In other words, you will need to practice a level of frugality that most of us don’t want to think about. I call this poverty living. We are all living (or should be living) at a level of frugality that seems a little tight, but sometimes we need to get a lot tighter.
Learning how to maintain and perform simple repairs is a critical skill. Most people at this time do not know how to do this. Unless you take a high school shop class geared towards vehicle care and repair, it is not a skill that is taught. Fathers used to teach it to their sons and daughters so they would know what to do, but that is becoming a lost skill, too.
Right now, food seems to be plentiful in America. There is plenty of it in the stores and you hear stories of how much food is wasted in restaurants and grocery stores. However, there are some factors that could lead us to a rationing system in a hurry if something happened. Those things do not even have to be catastrophic for us to be rationed. In most natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding, Red Cross and FEMA dive right…
Everyone should have a good selection of tools on hand to be able to fix almost anything. Whether you are a prepper or a homesteader, you will rely on these tools to build and fix most things. If you are into frugal living, you want these tools to help you extend the life of your items and be able to fix them. This is a basic list that we came up with. These are the tools we cannot live without…
There are some modern conveniences I would not want to live without: running water and a washing machine for starters. There are some modern conveniences that are not really necessary, but they make life easier. I lived without a microwave for over four months until someone took mercy on my children and bought one. I was fine without it. Another appliance I lived without is a clothes dryer. I lived for over two years without a clothes dryer and I…
Long before thrift shopping was cool, I was doing it to stretch my budget and because I just couldn’t afford new things. In fact, my parents did the same thing! I grew up on hand-me-downs until I outgrew my cousin’s clothes. Almost all my books came from used bookstores and the library. We went to auctions and garage sales. My parents needed to stretch their pennies too! Now thrift shopping is cool. Thrift stores are gaining popularity as are the…