Many of us spend a ridiculous amount of money on household utilities.
Where we live it is mandatory to live with electricity and running water but we do have control on what we use. We can pay the minimum charge and go on about our business if that is what we want to do.
So comes the choice. Use minimal grid and flow?
We can use non electric items to slow the electric flow and we can do many things to slow the water flow.
When I was first married we had two wind up clocks and a wrist watch. We did not have any electric clocks. The electric clocks came later. The clock in the photo above is a wind up alarm clock.
I did not have an electric mixer, this is what I had, a hand beater. There is suppose to be a knob on the handle but it still works fine without it.
My husband has tools that require no electricity. So he can build and repair things with our without electricity.
He even has a foot petal Scroll Saw.
I have the treadle sewing machine. I can move it around because it does not require electricity. It sews like a charm just by me moving my feet.
Many people have no desire to slow the flow or grid. But do you at least have enough non grid items to help you during a power outage? We can simple continue on when that happens.
There was a time there was no grid. When this house was first built there was no electricity or running water and was added later. This house had two claw foot tubs, an adult tub and a child's tub. This was my mothers home at one time and you could feel the history inside this house. It had a canning kitchen and a regular kitchen.
One thing you may notice in some of the older photos is there are no power poles. There was no grid to many areas back in time. Electricity was coming to many areas but there were also many areas that did not have it. This photo was taken in 1919 the child is my Father.
We do have a choice to either do things without electricity and do it the hard way as many people would say or pay for the electricity to do it the easy way. It is simply a choice.
To turn on the light or use the sunlight coming through the window.
Our Shabby wash sink and roller has been moved outside to our new outdoor bath house. It is very functional out here.
We have an electric washer and dryer. I do have a choice. Just like the dishwasher in our house. It is there but I don't "have" to use it.
Some of you may know my husband and I have been trying to reduce our use of water. We have found if we simply put the water into a container and use it from there we have control over how much water we use and we have control over what we do with the water we used. So we choose to water our plants.
If we just turn it on and let it flow we waste.
To take pictures many times I must turn on a ceiling light to take pictures. A flash will often mess up the picture. I am starting to really like the oil lamps and we use unscented oil in our lamps. I keep our wicks trimmed so the flame burns even and does not smoke. I did a post on trimming wicks.
There are many ways to cook from the simple homemade hobo grill as shown above to fuel stoves, big green egg, wood cook stoves and fire pits. We can choose a few things to use in our house to make us comfortable such as a normal cook stove or depending what our financial need is we can use one of the older methods.
We can choose to use and electric light or a non electric light. It truly is a choice.
Electric or hand.
Electric or natural sun.
You can get these large jars in many places now with the spout on the bottom. These are sold for large servings of a beverage. These are good to use where you need a small amount of running water.
Do we use electricity? Yes we do but we control what we use and have reduced our utility bill.
There are many things we have no control over, things that are happening all around us but when we go home we do have control over many things. What we teach our children, what food we eat, how we clean our home, how much electricity and water we use. There are many things we can do where we live and right now.
Today is a new day and if something is keeping us from being able to start today we can at least make a plan. We can think it through, mentally go over it and then put it down on paper. Grandma Donna
