Old Fashioned Housekeeping Ideas?
The depression-era recipes/cooking show got me thinking about my own old-fashioned ways of cooking, growing food, and running a house and I was curious as to what all ya'll do. Has the current state of the economy affected this any for you? For me it has made me focus on putting away more food for next winter, here we are heading into March and are about done with our frozen garden veggies. My goal is to make it from one growing season to the next and I keep coming up short. And I have just one jar of homemade jam left, and about to the bottom of my flour and sugar. Granted I haven't bought flour or any baking ingredients in about 5 months so that's not so bad.
When we bought our Christmas tree one of the accessory things the tree farmers sold were handmade soy candles. They smell incredible! but so expensive, like $12 for a big one. So I'm going to make my own candles. I've been fascinated by soap-making for some time and I think I can make my own soap too. and of course laundry detergent; I've been making that in bulk for a while, I'm due for another batch soon.
- earthgarden's blog
- Login or register to post comments
I use a lot of baking soda in my house - we use it in place of scrubbing powders (like Comet) to clean, it gets added to the washing machine to help it work, I use it as a face scrub once a week, and I use it medicinally whenever possible (upset stomachs, utis, etc).
I used to make my own laundry soap, and I think I'll get back to that - what method do you use, Mercury?
I line dry my clothes.
I try to make as much as possible by scratch. My homemade fried chicken would knock your socks off. That being said, I don't very many CHEAP home made recipies my picky eaters would like. That's a challenge.
I am eager to find out what everyone else has to say!
I don't do near as much as I'd like, but here are the few I do.
-Don't use paper towels or napkins. Much easier than I thought.
-Make my own all-purpose cleaners.
-I have chickens that should start laying eggs in a couple of months. I need to start finding some more egg recipes!
I gave up candles in favor of oil/tart burners. I LOVE them! A bag of tea light candles & bottle of oil last waaayyy longer for me than one candle does. And cheaper, too. You could even use just essential oils and water, so you don't have to worry about chemicals being released. I also think they throw scent much better than candles, too. Did I mention I love them? 
Like, do you have recipies?
mmmm... fresh chicken eggs... I used to have an employee who had her own chickens, and I looked forward to the days that she'd bring in eggs for me. I LOVED them! Lucky you!
I don't have the exact recipes on me right now, but they include vinegar, ivory dish detergent, baking soda, water and some essential oils.
And I make a soft scrub paste with baking soda and enough ivory to make a paste. I scrub my sinks and tubs, etc.
You can also dilute Dr. Bronner's soap! I'm a sucker for spray bottles and pretty smells. AND they started selling the stuff at Target. Trader Joes has an off brand too.
That is one thing about the vinegar, the strong smell. I add essential oils to help it out, but it's still pretty strong. But honestly, it kinda makes me feel good, too. Cause I know that once that smell is gone, what I cleaned is really CLEAN and not just wiped down with chemicals. And that the vinegar is doing it's job of killing any bad odors, not just masking them.
whenever I (rarely) buy paper towels, I am amazed at how quick they go, like WTF. heh heh I guess when you use cloth you just don't notice how much wiping you do
Mercury Man likes the burners also, I just LOVE candles. there is something atavistic and primal about candles for me, they make me feel funny. ha ha!
creative life | children
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake. ~ Mar
Paper towels are the devil!! Haha, no, not really, but damn you can through them fast. That's one reason why I wanted to not buy them, because when we have them I USE them, like crazy! Every time my hands get wet while I'm cooking or whatever, grab a paper towel. Now I use DS's old cloth diapers (they were used for burp cloths, not his bum!) to dry my hands in the kitchen. I love them, they are so absorbent and dry fast.
I used the bum diapers, heck they got bleached
I hardly ever used cloth diapers cause back in the day I was not so eco-focused as I am now, I looooooved the convenience and ease of disposable diapers. But I did use cloth a little, and all those got re-used later ha ha
creative life | children
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~Eleanor Roosevelt
you talking about making soap made me think of jmoon wonder whatver happen to her. sorry anyway maybe your not making from one seaon to the next because of those boys you are tryiing to feed mama. i have no ideas as anything domestic is beyond me.
Jessica
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind~~Dr.Seuss
Jessica
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind~~Dr.Seuss
I've stepped this up some since the mister was laid off. The bug just had another growth spurt, so I took one of his pairs of pants that barely fit, folded and tugged at them until the back crotch gusset was laid out; traced around them about two inches using regular chalk; repeat on front; cut out, sewed up, make elastic casing, viola! Kid pants.
Sandwich bread: http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/light-wheat-bread/
It's good but a little bland. Needs doctoring up, some seeds and nuts and millet, a dusting of wheat germ on top after a milk brushing.
Laundry soap: http://www.thefrugalshopper.com/articles/detergent.shtml
Our towels started to fall apart, all of them at once. I don't have the spare 100 to go buy new ones, and they were bad. Like you could tell it's just a matter of weeks until they are dead. I cut out the loose, frayed bits and sewed the more solid parts back together. It's holding for now, but they really ought to be in the rag pile.
my vacuum is about dead so I'm just not vacuuming. lol I can't afford to replace that right now either. We have a sweeper, I might resort to that when it finally goes kaput.
I'm still being very careful not to miss an oil change or any factory recommended maintenance on the car. I'd rather spend 50 to save a thousand.
For some reason the regular grocery stores have amazing sales this week, so I'm going to go through their ads and stock up on some stuff. Normally I shop at the coop, which is about 30% cheaper than Safeway.
DS has been wearing holes in his clothes lately. Chews holes in his sleeves at the wrists, holes in the knees of his pants from falling or playing. I've been doing this for a while now, but I've made him some patches for those, star shapes with a contrasting fabric, I did a freezer paper stencil of a dinosaur for one pair of pants. I use the zigzag stitch function on the sewing machine to adhere a cut out shape to another scrap of fabric, then sew that onto his existing clothes to fix the holes.
I signed up for Wardrobe Refashion: http://nikkishell.typepad.com/wardroberefashion/
Open curtains during the day, shut them at night. Plastic sheeting on all the windows. Soaking dishes for a while before scrubbing them to save water and heating. Am eagerly awaiting the return of clothesline weather! It should be warm enough soon to put up drying racks in the garage (nowhere suitable inside for them - washing is done in the garage).
which one do you use? i like how easy the powder one looks to make, but do you know if one works better than another? i swear, we spend tooooo much money on cleaning products and i would like to start making my own. i know it has been brought up here before but now i'm actually ready to take it on! thanx for the link.
I've made the powder one many times, super easy to make. Grating the bar soap (you can use ivory bar soap, too) is the hardest part. I thought it did just fine, my mom said she didn't like it cause it didn't dissolve all the way. But I never noticed it not dissolving. I need to make a new batch, now that you bring it up!
The liquid one. I have a 3 gallon bucket from powdered SUN brand detergent (I think it was around 7 dollars and it lasted us nearly a year - two fairly clean adults and one messy but not too bad 6 then 7 year old - mama uses about 1/2 the recommended amount of commercial detergents always and it cleans our clothes just fine). Since then I've been making it. I use the full 1/2 cup scoop of the liquid-gel stuff. It separates, especially when it's cold out. During the summer it didn't seem to separate that badly. I just try to get some water and some gel in the scoop every time. I've made it a few times now; I no longer use fels naptha, I'm using a sandalwood scented soap now, Bee and Flower brand, about 50 cents at the grocery store.
Instead of dryer sheets I poured some fabric softener into a spray bottle (sandalwood and lavender scented); then spray a designated cloth with that and toss it into the dryer. I also use dryer balls which claim to reduce drying time, but I don't know if that really works.
I am also awaiting clothesline weather! I can't wait.
my sons did that whole chewing sleeves/collar thing (gah!) when you just can't repair/patch up anymore, I used the non-chewed part for their quilts
I am going to try that recipe ASAP, looks great! I love baking bread
creative life | children
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake. ~ Mar
that save money too.
I want to learn more food preservation, for sure, and we currently have a vegetable garden that produces most of the veggies we eat, at least in season. I want a chest freezer, which we don't have, but it is tricky since our power goes out and stays out pretty often (five times a year, for half a day to two weeks at a time). I make jam. I traded three chickens for some flour (live chickens), and we have chickens and they'll be laying in a few months. We will also sell some eggs, hopefully enough to keep the chicken food/supplies covered at least.
I stopped buying shampoo, conditioner and hair product and have so far successfully been using a no-poo recipe for hair care, from items in my kitchen (cheap items. I used to spend kind of a lot on hair stuff as my hair is difficult - frizzy and crazy and frizz products don't do anything except make it look greasy).
I mend our clothes when I can. I knit, but that is more of an expense. I have "fixed" a few thrift sweaters that were totally worth it, $2 cashmere sweaters plus a little labor.
I don't buy a lot of clothes, most of them are free or used.
I want to start biking for all of my local stuff, but we'd need to make or buy this bike attachment thingy so I can cart the kid around safely.
We don't ever go to target anymore, since no matter what I go in for I spend about $80 every time I go. No matter if I go in just to use the bathroom.
We cut waaaaay back on meals out. We don't go to shows or movies really, so we don't pay for that, or childcare. My son goes to preschool, but my aunt pays for it because she's great.
I don't shower very often (but I am not very greasy generally), We try to buy locally when we can (i just ordered seeds for the garden from a local store and I get 20% off some of them and don't have to pay for shipping, so I save on the very same seeds I would buy from the same company if I ordered online or from the catalog).
I want to do some more trading with the women I know for different things, I think it would be great.
I found a turnbury cashmere sweater at a thrift store last week for 50 cents! 50 cents! I could not believe it, the whole time I was standing in line I thought, this is a joke, someone is going to say something, where are the cameras, LOL. the only thing wrong with it was that it had a little hole in the collar and a tiny rip alongside one arm, both I fixed in a few minutes as soon as I got home. These sweaters retail brand new for $175...used on ebay for $35ish dollars. I got one for 50 cents! I love turnbury sweaters because they are so light they so light but so incredibly warm, they are teh awesome
creative life | children
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake. ~ Mar
No more eating out(once a month we splurge)
Making all our food, no more processed anything
All napkins are cloth
cloth diapers
compost to reuse in garden
My mom has organic chicken eggs, she brings them once a week
I trade my hair services for alot of non essential things-I love love barter system
husband is a coffee roaster so we have coffee at our disopsal(no going out for coffee)
homebrewing hard cider
took away the t.v.- all movies are from library
dh used to be a mechanic, so he does all our car work
How do you homebrew hard cider????
I do a lot of that stuff you do too. I wish we could have chickens here! It's against neighborhood covenants though. We also have netflix, our library movies are kinda lame and limited.
all kid movies are from libray! We do netflix as well. And I don't know how to do the hard cider I just drink it happily after it's finished. My dh is brewing it. I will ask him to explain it so it makes sense!
Please do! I'm interested.
We've made hard cider by throwing some (a tablespoon?) bread yeast into a gallon jug of cider and then letting it sit in the kitchen for a week or so (until it looks really bubbly). Then we chill and drink it without even going to the bother of bottling it because we are lazy and a gallon of low alcohol cider never really hurt anyone, did it?.
As i type this I'm shaking with laughter thinking of how weird we sound. I'm sure there are real recipes out there that sound less devil may care....
that sounds like the first alcohol recipe used by humans.. it all starts that way, no?
there's no government like NO government!
~hildare
there's no government like NO government!
~hildare
chickens rock. You could build a chicken tractor for your yard and they'd also make eggs...or get a small electric fence, they're really portable. Not to pressure you, but they're so easy and funny and fabulous that it seems like now could work.
The awesome mama who is our techmama, Lynn, runs http://www.thenewhomemaker.com/ -- if you look through her site & forums, she's got all kinds of goodies along these lines.
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library
"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library
Navigation
Who's online
Who's New
- BeachBunny
- gayle.mallinger
- Mamapocket
- mjcwriter
- addie smith
is awesome, I use it so much! It cleans up almost everything and leaves a crisp, natural clean smell
creative life | children
Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand-and melting like a snowflake. ~ Mar