole Foods” crowd, and most farmers markets have more prepared food and merchandise stalls than farmers.  U pick farms charge high prices for the “experience”, which means for apple picking you pay an entrance fee to get your bag and borrow the picker, and then you pay by the pound and the price is at least double the price per pound at the grocery store.  We used to go to the apple orchards 35 years ago and the prices were at least on par with the grocery store if not a little cheaper if you bought in bulk, and now the prices for pre-packaged apples run about $5 per pound.  Yes, they are local apples, but at those prices we can’t afford them.  The pricing is because it is a tourist destination now, with people flocking in from all over the greater Los Angeles region to have the autumn experience.  None of the growers have enough land in orchards to support themselves selling apples wholesale to grocery stores — they make their money with “value added” products and activities such as apple picking, cider pressing, hay rides, BBQ, apple pies, apple slushies, hard cider, apple cider donuts, petting zoos, etc.  I don’t blame them in the slightest as they’ve found a way to support themselves.

In general, the only local produce we can get at good prices is from the little stands some people put outside their homes with citrus and avocados.  We do patronize those when we can.  But even those stand prices are all over the place, one will charge $5 for 8 pounds of oranges, and another will charge the same $5 for 3 pounds.

Land prices are high, water prices are high, and natural rainfall totals are low, which makes most cattle farming in our area a hobby rather than a full time business.  There isn’t pasture for animals  to graze on.  About 60 miles from us there were some people producing pastured chicken, but they were $35 each — I have no idea who was buying them, and the answer has to be not enough people because I can’t find them now.  I did find a place 30 miles from me that sells pasture raised beef that is raised in central California — a half cow produces approximately 250 pounds of meat and costs $13.89 per pound, averaging $3500.  The regional outfit in central California I used to buy grass feed beef from is now $2837 for half a cow which averages 200 pounds, and the breakdown is  80 lbs. Ground Beef, 10 lbs. Fajita Strips, 10 lbs. Stew Meat, 50 lbs. Steaks, an 50 lbs. Roasts.  That comes to $14.19 per pound.  Yes, steaks cost more than that, but ground costs less — a lot less.  At the store I can get 1# of grass fed ground beef for $6 (sometimes less on sale).  If I use that for my basis, $480 is the value of the ground beef in the half cow package, which means I am really paying $19.64 per pound for the rest of it.  I mostly don’t eat beef and I can’t afford grassfed except for the occasional pound of ground beef.  But since ground pork is cheaper at $3.29, I buy that, and last week I bought pork butt/shoulder at $2.48 per pound and will cook half as pulled pork and grind the rest.

Rotisserie chickens from the membership warehouse stores cost less per pound than raw whole chickens  (after cooking) from the same stores, so I’ve taken to buying one each time we go.  This time of year I have to be mindful of my electricity usage, and roasting a chicken would cost about $3 in electricity if I wasn’t making enough solar, or $2 if I load shifted it (and even more June - September).  I live where electricity rates are very high, and because I have solar I am required to have a time of use rate plan which prices the electricity highest in the late afternoon and early evening.

I have joined several CSAs in the past, but stopped when I realized I could create the same box for less from the grocery store and get produce my family would actually eat.  We were always promised 7-10 items, but many times we would get items like dandelion greens, arugula flowers, and a tiny kohlrabi as items, all in the same week.  I would spend several hours cleaning all of the produce.

Stephanie G, even a year into having solar electric our lives are still all about watts and kilowatts and kilowatt hours, plus sun angles, hours of daylight, battery percentage and more!  June through August we could plug in the car and charge it full any day, now we have to give it sips of electricity if we have small overages — it reminds me of being young and having enough money for just a couple gallons of gas!

We went through the house and wrote down watts for everything we could think of.  We looked up the watts for the light bulbs, appliances (big and small), radio, tv, phones, etc.

Even with solar, we also have to be prepared for outages, as severe weather or emergencies could take out our main system.  System #2 is a folding 800 watt panel and a 2560 watt solar generator (battery) with a 2560 watt expansion battery.  System #3 is on the van, with small generation potential and storage capacity (but augmented with a gas generator).  I suppose an adjunct to these systems is keeping our various charging batteries, rechargeable lights, and rechargeable fans charged!  My biggest charging battery could charge my tablet from 0% to 100% 5.5 times, or my phone 18.75 times.  We have several smaller batteries as well — I bought the bigger one for my go bag.  But those batteries and devices are calculate with mAh, not watts!

System #2 is what I am working on in terms of all the maths to determine what we would use the solar generator for in the event of an outage of the main system.  With the expansion, we could theoretically run the refrigerator for 82 hours.  Our garage ready chest freezer is guaranteed to maintain food at frozen temperatures for at least 48 hours, so the solar generator would help us with the refrigerator for those 48 hours and then we would switch it to the chest freezer and work on the food in there.

Part of what I am trying to work on is what we can do without power at all.  I know we store produce in the refrigerator that generations past would have kept at room temperature, so I know we can buy time that way.  I’ve been keeping less in the fridge overall, to help minimize loss.  As we eat down the chest freezer we’ll be freezing water as ice to use to extend refrigeration in an outage (after the first 48 hours.  Using gallon plastic water bottles, it will also provide a small amount of drinking water

But as Grandma Donna mentioned, water is foremost in my mind right now.  Our friends who have set up water harvesting are recommending we go with steel caged water totes over barrels.  They do store more water per dollar spent and are sturdier.  They are also recommending we store fresh water in two tanks for drinking and food prep and then harvest rainwater into another two tanks, to use for watering, flushing, and to purify for washing but not drinking.  I hope to talk to the person who helped them with their set up soon.  The only thing I’m not sure about is UV rays going through the opaque plastic and causing micro growth.  But I also know the safest plastic for storing water in isn’t colored.

My head is spinning with first flush diverters, testing, purifying, location, access, etc.!  My goal is a minimum of 1 month of water stored at intermediate usage, which we could then stretch much further if needed.  But we also want to use harvested water for watering, so more math for me

Kimberly F Thank you for telling me about your system! I always tuck little bits of information away when people share, like the tip for making ghee in the oven. :) We have 10,800w total with the system we came up with. It's two 1800w generators and two 3600w generators. The idea is that one 1800w and one 3600w are in use while the others are charging, so power is seamless. The 1800w generators are nice because they are light enough carry from room to room, or put on the counter. Our latest 3600w generator has its own wheelie cart because it's bulky and heavy. Our other 3600w is a generator and battery combination that is easier to carry because of the design. We have three panels. A 220w bifacial, a 300w mono, and we're waiting for our 500w bifacial to arrive. We use those thin silver sheets they call emergency blankets with the bifacial panels so the reflective surface creates more charge on the back side of the panel. You put it on the ground and place the panel so that the reflective surface is in the back. They tear easily, though, so we have some reflective tape to tape up any tears. 

I know what you mean about figuring out what to use when. That's what we're in the middle of too. I am first using the generators like I would use unlimited electricity to see what my limits are and what I need to give up. Just flicking switches any time you want to is a thing of the past for us! Our electric rates have doubled. So far! I'm sure they will keep going up. We now use our "candles" at night when going from the lighted bedrooms to other parts of the house. Our candles, as we call them, are our personal solar light bulbs, the ones we keep by our beds. Lighting rooms we are not in was the first thing we gave up.

I am a little bit mad about the way the solar generator people advertise because it's very misleading. They say the power stations are good for outages because they will run anything. They do run anything, we ourselves have enough wattage to run any appliance, even our washer or stove, but only for a very limited time. That's the part they don't tell you. We can run our window air conditioner for a day. Then we would have to endure the heat until the generators charged again! We have designed our system for fast charging, but the bigger stuff is not something you could use day after day for a two-week outage. Even with our fairly high wattage system, we have to be very careful how we time our energy use. That's why having the electric canner is such a good thing. When we're not in a outage, we can can food that takes a literal two minutes to heat. Ten minutes a day of heating food, even for two weeks, is hardly drawing any energy. (For breads or tortillas, we can use our green egg grill, and we now have a two-burner propane stove, too.) The canner saves our behinds as far as cooking goes, if we were in a long outage. It takes a whole bunch of pieces coming together to make this work. 

We've spent about $5,000 total. The first two generators were bought four years ago. For the two new ones and the 500w bifacial panel, we are planning to recoup their cost over three years by reducing our monthly electric bill. They last for ten years, so we get seven years of use free. :)

It's hard to figure all of this out by ourselves, but I read today that outages are 40% weather related, 35% physical incidents including vandalism and sabotage, and 25% failure of grid infrastructure. And that infrastructure failures increased from 36 incidents per year in 2012-2017 to 125 per year in 2020-2022, and 20% of all outages are longer than one day. (For the US.) So I guess we have to break our brains on this stuff so we can take care of ourselves. :) 

Stephanie G, your generators sound nice and you have a good system in place!  We have an Anker Solix F2600 with the BP2600 expansion battery + the 800 watt folding solar panel and we paid $2100 almost two years ago.  We wanted to be able to use it at home an also with the van, so we needed one with a place to plug in a 30 amp rv plug.  The F2600 has a built in handle wheels.  One thing people should know (I am sure you know) is that you can’t really plug things in from opposite sides of the house.  Ours can do 2400 watts with a 2800 watt surge — that is something else people have to consider, how many watts their appliances draw.  Our smaller Instant Pot and rice cooker draw 1250 watts combined, max, so they are our best choice for using with the solar generator because we could still power the refrigerator.

If it is hot and our main solar isn’t working for some reason we will move into the van in the driveway and use the gas generator to keep cool, as that generator sips gas (at most 1/4 gallon per hour).  The good thing is we have lots of practice living in the van with a combination of the gas generator and solar generator, and with using minimal water and power to make everything last.  We are going to store heavy contractor bags and bags of sawdust to use if the black tank gets full and we can’t dump, but we also want to put in a home dump station.  Everything about the van uses less power because it is so much smaller.  And as I wrote, we have spent many trips with 3 adults and 2 dogs in the van, without hookups.  Water is always the biggest issue, and then the waste tank sizes, but if we are at home grey water can go into the front garden beds.  In a true emergency the men would find a private spot to pass water, so to speak, so the black tank will last longer.

Another thing we may all want to think about is garbage in an emergency, as it may not get picked up for people who have home waste management services.  Where will we store it and how will we deal with odor and pests?  My grandparents always put Pine Sol in the bottom of their trash cans for odors and flies.

You are smart to use your little lights like candles!  We have rechargeable lights in the van that we can bring inside if we are without our solar power for some reason, but we aren’t in the habit of using them.

I highly recommend rechargeable fans with clamp bases!  We have 4 in the van and we’ve brought them inside during power outages before we had solar — we wouldn’t have been able to sleep without them.  And basic e-ink non-connected e-readers are also great when there is minimal or no power, because you can read without a light — just be sure to have books downloaded and not in the cloud.  Lots of people upgrade their e-readers and they can be found second hand inexpensively.  We read free e-books or library e-books and don’t buy e-books.

The coffee machine is 1200 watts, so in a power emergency the guys will drink tea.

Kimberly F. I have seen a number of preppers online who have black totes.  According to them that eliminates the growth of algae.   Difficulty with totes in a cold climate is they will freeze.  Don't know if freezing will damage the tote but I've seen people having faucet/drain freeze and break.

I think for initial off grid electricity, a person should go for a system that provides for your essentials.  A few lights, fridge and freezer.   Trying to continue life as you know it will probably not work without spending a lot on a whole house system.  Actually, one whole house generator might cost less in the long run than buying several other systems.  I know you need a higher-powered generator for deep well pumps, electric stoves, a/c etc.

I think the most danger to electricity is either our aging electric infrastructure and/or terrorist attacks to the system as well as weather.  

My issue is I need to run a sump pump which has a large starting pull so requires a larger generator.  Also, I'm old and need a generator that starts automatically when the power goes off.  It cannot run everything at the same time, but it will run the sump pump plus fridge, freezer, furnace and other appliances one at a time.  My kitchen stove is gas and only power required is for spark for burners and for oven, my water heater is gas no electric required, furnace is gas needs electric is for blower fan, clothes dryer is gas so only minimal electric.  Natural gas is a blessing and without it I'm well and truly out of luck.  The only thing my generator will not run is whole house a/c.  

My garden is done and mostly cleared off.  I left peppers which are still ripening, but bug stress is bad.  The bug pressure on tomatoes was so bad I decided to clear them off.  I still have tomato towers and posts to store away but need to clear weeds and weed trees from storage area first.  It's amazing how fast weed trees grow over one summer.

Kimberly F Wow, lots of good ideas there! We have a small Instant Pot that draws 700w, so we use that to boil a pot of water and put it in the Thermoses. I use instant coffee, so just add powder. :) It's crazy having to know how much energy everything uses. Cooking appliances draw so much power! I tested my iron one day and it draws about 1800w. I'm going to test the Ninja Flip next, but I think it will be about the same. Same for the induction burner, and that's why I got the canner. 1800w is way too much power to pull in an emergency situation. Even the Crock Pot can chew through power if you're using it for a number of hours. That's a good point you made about the surge. I don't think everyone knows that even though a fridge doesn't draw much power on average, it does surge power when it comes on and the generator has to have enough. Your two generators have a really decent amount of power.  

I've got heavy contractor bags on my emergency wish list for next year. You are so right about people not considering their trash needs. Trash really starts to smell, especially in hot weather. If you put it outside, animals will get into it. We are going to put our trash and our emergency potty in the garage in an emergency. Thanks for the Pine Sol tip! I'm going to use that one. It's probably overkill, but I bought some heavy duty rubber bathtub stoppers so I can take out the metal screw-on ones that don't seal as tight as I want in an emergency. There is a small chance of sewer backup in a disaster scenario, and I don't want sewage anywhere near my waterBOB! I don't want little germs crawling up from the drain and crawling on my waterBOB. :) The stoppers were very inexpensive. 

I’m so glad you’re talking about buying from a local farm store and buying seasonally. I own a small family farm where we sell at farmers markets and from an honor stand, we do produce, chicken, pork, sourdough breads and some seasonally canned goods. 

People talk to us so often about how great it is that we do this, that we have a variety of that our food tastes great, yet they just don’t buy much. Many people say something looks beautiful but say, “I don’t need green beans,” or “I’m just looking for something for dinner,” or “I don’t usually cook whole chickens.” On guy bought a few things from us for a few weeks in a row, then one week he said, “Oh, no more Swiss chard? What a shame, that’s what I wanted this week.” We had Swiss chard for most of the summer, and he never bought it before!

We are growing and giving the best of the season, yet people treat us like a grocery store and expect us to have everything on hand every week. 

Here’s the gist of what I’m trying to say: Support local farmers, buy what they have on hand and figure out how to cook it or preserve it, and remember- if you’re not willing to buy from them, they will go out of business, so even if you can only afford one of the cheap items they sell, do it. It’s difficult now days to sell directly to customers

Glad to hear you and your family all got through the storm okay. 

On the fresh produce front, I wanted to mention foraging.  Over the weekend I harvested 30 lbs. of maitake, about 10 lbs. of assorted other mushrooms, and a nice batch of watercress.  I've been getting all of my greens and mushrooms from the wild for years now, but just wish I could find more wild fruit around here.  We have berries and pawpaws, but that's about it.  I used to forage apples from an abandoned orchard, but the property sold and I no longer have access to it.

One time on vacation in Florida I found a wild tangerine tree and they were SO good, probably the tastiest tangerines I ever had.  Sure wish THOSE grew around here!

Ann W, I think that’s a good point that for many or even most people, a whole house backup generator is probably the best solution to shorter term power losses, and I know some people also store extra fuel for their generators.  For a lot of people, portable solar generators are going to be significantly less useful during the times of the year that there is less sunlight.  If someone is wondering what I mean, I live in sunny So Cal.  My 36 panel 15kW system house system can generate 85-90 kWh of electricity per day in June, and about 16 kWh of electricity per day in December.  Portable systems are usually looking at 1000 - 2000 watts of portable panels at most (my own portable system has an 800 watt panel).  Now, portable panels can be move around and be optimally placed, but the angle of the sun is still going to make a difference in production.  Clouds in winter will also limit production.

Short of a major catastrophe, my home system is going to provide our power needs because we have storage batteries, so my preparation focus needs to be on water.  In a crisis, we’re going to need food, water, and shelter.  I don’t live where we would freeze to death.  I will likely have power, especially with our backup systems, but that won’t mean anything if we don’t have water.  And as Grandma Donna wrote about earlier this year, we need sanitation systems, which I think a lot of people fail to realize.  Where will your body waste go?  Where will your trash go?  How do you keep animals and pests out of rotting, festering garbage?  How do you convert your fresh food into something you can eat a little longer?  Will it make the most sense to cook fresh foods as a community, perhaps on outdoor grills or smokers?

I think we have a tendency in the United States to think of everything as being individual — am I prepared?  But getting through disasters requires community.  So it makes sense to have a small neighborhood plan and to work together, even to the point of pooling water and food resources.

Katherine H, you are so right that we need to know what is in season and learn to cook and eat it.  I have spent years in the past only buying local produce.  It just isn’t in the budget anymore, now that local produce has become something for the affluent.  I used to be able to go the farmers market and buy all of my produce for the week at prices that were very similar to grocery store prices — now they are more than double grocery prices.  For years I could buy 25# of oranges at reasonable prices, $6 in the 1990s, $8 in the early 2000s, then $10, then $15.  But the family patriarch died and the family didn’t want to keep up the farming business.  They sold the land for houses.  It was a good business and provided the family with one of the biggest houses (mansion really) in our city, but people have to want to put in the hard work.

Stephanie G, I hadn’t thought about a sewer backup, I’ll have to make plans for that potential

Glad everyone weathered the storms!

Since I live in southern Lancaster County, PA, there are many roadside produce stands where fresh local produce is still very reasonable, and we try to frequent them and the local Amish general stores and markets as much as possible.  The ones on the rural roads are the least expensive, but the markets that have remodeled or made many upgrades recently have really increased their prices, and I try to avoid them.

Our vegetable gardens really did not do very well this year, so I'm very thankful for the local markets.

We have a farm market nearby that sells their Angus beef, pork and chicken that they raise on their farm, and I almost always buy those items from them.  Everything is frozen, so I tend to go once a month and get what I need. Their prices seem fair, and the quality is excellent.  Our local grocery stores (Giant and Walmart) are not very reliable for meats, so I do not buy anything there.

My daughter and her family live in a small city nearby and they recently received notice that their municipal water is contaminated.   So, we've been lugging several gallons of water (in glass jars) from our well to them each week, when we go on Tuesdays to spend the day with her 18 month old daughter.  It has made me realize how vulnerable our water supply is.  Maybe I should work on a plan for water storage!

It's 5 p.m. here, and we just went into peak electricity rates. It's 9 cents per kilowatt for off-peak, and 31 cents for peak. This is up from 14 cents for peak. I turned off my ceiling fan. We ate dinner early. We didn't plug the fridge into a generator for the next three hours (peak ends at 8 p.m.), but we did plug in the internet. We'll plug the fridge in tomorrow during peak time. I only found out about the new peak hours this afternoon, so I didn't have a lot of time to plan. For the next three hours, no hot water unless it is heated in the Instant Pot with a generator. No light except from solar light bulbs or lamps plugged into generators. It's nice saving money, but I think the real value of this exercise is learning how much electricity I really don't need to use, peak or not!

I guess I should say that after turning off the ceiling fan, I plugged a box fan into a generator. I wasn't suffering from the heat for the sake of a little money!

Stephanie G, you are doing a really valuable experiment!  Our rates this time of year are 24¢ off peak, 30¢ mid peak, and 44¢ peak, plus the daily connection fee of 79¢ per day.  In summer it was 26¢/ 61¢.  I know people in another city who have city electricity and pay 1/3 of what we pay — I didn’t know that when we bought a house, lol, and I suppose we saved far more by not having a commute for 30+ years.

Are you tracking how much electricity you are using in total each day with only the solar generator?  Does your utility company tell you what you use from the grid?  We used 14.5 kWh yesterday, including the a/c running for 1.2 hours which we probably didn’t need, or at least wouldn’t use if we had an outage.  That was running lights, internet, fridge and chest freezer, coffee machine, microwave, induction stovetop, ceiling fan, 3 air purifiers, chargers, robot vacuum, and miscellaneous little things.  Overall that is close to baseline for us, we use 12-13 kWh per day in winter (plus car charging which we didn’t do in 2025).  Car charging averages out to an additional 2-3 kWh per day, but it’s lumpy.  I feel like we aren’t particularly careful with electricity, we don’t stop our son from using what he wants to use and I leave on my bedside light 14 - 15 hours per day at a max of 7 watts per hour, or about 100 watts per day — that’s as much as 3 kWh per month.

Do you have an electric kettle?  We gave ours to a family member who needed one, but I think they may be more efficient than the Instant Pot, especially if you have one that uses induction.  The Instant Pot’s efficiency isn’t in heating things up to a boil or using it to sauté, but in the pressure cooker aspect of it — indeed, a stovetop pressure cooker would be more efficient than an electric pressure cooker if used with natural gas.  Wait, did you mention an induction burner?  That might be your most efficient way to heat water with electricity.  If we were to have a power outage (no house solar) we would heat water with our propane stove in the van — it’s always less efficient to use electricity to heat water vs. natural gas or propane.

Sometimes our house batteries are really low when we wake up, and my husband will plug the coffee machine into the solar generator.  Each day we see the little spike in usage when the coffee machine gets used with the house system.  In reality though, it uses about .08 kWh/80 watts since it is 1200 watts used for about 4 minutes.  Which at that time of the morning would be 2¢ if we were paying for the electricity.  I love to do the math like this because it shows how little some things use and makes me remember to look at the big things.  Our fridge uses 1.2 kWh per day, which even at peak would be 55¢ per day.  The chest freezer uses 760 watts per day.  Together they use less than 2 kWh per day and it isn’t all at peak.  It all adds up, of course, and over the course of a month the fridge and chest freezer could use 60 kWh per month and average out to $25 of the electric bill before we put in solar.  I try to remember that the biggest users are indoor climate control and cooking.  Oh, the whole TV setup uses 1 kWh per hour — I can see the usage visibly when it is on or off.  But that is on at most one hour per day (peak though) and thus would cost 46¢ - 61¢ per day, but it isn’t everyday.

Our system estimates that it saved us $4000 the first 12 months we had it, but that is much lower than it would have been if we hadn’t replaced the air conditioning unit, and it also doesn’t include what we save charging the car for 8 months.  Plus it had the wrong electricity rates for most of that time — it was showing them lower than they really are and didn’t include the daily charge.  Our own math puts it at closer to $6000

All this talk of electricity usage - we chose, due to shift work at irregular times - to stay on the one grade of system - so we're charged for that no matter what time it is and although retired now, we still choose to do it that way.  We run our power accordingly, we have solar panels (but no battery back-up, not worth it at our age given this house like most in this area, will be bulldozed and the allotment will go to townhouses and the like).  We run anything we need during the day but I'm not particularly worried about using power as we aren't big users anyway.  We run things when we need to run them, and if the power goes out we do have a petrol powered generator which would run the freezer and fridge - we heat the hot water during the day when the solar panels are working and our power bill is very small, works out about $100 AU per month if not less.  I can't complain about that - this house is all electric.  The only gas we have is for the BBQ or a small propane stove for emergencies.

Kimberly F I haven't looked at overall usage, but that's a good idea, and I'll do that next after I learn what we can do when with our capacity. So far we've been amazed at how much energy we can produce. We are not sure we can afford rooftop solar in the future, though that's our goal with the weather continually getting hotter and the need for cooling increasing, so this is our way to gain at least some energy independence, and it's working out very well so far. 

My husband said the refrigerator cycles and doesn't use a lot of energy if we keep the door shut, so we might just leave it on the grid instead of switching it out daily. We will look into that after I check the numbers as you suggested. The water heater is still on the grid, too, but shouldn't cycle too much since we're not using any hot water during peak hours.

I have the 3 qt. smaller Instant Pot and my electric kettle uses 1800w. Right now we are seeing what our capacity to run things is with the generators, and I haven't used all of the kitchen appliances with them yet. But I'm getting there. :) We're supposed to have heavy rain the next two days, so probably no charging on those days, which might affect our usage, but we'll see. 

During peak last night, we lived a perfectly normal life. I could have watched TV hooked up to a generator if I had wanted to. :) We're in morning peak hours right now. 5am until 8am. I forgot about breakfast this morning, but we'll have leftover masa biscuits today, and I'll work on my morning peak hours' routine so I cover breakfast too. 

Stephanie G:  I'm sure this is a very stupid question, but where do you live that the peak is 31cents and how do you find this out?  I'm sure Gr. Donna mentioned how to figure it out at some point, but I didn't much pay attention to it at the time because we don't live in the city.  But after you've mentioned that, I just wanted to check to see if anything changed with us.  Our power company is owned by Indian Reservation? and they purchase it from the main power plant here.  So they're not bound by some rules.  I had called once the corporation commission because they were doing readings whenever, so sometimes we'd pay a bill twice in a month. The CC was very interested in this until they found out who it was and said they have no say in it. They've since not changed the due dates at will and stick with once a month, but they still read the meter willy nilly; some go 36 days, and some go 21.    We usually cool our house more in the evening before bed so the a/c doesn't work as hard and the house stays cool until 11am. It's made a difference on our bill. Anyway... beyond their poor practices, I'd like to know how to check this. 

Ann E I am in the Ozarks of SW Missouri, and we don't have fancy things like going online to find out what your peak hours are or have it written on the bill. We have to call the company, which isn't a bad thing because you get to talk to real people that way. It's too bad more places can't be like this. :) 

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I want to do a little math to show how the solar generator people leave things out when they are trying to sell people a system. My son loves Aldi's frozen chicken pot pies, and he eats two at a time. He cooks them in our Ninja Flip toaster oven for 30 minutes at 400* on the bake setting. The Flip uses 1800w. 1800w (the power rating) x .5 of an hour (operating time) / 1000 = .9 kWh (energy consumption). To cook pot pies needs almost a whole kilowatt hour (.9) of energy. Our 3600w generator has about 3 kWh total energy, but you really shouldn't charge your generator all the way to 100% or use it down to zero. Ours is set to stop at 90% charge and only go down to 10% on usage before it automatically shuts off. That means that those two 10%, one at the charge at the top and one at the use at the bottom, cut capacity by 20%. So I don't get 3 kWh. I subtract 20% (.6144) and get a capacity of not quite 2.5 kWh (2.4576). If a pot pie meal takes almost 1 kWh, and I only have 2.5 kWh on my generator, I can only cook 2 hot pot pie meals and one half-cooked pot pie meal on a 90% (full charge to us) 3600w generator, one that is so big and heavy you need a wheelie cart for it! This is why I bought an electric canner. Heating already cooked food only takes a second. It saves your energy. The generators are very useful, but people really have to know how to use them properly for maximum efficiency. When people see claims of systems that will get them through blackouts or run their whole house, they need to do the math to see what it actually can do! I didn't know the math when we first started getting our generators. 

Stephanie G:

Oh!  LOL.  I read it twice. Math - not my strong suit.  We don't have online to find out peak hours either, nor it is on the bill necessarily. However, it does state they charge us a minimum fee for 50 kwh, then after that a set fee for all additional KWH. That sounds like no peak hours to me.  Not shocking because I think they just service us boonie dwellers.

Ann E I didn't mean my little solar generator rant to be for you particularly. We get emails from these companies, and one came today announcing a new, supposedly whole house system. I looked at it, and no, it's not.  I don't like how their advertising misleads people. It sounds to me too like you have a flat rate. :)

Everyone, I have been reading along as I normally do and letting the comments make their on interesting journey.  I want to pop in here at this point to bring forward some information on older studies we have done on my blog for the newer people.  

When we went into the 1930's study, that one got sidetracked due to Charles and I getting very sick with Covid shortly after we started the study but we continued to study.  We tried to do the study another year and I had surgery.  We cautiously did part of a study one more time but it was getting complicated.

When Charles and I started studying the 1930s ahead of time before I put it on the blog we found this was going to take a lot of math.  Stephanie G was right in there with us and caught the math fever that we had found out on her own too that this study was going to take a lot of math. There were others as well, I am using Stephanie as an example right now since this topic was brought up here.  

In the 1930s, electricity was basically a new thing to many people because even though electricity had been invented, some people had it depending on where they lived, it was not available to many people and it was very expensive.  They still did not have a lot of electric items to run at this time, they had not come to market but it was a time when they had started showing up in stores.  Many items were quite dangerous to use when electricity was making its way into our homes.

The average household still had non electric Ice boxes with ice delivery was still a common thing. Many people did not have washing machines but some did.  Many things were going on at this time, telephone and electric lines were being pulled across the United States, radio was what people listened to for news and stories, music and soap operas and then the great depression.  How to pay for regular things and figuring how much they cost to use had us doing math every day in the study.

Here we find ourselves today dealing with a strange time we live, new things such as solar and more portable solar items and here we are with new gadgets of all kinds in our homes.  Many of us do not completely understand our solar, and yes it is not presented correctly to us for us to understand before we purchase it. 

For those of us on a budget it takes all kinds of math to figure out how much power these things pull to run on solar or the electric grid that is going to cost us a lot more than it used to. Then we have the fact of increasing cost of using our electric as well as our water and sewer.  It is hard to know what to do.  

Charles and I and some of you here in this forum do have some of the older items from the past, to live the old way we need the old tools.  But we do not have many other things that they did that helped them get by so we have the mix the modern with the old to be able to live a more simple life and be able to afford what we use. 

Stephanie and Kimberly are way ahead on me with figuring this solar out but as we all see this is quite a puzzle. With temperatures at extremes we need to have alternatives. 

It came to me last night after reading the comments that I feel that we, including myself,  are trying to be a bit like dealing with food allergies or intolerances. We miss that taste of the food that we have become allergic to so we try and make something similar but we can never get the same.  If we cannot eat gluten we try gluten free flour which is still not quite there yet.  Instead of simply focus on what we can eat we dwell on trying to make something similar to the things we miss. 

Similar with modern verses the old way.  We are use to our modern items and instead of doing without them we are trying to figure out how to use them without it costing us. We could just not use them and do everything the old way but some of the modern items are faster and easier such as certain types of cookers.  Using them take less energy since they cook faster, but do they?  This is where we have the math, they probably do draw less but we have to know if we are budgeting.  Trying to understand all of the facts takes a lot of work.  

There is a real reason to be going through all of this, and that is to be able to live comfortable in a unsettled world.  It is very possible that our power, water and food, can be compromised in this time we live.  Our other complication is being able to afford food, electricity, water and fuel. 

I can live more like back in time because I lived without it for a period of time in my life.  Now I am older it is not easy for me to do things the old way so I am trying to have less, use less so I can afford to run a air conditioner in the summer and a heater in the winter with the increased prices.  This means giving up a lot of things.  This also means that it makes sense to use some of the modern things that helps but still has to be figured out how much is it costing.  Charles and I have two portable Jackery's that we use to charge up the things we can charge and run a fan, a light, a portable ice maker to keep certain medications cold for our neighbor, I can groom my dogs with their electric sheers, I can turn on the radio or the electric kettle. 

I hope this makes sense.  I appreciate all of you that are digging in there trying to figure this out and if we all put our heads together we might be able to help each other to cope with some of the things ahead of us today so we can get through some possible big bumps in the road. 

The main thing is we need to practice using these things, practice doing things the old way.  Charles and I started a water study yesterday (Monday), we are trying to know what to do if our water goes out or goes on a boil water advisory as it just did for my daughters home. We are trying to set up our home where we can be set to switch to no running water.  We are locating our water sources, this is not easy.   I am taking pictures and will do a post on this very soon.  I want to be ready to do a full week by next week on no running water, please join me if you want to learn.  We failed yesterdays test day and reset today and will start again tomorrow.  We want to be ready to live with measured water before winter sets in, we want to live comfortably with measured water and the reason is because we need to keep our sewer bill down to help pay for the increase heating fuel costs.  If we keep our water use down we keep our sewer cost down and that will help buy a little more fuel for winter. We all live in different areas and are on different power and water companies and so our fees are different.  This was very long but I wanted to pop in here to say these things. 

Grandma Donna

I have a Generac "whole house" generator.  However, that isn't 100% correct.  I come closer to 100% because I have mostly gas appliances.  My stove and dryer require electricity but not for the heating which is where the big electric power draw is.  Some of the outlets in the house are not on the generator but the ones with fridge, freezer, sump pumps, furnace are.  The stove, washer and dryer are and where the microwave is not.  When the generator was installed, the microwave was at a different outlet and could be moved.  All upstairs lights, garage door opener are all on generator, but some of the basement lights and outlets and upstairs outlets are not.  When power goes off, I do not try to live same as normal.  Laundry waits, microwave and toaster are not used.  The stove I had when generator was installed did not require electricity so outlet behind stove is not on generator.  When new stove was installed, I had it plugged into a different outlet so that it will work.  Unless you buy a commercial generator much larger than mine, you still have to be reasonable about usage.  

I consider furnace in winter, sump pump at all times, fridge, freezer and basic lighting to be the necessary usage.  I guess garage door opener would also be a necessity especially in case of an emergency.  Anything beyond that needs to be kept to a minimum.  Even with what is not covered, I'm still way ahead of most homes.  

One night the power was out, and it was dead quiet outside.  I stood there listening as generators came on around town.  Once the big commercial generator across the street at an apartment complex comes on you can't hear anything else.  That generator does not start automatically and sometimes it takes quite a while before someone comes and starts it.  

My sister was visiting one time when the power went out.  It was after dark, and she immediately jumped up in a panic.  I told her to sit back down and wait a couple minutes for the generator to kick on rather than blundering around in the dark.  

My late dh had flashlights stashed in every room of the house so even without the generator, I wouldn't be in the dark for long.  When my dad passed, my dh went through my mom's house and found flashlights with dead batteries.  Before we went home, he'd bought new batteries for all her flashlights and purchased additional flashlights and extra batteries.  I often walk through the house in the dark, but living in town, dark is subjective.  Unless there is a power outage, street lights, lights from the apartment complex, neighbors' outside lights and lights from a church half a block away keep dark at bay.