Depending on your canning equipment you can make that back real fast if you have a garden or fruit trees. I paid about 40$ new for my canner (not pressure canner) it holds 16 quarts or 32 pints. Jars a lot of time you can get cheap or free as there are many people abandoning canning. After years of working I recently have started doing more canning and dehydrating etc but the move north wreaked havoc the availability on garden produce( went from zone 5 where tomatoes were weeds to zone 2 I can barely grow one) Hoping that someday I will get a haul from my fruit trees 3 years and nothing yet. Maybe this year. However I can get free apples each year if I go picking.

I've always found a big freezer essential to my food plan and it was the first thing dh and I bought when we married in 1995.
As far as initial outlay, yes, but there are so many other things people spend money on that aren't as critical to long term food savings. I don't see a freezer as a convenience product like a bread machine, but a way to store bulk purchased foods.
I only cook for three so many things get frozen- a big pot of soup, for instance.

Yes, I agree that investing in a freezer, good canning equipment, etc., is wise. I am also wondering about the time investment, though, because it is substantial when you are cooking from scratch to be both frugal and smarter about what we eat. It takes lots of planning. And time. I'm not suggesting it isn't worth it, I advocate it. I do and have always done it myself. I just think it is harder to accomplish than it looks, and you have to have the right mindset and some equipment to do it or you give up.

It is a considerable investment if you buy everything new, but I have gotten many of my money-saving things free. God bless this forum and God bless Ohiomom who sent me a bread machine that she was no longer using. It has revolutionized my life and saved me lots of money. My freezer I got for free from my parents who were no longer using it. And you can get things from Freecycle and used on Craigslist and a lot of folks get things at garage sales. Now, there is time involved in that!! So yes, for me it has always been an issue between time invested vs money saved because "time is money." I have a friend who does a lot of gleaning, but for me that would be a time investment to find the places to go to get the stuff. There is a produce auction about 50 min. away from where I live, and I know I could go there and get produce for pennies on the dollar, but not only would there be time invested in getting there, but then all the time to process it. Right now that kind of thing doesn't fit into my life since I am commuting over an hour one way each day for work. This not only eats up time but exhausts me. I used to do much more of this kind of thing when I could walk to work in ten minutes. Canning equipment is cheap, but it is very labor intensive process to put up foods. I enjoy it so as a hobby I consider it recreation time. If I had more "free" time I would do it more. But right now I can barely keep up with housework between job, school and looking for full time work, which is a full time job. Plus family obligations. So you do have to consider how much money you would save doing it yourself vs the time and how much you could be earning with that time. Since I am my own sole support, I have to work to keep the roof over my head, so any time spent putting by food has to be discretionary time. I can get by on a very small income though, so if I had an income stream of about 25K to make the house and health bills, I could probably easily do things on my own to contribute about 10K in labor and outcomes, from garden, home maintenance, savings due to finding good deals at thrift stores, etc.

Sounds a little like you are finding excuses NOT to be frugal....and by the way healthy?...Buit then you say you did cook that way when your kids were young...
The time involved in making a couple of loaves of bread is really not much....you certainly don't to have to watch it rise, you can writing your best seller while the yeast is doing it's thing.
Canning jars are reusable, year after year, and because of that often found for very little money at yard sales, thrift stores....and just by the curb. No need to invest in a canner, your soup pot will do for a few jars.
OH? you don't have a soup pot? You say you just open a can?
If you bone and cut up a chicken 4 times....you will find you can do it almost as fast as you can open and rinse a package of precut chicken pieces....plus you will find you will do a better job with no bone splinters and the meat cut closer to the bone.
Of course you do need some freezer space....at least a little more than enough to hold 2 ice cube trays and a pack of frozen peas.
Amazing how my grandmother managed to make all her own bread, pies and cakes, make some of her own clothes and some of mine, on a treadel sweing machine, crochet "fancy work"....doilys and pillow case trimming, put up shelves of tomatoes, catsup, pickles of all sorts, jams, jellies, always make soup from scratch, feed and care for a couple of dozen chickens, gather the eggs, and kill and pluck one now and then, gut it and cut it up and cook it for dinner. She washed the clothes in a Thor wringer washer, hung them out and ironed everything, sox, underwear, towels (yes!!) and diapers. Floors were swept and scrubbed on her hands and knees....
AND when the kids had grown, but still lived at home, she worked part time at an icecream parlor.
She lived frugally because she had to. She washed the feathers from her chickens and made pillows and feather beds. She skinned and fed her family the rabbits my uncle caught in the field across the street and cleaned and fried the cat fish and blue gills from the creek. She had no freezer nor even a refrigerator....but an ice box....and she could make 2 lemon pies from one lemon because lemons were "dear".
It really doesn't take a lot of money to be frugal, just a will and determination....or necessity.
Linda C

Your grandmother didn't work a full time job on top of all that either, Linda.
I don't think too many would prefer that life and regardless, it's not the point of the post. Life is different now and not comparable to the rose colored past.

I have a relative who has found many bread machines - that work great- at thrift stores. She picks them up for family members.

My grandmother did all that too. With the help of my grandfather, her kids, and her extended family that lived nearby. She had a couple of sisters that ran farms with their husbands. This situation does not exist for my grandmother's grandchildren and great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. I go back and visit the old home town, almost all of that is gone. Almost all of the grandkids had to move to find work. Two out of grandmas EIGHT siblings moved away. Now, two out of my mom's TWO children moved away. I don't believe it is that simple. Just as everything isn't circumstances beyond our control, that doesn't mean that everything that happens to us is due to our choices. It's a little of both and often a balancing act, and I for one think that is worthy of discussion without condescension.

No, grandma didn't have to work a full time job, not enough hours in the day if she was doing all that! She also had no other options as they could not be bought. And making bread and then writing your novel? More likley you are cleaning up the kitchen. Using your soup pot with a few jars instead of a canner with many is double and triple work and energy source and certainly would not be frugal if you are canning up your harvest.

There are only two in our household but I can my own red cabbage and maybe some apple sauce. I can it because we like it. Would I ever make my own jam again? Nope, I am the only one that eats it, and not even much so I will purchase ready made ones.

Frugality is spending your time and money wisely. Just because you "made it from scratch" does not mean it is less expensive. Having the right equipment certainly helps. Those "it only takes a few minutes to make" things add up during the day if you calculate in your skill level, the prep work and clean up into it.

Bulk buys and storage space,an effecient freezer, a vacuum sealer, purchasing in season, and using the items in a reasonable time are all investments. Your time is also a major investment. If you do not enjoy doing it, you won't and the investment is now lost.

It's not simple...it never was....and you can believe that Grandpa never lifted a hand to do anything but hoe the garden and pick the tomatoes...And grandma worked part time once the kids were grown...but still living at home.
People just make it too hard to cook and prepare food from scratch....and it's not. Frankly it takes almost no more time to knead a batch of bread than it does to wash out and put away a bread machine.
Washing and picking over beans takes no more time that opening 3 cans of beans and dumping them into the pot.....and costs about 1/3 as much. You don't have to stand by the stove and watch it cook.

And as for holding down a full time job and still making bread by hand and canning a lot of produce and cutting up your own chickens...lots and lots of women do just that.....ask Annie for one.

As for the "frugality" of coupon clipping and pouring over ads and then storing the excess because when you buy 3 the 4th can is free....I sometimes think that's a game rather than real money saving frugality. Usung coupons for things you use makes sense, being a "majo0r league couponer" does not.

I have friends who don't cook....and friends for whom making a gourmet luncheon consists of opening 2 cans of soup, mixing them together and adding a splash of sherry!....and opening some canned crescent rolls and baking them.
Yeah that's faster then home made rolls and home made cream of mushroom and asparagus soup....and likely doesn't cost any more...or much more, but certainly not as tasty nor as healthy.

My point is you don't have to have a zo bread machine nor space to keep it, nor shelves all along one side of the basment and a huge canner, nor special knives and a 22 Cu ft freezer to do a lot of your own food prep.
And Lpink, perhaps your farming family had help from extended family...my grandmother did not, nor did many many other people living in non rural areas. Both of my grandmothers lived in non rural areas, but had chickens (it was not at all unusual before say 1950) and canned and made from scratch and butchered and skinned and scaled their food.
But in addition they scrubbed floors and clothes on a washboard, hung them starched them and ironed them, wrote letters by hand and had time to teach me to knit and crochet.

It's all what you WANT to do.

No, Linda, I am certainly not making excuses to not be frugal. As I said, I am frugal now, as I was when the kids were young. Always, in every aspect of our lives. I have a pot of split peas and an old, formerly frozen ham bone in my soup pot at this very moment, made with lots of carrot ends, onion ends, etc., that were also frozen, and enough fresh carrots, garlic, and celery to make it wonderful when the bread that is rising on the counter is fresh out of the oven.

I have always prepared fresh foods with lots of vegetables from my gardens. I shop sales. I don't buy cake mixes, hamburger helper or anything other than all natural peanut butter, because it is important to us to eat as few chemicals as we can.

I feel a bit like a misquoted, misunderstood politician, because I didn't say a thing about opening a can of soup. I know about time management and am certainly not watching the pot boil or the bread rise, but I must be alert and keep checking, and that keeps me in the house, doing other things. I am not making doilies, but I am sewing a robe for my granddtrs ninth b'day on Friday.....out of soft terry cloth I waited to buy on sale so I could make it just the way she wants it, for $11.00! I am very happy about that.

Regardless, it takes time and motivation.

No, Linda, I am certainly not making excuses to not be frugal. As I said, I am frugal now, as I was when the kids were young. Always, in every aspect of our lives. I have a pot of split peas and an old, formerly frozen ham bone in my soup pot at this very moment, made with lots of carrot ends, onion ends, etc., that were also frozen, and enough fresh carrots, garlic, and celery to make it wonderful when the bread that is rising on the counter is fresh out of the oven.

I have always prepared fresh foods with lots of vegetables from my gardens. I shop sales. I don't buy cake mixes, hamburger helper or anything other than all natural peanut butter, because it is important to us to eat as few chemicals as we can.

I feel a bit like a misquoted, misunderstood politician, because I didn't say a thing about opening a can of soup. I know about time management and am certainly not watching the pot boil or the bread rise, but I must be alert and keep checking, and that keeps me in the house, doing other things. I am not making doilies, but I am sewing a robe for my granddtrs ninth b'day on Friday.....out of soft terry cloth I waited to buy on sale so I could make it just the way she wants it, for $11.00! I am very happy about that.

Regardless, it takes time and motivation.

OK, Linda. Never mind. Your family and experience certainly trumps mine. How lucky for you.

Well said sherrmann, and I agree. I think it's a bad side of human nature to judge other people for not doing what we may have the time or inclination to do, but others may not. If that were a fair way to do it, nobody would measure up. Oh, you make your own bread. But do you grind your own wheat? Oh, you grind your own wheat? But do you grow it? Everybody has different lives. There have definitely been times for me where I realize that I'm going overboard. Nobody really enjoyed my lumpy homemade candy canes, for example. I think frugality should be more about increasing the pleasure-to-dollar ratio, and less about telling each other how to live.

Do you still use your washboard, Linda?

sherrmann - getting back to your original post, I agree wholeheartedly that many of the methods mentioned in the $3 thread require time and/or appliances. In my youth when I had time but no money, I realized that the two were equivalent. I used my time to make all my own clothes, and I made all my own foods from scratch. That way I could look respectable and eat reasonably well. Most of our student meals were chicken or pasta, but we made them taste good. I learnt to make ragu bolognese from my Italian roommates, and I taught them to debone chickens for stir fry.

Now that I earn a salary, I have no time but I have the money to buy appliances and space for storage. I make stock in huge quantities to freeze for later, I smoke whole pork shoulders to make pulled pork, and quadruple batches of pecan rolls. That's how we keep the 18 cu ft freezer filled. And also how we sit down to an entire home-cooked meal every day despite my crazy workday which sometimes runs 12-14 hours.

It means I spend most of my weekends shopping and cooking. I knit while reading or watching a movie. I listen to audiobooks while stirring sauces or chopping up vegetables. Multitasking is a way of life. The only leisure time I have is when I'm away from home, usually on business, when I'm working 16 hours a day but at least when it's over, it's over.

My mother worked in the family business, cooked all meals from scratch and raised 3 children. But she didn't choose this way of life, and she resented it. I was pressed into service as soon as I could reach the counter, so I grew up able to take care of myself. The big difference between me and her is that I choose to live the way I do, and that difference is significant. If someone chooses a different lifestyle, I would cheer them on.

Cheryl

Sherrman....you said you cooked that way...I wasn't talking about you...I was talking about the people who DO make excuses, who say I have no time to do that.
But I am puzzled by your thread wondering about the "investment in frugality" when you state that you manage to cook frugally without a major investment in equipment. No need to invest in stuff....I have made bread with a table spoon a large sauce pot and an upside down roasting pan to bake it on....some of the best bread I ever made. You don't NEED a bread machine a scale, a Danish whisk, a peel and a Pampered Chef loaf pan to make good bread.

And Bumble...I will pretend I didn't see your latest post.

But Linda, they don't have the time! Out the door at 7 am, home at 5:30-6 pm, dinner to make, homework, laundry, bill paying,clean up, teacher conference, sports or lesson for the kids, church meeting, get the kid ready for bed and before you know it is 11pm. Repeat the cycle the next day and they should still bake some bread?

And we all know that Annie is not a mere mortal like us, but WonderWomen. And your Grandmother did all those things because she didn't have a nice big grocery store with freezer full of skined rabbits and a washing machine. She had to do it.

We lived frugally when I was growing up and believe me, I don't want to go back to that kind of poverty. But at the same time I don't need all those fancy expensive gadgets that people have nowadays, either. I use my knives to slice and chop and my hands to knead bread dough. I enjoy the simplicity of it. I have a dish washer (for the first time in my life) and rarely use it. With just the two of us I think it's quicker just to do them in the sink. Even when I was working full time and managing the home and kid I did it this way. I think most people now are too busy and consider the kitchen chores to be drudgery and simply don't do it. Now the kids expect to be chauffered around to every event and activity after school, who has time to cook the old-fashioned way, or the inclination to eat that way, either?

I have a daughter who works full time and has 4 kids. She's a teacher, so in addition she has papers to correct. Things get easier once the oldest gets a drivers license and easier still when there are 2 kid drivers...but she still baked her own bread....not always but often enough. And she made a big pot of soup on weekends and cinnamon rolls for a bake sale and a casserole for a friend with a new baby.

I find that if they want to do it, people will find the time but I find a lot of people are very busy just being busy.
And some people just don't want to be kitchen busy, and that's fine, but don't say "I don't have time to cook from scratch, I wish I did"....because if you really wanted to you would find a way.

Well I remember when my son in law made partner in his law firm and my daughter said..."Well We now can afford to send your shirts out!" Over the years, she would have saved a bundle if she had starched and ironed his dress shirts, but she would rather make bread or a pot of spaghetti sauce with those tomatoes sitting on the table.
And we all know of women who are raising a family, working 40 hours and going to school. it's all about what's really important to you.

So to get back to the OP's subject, it really doesn't have to take a big investment to cook from scratch. Remember, there is a whole industry built around kitchen equipment we don't really need, but are nice to have....and you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming from my cuisinart and my big le Cruset pot and my micro planes and instant read and and... I can cook a meal from flour water yeast, a whole chicken and a little salt....with minimal equipment....but I would rather have some equipment.

I wonder, why, if your daughter was working full time and raising kids and running a household SHE would have been expected to be the one to starch and iron HIS shirts?

All these posts sound like these women are single parents and maybe some of them are, but why must women be superwoman and be expected to be the one to do it all? I guess if he's (or whatever sex the partner of a woman is) doing the laundry and bill paying and vacuuming and the rest of the stuff so she can spend the time doing from scratch cooking because she love it, then it sounds reasonable. If not, it sounds like your grandma, with an additional burden of a full time out of the home job.

Why do we women ever do what we do? because we feel the need to take care of people....to nurture and because she could iron his shirts and he could not....but he did all the book keeping...because she could not.
My father cooked most of the meat that got cooked...but for things like stews and potroasts. but he was in charge of steaks, rib roasts, turkeys, lamb chops and legs of lamb.
My son does most of the cooking....but for cakes, brownies and cookies....but he does pies and sweet rolls.
Who knows why couples share chores like they do? My grandmother never lifted a hoe....my husband didn't dare step a foot into my garden.
Who knows about how people choose to divide chores?

I totally agree with you Sherrmann. It takes time, money to invest, space in the house, the right kind of house, and right minded people around. What is that kind of frugality worth?

Cheap store bought bread and regular exercise are much more valuable to health, if not sanity.

Uuuh....isn't this a cooking forum??
We are about recipes for good food not cheap store bought bread.

Linda, you know there's nothing wrong with cheap, store bought bread.

We choose our priorities, and making everything from scratch takes a HUGE commitment, one that many of us are unwilling or unable to make. It is expensive to start. We and volunteer and travel and work, and take photographs, and cook, and sew, and craft, and care for our families, and raise foster children and foster pets, etc. etc. and we all do it in different ways.

I love the CF, and the great recipes, and I make some of them, and even contribute one on occasion. But I don't have to embrace a life of making everything from scratch, because I'm on this forum.

My grandmother (1882 - 1972) got up at 4AM and made bread many mornings, and made everything from scratch, because she had to. She also had a ringer washer, and had to take the bus to the grocery store, there was only one, in the center of town. She was up late, up early, working all weekend to make things she needed for the week while she went off and scrubbed floors so she and my grandfather, who was a carpenter, could feed, clothe and house their children. It was a tough life and I don't think she looked back on them as the "good old days", and I sure don't.

What I make, I make because it's a pleasure to do it and very gratifying when it's good and my family enjoys it.

Unfortunately I was one of those single mothers and I did all those parent things, worked full time and still canned and had a garden, baked bread, etc.

BUT, and it's a great big but (didn't PeeWee Herman say "everyone I know has a great big but?), I'm not like everyone and everyone is not like me. Grandma used to tell me "different isn't wrong, it's just different". I'm not a WonderWoman (but thanks, Peppi, LOL) but if I were a child they'd probably diagnose me as hyperactive. I need about 5 hours of sleep and do well on that. I hate television because I can't sit still long enough to watch a program for an entire half hour. I save a lot of money per month because I don't have TV, so that's enough to pay for my bad canning habit. I'm too impatient for Facebook or Pinterest, I can't stand wading through everything to find something I'm looking for. I actually enjoy canning and baking bread.

Of course, there are the things I will not do. I get to pick and choose. I won't iron. Period. If I have an article of clothing that needs ironing, I'll give it to Goodwill. I abhor shopping (except for groceries, go figure) and won't do it unless absolutely required. I'll spend three days shoveling calf pens and won't spend 3 hours at the mall, LOL.

My canning jars and canner were Grandma's. The Squeezo was Mother's. Deb very kindly gave me the bread machine, Nancy gifted me with the KitchenAid that I used to make my own wedding cake, as well as the wedding cakes of each of my daughters. Like CLBlakey I have a big garden, access to fruit trees, etc. It's far cheaper to can it, even factoring in time, than it is to buy it. The trick, as Peppi pointed out, is to can what you like, it's not frugal if you don't use it.

Of course, it takes 5 minutes to soak beans and about that long to put ingredients in a bread machine, then you go do something else and come back. Canning takes much longer and a pressure canner takes much more attention and time. Peppi's red cabbage, though, is worth it, it's delicious AND healthy.

However, some things are neither frugal in cost nor in time, although they are much healthier. Elery has just been introduced to the wonderful world of chicken plucking. (grin) They are farm raised and pastured, no antibiotics, organically fed and humanely treated. We spent 5 hours today plucking and cleaning 25 of them. My nephew fed and watered them daily in return for 6 of them. I figure our cost per chicken is about $6.00. They weigh about 5 pounds each. I could buy them more cheaply at the store with a much smaller expenditure of time.

So, is it frugal to raise my own chickens, or is it a luxury?

westsider, I agree that regular exercise is important to your health, but cheap white bread is not. If you don't like to bake, it's healthier mentally perhaps, but not physically. Even expensive white bread isn't healthy, really. Doesn't stop me from eating it, of course.

Yes, this is a cooking forum, so I'm only assuming that people are here because they like to cook and want to. That said, I enjoyed cooking much less when I had kids and work and no money and had to get a meal on the table every night. Duty cooking was NOT fun.

Annie

Linda, I think you missed the point- that frugality has its costs. If this thread spoke of recipes, I missed it. Altho Sherrmann cooks from scratch and makes bread, she was not necessarily talking about those things.

One's time is finite. Time is over before the money runs out.

Historically, managing a food budget is a way that women can control part of their lives. For most, housing and it's related costs take a bigger bite of a budget, way more than food. But a food budget has a gazillion ways to be fiddled with.

Had a great, albeit long post ready earlier today and as the cursor was moving toward preview, the computer overheated and all was lost. Oh well.

I'm seeing a couple extremes here. Yes there's costs, but I don't think special knives are required to cut up a roast or a chicken and you certainly don't need a "Zo" to make bread. At the same time, you don't need a KitchenAid mixer to make a cake either. You also don't need a SubZero refrigerator or a Viking stove. Some choose to do any or all of those as their choices. I do have problems when someone buys a freezer "to save money" and the saving money is thought to be coming by loading it with pizzas and chicken nuggets from "Cost Club". And not figure the cost of electricity or the cost of the power outage or door left cracked open.

But you certainly can be frugal in certain areas and put the investment toward something else. One can easily turn down the thermostat and turn off some lights and use the savings to buy some CFLs to save more. Then use that to buy the fancy mixer.

There are costs related to things. For instance couponing. The cost of going to different stores with gas at nearly $4/gal at times. Plus the cost of 68 bottles of shampoo sitting on the shelf that'll never get used.

I personally know 3 couples who went from two jobs to one and one stays home and works there. They all look at it not so much as living frugally, rather as living sensibly. There's a lot of issues to consider with what's called frugality. To spend $10 on something, you have to earn over $13.33 for someone in a 25% tax bracket. That doesn't include the cost to drive to the store to get it, drive back home, and other potential costs. So not spending that saved you potentially $15 or more in work. We trade time for money.

The OP has a good point though. A great example is when someone decides to burn wood to "save money". So they spend $10,000.00 to have a fireplace or wood stove put in. Then you buy a couple chain saws to cut the wood. Then you buy a wood splitter to split the wood. Hire a couple people to help you since you're not too likely to lay up a year's worth of wood for a northern home by yourself. Then there's gas, oil, chain sharpening and replacement and often they wind up buying a 4wd pickup and/or a trailer to haul it. Then when they're all set up, then comes time to find where to cut this wood. Oh, guess that's solved by buying a wood lot somewhere, or just buy the wood while the saws sit in the garage.

My life is very different from my mother's and my grandmother's. Mom was a stay home mom, Nana never even had a driver's license - I work 6 hrs a day and commute 1 hour each way. I have arranged my hours so I am home at 3:00 to greet the kids after school. This also allows me to make home made dinners most nights, but there are lots of nights when everyone has activities/meetings/part-time jobs when it's just easier to grab Subway or sushi. I don't beat myself up and I don't apologize to anyone. I have a couple of comfort food casseroles that use the dreaded cream of something soup. So what? Our family sits down for dinner as often as we can and that's what's important to us. I bake bread, sew costumes, have a small garden, can and freeze fruits and veggies when I can. I don't expect to be judged and I don't judge. Walk a mile in my moccasins...

We've had this conversation many times at my house....the time vs. $$ thing. We seem to have come full circle over the last thirtymumblemumble years. We started out poor...building a house (not having one built, and no...it's still not done), getting pregnant and starting a business all at the same time. Frugality was a priority. We worked at home, so it was easy to keep a garden and cook from scratch and clip coupons.

Fast forward 15 years. Business was good. Biggest account went bankrupt. I went to work doing whatever I could while DH scrambled to keep the business going. (One of my jobs was working for our Extension teaching people on food stamps how to live frugally, and I was snarfing gas station deli food on the way to my next client, lol.)I worked full time, DH spent seven days/wk in the shop. Time was at a premium. The garden shrunk and we finally gave it up. We ate a lot of restaurant food. I got sick.

Now we can afford whatever food we like and we've gone back to homegrown and homemade. My garden is my meditation...good for my soul, and we're paying way more attention to where our food comes from these days. Time is still an issue though, so my focus has changed. We spent the last three weekends putting up the last of the garden and the pantry and freezer is full of 'convenience food'. We're spoiled on homemade salsa, sauces, jams and relishes, and we can pop open a jar of homemade soup or pull some nice ragu out of the freezer for instant dinners. Fortunately DH (sort of) retired and is happy to till, weed, prep and clean up. Now if he'd just finish my house....

As far as investment in equipment goes...I married a tool junkie. He retired and turned his attention to kitchen tools. Yes, I have a Zo. And when I mentioned it'd be nice to make 'real' bread again, I wound up with an impact mill and a couple of hundred pounds of assorted wheat. Do I actually make homemade bread? Once in awhile. Cost effective? Heck no, that mill won't pay for itself until I retire, but when I have a day off, I enjoy the process and we appreciate the quality.

Cynic, I laughed at your firewood story. For us, heating with wood was the cheapest way to go for years. The wood was close, we already had the 4WD to plow snow, DH was young and could maintain his own saw. Then the boontoolies became the 'burbs and the firewood disappeared. Now we use oil and electric heat and had a nice man deliver a load of prime buckskin tamarack for my wood cookstove and we gladly wrote him a check. Also reminds me of a former neighbor who lived a few hundred yards from fairly cheap hydroelectric power and spent tens of thousands going 'off the grid' with a humongous remote-start propane generator and some solar panels (with a north-facing house in a thick forest). She moved because she couldn't run her microwave and clothes dryer, lol.

"------- and I for one think that is worthy of discussion without condescension."

Very well said.

Sherman, it doesn't matter, time investment/money investment/frugality, extreme frugality will soon be a requirement for many people. Many people will find they have to make more time because they can't make more money. Doing things to save money because there is no choice, not because they like to.

The formula for balancing time/money for food will change soon.

Not an expert in politics and world economy, I just have simplistic views of what is facing all of us very soon, i.e. challenges posed by our unsustainable deficits and debt,

Regardless of who ends up being our president, we are facing a desperate economic calamity with no solutions in sight.

I can't seem to understand the optimism when each one of us has to pay back more than $50,000 to others. By "Each one" meaning all babies and senior citizens included. And what about interest payment on $50,000?

With our Per Capita Government Debt Worse than Greece, as well as Ireland, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain, we still want more and more entitlements and we are still borrowing like no tomorrow.

Both candidates promised to stop imports, together with China's severe labor shortage due to the successful One-Child-Per-Family policy, prices for everything will skyrocket sooner than you like. Debilitating Inflation combining with devastating austerity seems to be an unavoidable mathematical conclusion.

It is good that topics like this, "Frugality", is being discussed in a Cooking Forum.

dcarch

Just for the record I used to have a big garden not anymore Zone 2 and a quack grass problem have ruined that for me. I do however have fruit trees but they are babies hoping one day for a crop. After reading this threat I feel so fortunate not to have to work outside the home. I did for a few years and "Broke" trying to keep up. "Cheers" to all you working mom's you amaze me. Single mom's I don't know how you do it ((HUG)). I do hope some day to get a food dehydrator my last one (garage sale find) broke we love jerky for hiking and at $22 per lb it is quite a savings to make hamburger jerky. (dreaming now) Maybe someday ..........they are just so expensive new but I keep looking on kijiji

A number of years ago, DH & I lived in Europe for a 4 year period. We had a furnished apartment with a rather small kitchen that had a stove and a very small bar fridge. Not much cupboard/storage space. Very little in the way of appliances - we even used a pour over cone for coffee with water boiled on a kettle on the stove. I've never been fond of canned/boxed/frozen or even preserved foods so I shopped about every other day for food we would consume for the next day or two. I still cooked from scratch and made my lunches for work but instead of buying (for example) a bag of potatoes, I bought enough for that evening meal and maybe leftovers for the next night. Small cuts of meat from the butcher, a few buns and maybe something sweet from the bakery, only a few slices of deli meats/cheese. Dairy was in small containers. Farmer's market every Saturday for fresh produce. I probably spent more time shopping but we wasted very, very little in the way of food. I often walked so didn't pick up any of those extras that I would have to carry home (those things that now tend to find their way into my now huge grocery cart). The money we spent on groceries seemed minimal yet we ate well and I don't recall missing anything. Maybe there's more than one way to be frugal.

pudge - Europeans pay a far higher percentage of their income on food, and they spend a lot more time shopping for and preparing it. Their lifestyle places more importance on food as a social activity, so it isn't a big deal for most. But they have many other support services - good daycare and mass transportation - which help families keep costs down. It's a completely different approach to life. But it is not more frugal.

Cheryl

1. Everyone has 24-hours in the day. After that, it's more or less a crap-shoot. You control it, or it (and circumstances) controls you.

2. Not every labor-saving device, appliance, gadget, and tool at our disposal in the kitchen should be considered an "investment" towards being frugal, but they can be, and often are. When it comes to being frugal, "things" generally amortized (so-to-speak) over the lifetime of ownership, whether they are used a little or a lot. They usually don't require more investment over time. Food, on the other hand, is our big budget item that we have more control of.

3. Home food preservation of all kinds (canning, dehydrating, freezing, fermenting, curing, smoking, etc.) take time, effort, energy, and "tools", and we each have to weigh the cost/benefits. The pleasure in doing some things can be the sole benefit, without regard to cost.

I no longer do home canning because it doesn't save me money, while dehydrating does. I teach canning and dehydrating classes, but I include how to calculate the cost, including start-up costs, in those classes. I do fermentation which doesn't require a lot of pricy equipment or time. The time involved is minimal because most of the time isn't hands-on, it's waiting for the magic to happen. I do it for the health aspects of these items, and some of them are frugal choices as well.

4. To answer sherrmann's question "I would love to know how much time you spend daily and on shopping days preparing the food and budget, shopping, storing, cooking and cleaning up, including wait times."

You would probably be surprised how little time I spend on my daily food tasks because I'm a really efficient person and have followed the same meal plan and dietary plan (Basic-4) for so many years it's second nature. Today is stir-fry - I already have most of the vegetables chopped when I prepared vegetables for meals on Monday and Tuesday, as well as the meat portioned in the freezer (now in the refrigerator thawing). Wednesday is my busy day (errands, groceries, library), which is why I put an easy meal like stir-fry on the menu.

I cook a large batch of brown rice in my Thermal Cooker (5-minutes prep., 10-minutes cooking time, ready in 2-hours) and divide it into 1-cup portions in the freezer. Many of these kinds of tasks (cooked wheat, beans, rice, mashed potatoes, homemade and dehydrated noodles, etc.), I only do a few times a year (cook once, use for many meals). I rely on my freezer for pre-cooked and portioned items for most meals. I cook once and freeze things in portions to use later. I bake about once a week (30-minutes to 3-hours, depending on need - includes waiting time and clean-up). Occasionally I can skip a week, even 2 weeks, by using things already in the freezer.

I literally shop at home for groceries for meal preparation, so my once-a-week shopping is based on my on-going grocery list. About 75-80% of my food dollars goes to replacing food in storage (from the grocery store or ordered on-line and dropped shipped to the house - freeze-dried foods, powdered milk, etc.).

I keep a Price Book for price comparison, and have used this method since 1993. I update prices as I walk through the store shopping, or when I scan the weekly ads. I also keep an inventory in the same book - which is little more than adding a slash (/) when I add something, and crossing through it (X) when I take something out of storage and move it to the kitchen.

I check the ads on-line (5-10 minutes) from the two stores I shop, and spend about 1-hour shopping (including drive time to two stores) and a few minutes to put it away (I'm a do-it-know person). I use very few coupons - mostly those sent to me from the store, which are also the things I frequently purchase. I primarily use whole foods (nature's original FAST food), so that eliminates all the highly-processed and convenience foods associated with coupons. I make my own "convenience" foods from ingredients found in storage. Making mixes might be an afternoon project if I'm making a number of them; or as-needed, which might take a few extra minutes when I've got many of the ingredients already out for baking.

Daily tasks (kefir, wheat grass, sprouts) less that 15-minutes per day.

I've been busy dehydrating apples the last few weeks, and that takes about 20-30 minutes hands-on. A cutting mandoline will make quick work when slicing large quantities of food. Place the slices in acidified water, then a quick spin in the salad spinner and onto the drying racks. Drying time varies depending on the food type (3 hours or as long as 18-hours).

I'm an early riser, between 3:00 and 3:30 a.m., 4:00 a.m. walk/weights (45-60-minutes before breakfast) and try to get cooking/baking/cleaning/gardening tasks done before lunch (11:00 a.m.). I spend afternoons planning or teaching classes, or putting together things for the classes. I knit, read for pleasure/studying/researching for classes or something I'm interested in each afternoon. I also do some volunteer work, but not nearly as much as I once did.

Dinner rarely takes longer than 20-30 minutes to prepare.

-Grainlady

If you calculate the money you save with CFLs, it's very little. They take over a year to pay for themselves with average use. If you have old, crappy wiring or fixtures, they often burn out within months, in which case you've lost money. This has happened to me in several different fixtures. If not, you'd be lucky if you save $20 a year in the long term. And turning down the thermostat to pay for a KitchenAid assumes that you're wasting energy as is. Poor people often live in drafty, poorly-insulated houses with inefficient heating and cooling systems that make it expensive to maintain basic comfort. I am very weary of the argument that anyone who tries can save money, build savings, etc. Some can and some can't, and many just haven't been taught how. Life has shown them that it's a waste of time to try, because the money always disappears somehow.

I guess my point was more that during those 4 years living in Europe we didn't have all the gadgets and kitchen appliances and we didn't buy them. I didn't preserve, freeze or store food. Of course I speak personally and not for Europeans en masse, but putting food in our bellies over there didn't cost us much.

I disagree that there are no solutions in sight, not because I am an adherent of any particular set of economic policies, I just reject the "there are no solutions" mindset under almost all circumstances, be they my own life's problems or the nation's. And I think that gets at one of the issues with "frugality." Frugality is as much a mindset, a skill set and a creative approach to life as it is a tool set. It's difficult for me to separate what I HAVE to do because my income is limited, and what I like to do. Money is a paper thing, a thing somewhat removed from reality. The beginning of frugality is realizing that money is not the measure of all things. People and their time and skills are things of real value. So you begin by valuing yourself and your time, and you invest in cultivating your greatest asset. Then you turn to others around you. If you are selective about who you associate with, you will find a whole cadre of people out there who understand the concept of "paying it forward." When you don't have money, you look for other ways of finding value that isn't paper. And it is out there all around you.
As a teacher of young adults, I often see them standing in the midst of helpful resource after helpful resource, and they feel lost and helpless because they focus so intently on themselves, not realizing they are connected to a larger community. They also feel shamed that they are not the superwoman or superman who can do it all on their own. Now I realize that not everyone wants to live this communal, interconnected life. Some folks are introverted and they find it to be a pain dealing with people all the time. But many of us gladly trade skills and connections with people in place of things or money, and enjoy living this way. I have this arguement with my SO all the time when he tells me there is no solution to his money woes and lack of connections. It is just not his joy and mindset to find them. Fair enough, but it doesn't mean the ideas and techniques aren't out there. Which one you choose from among the many ideas will depend on your taste, culture and circumstances. I eat very frugally but I actually like all the frugal foods a lot, and don't miss the expensive items. I love all kinds of fruits but usually only eat apples and bananas, which are quite good enough. The fruits that I get on sale in season or glean are treats, but I'm perfectly happy to eat apples and all their iterations. Red meat is expensive and BF and I are lucky that we don't like it so don't miss it. So some of being frugal is just the luck of your culture and taste.

If you want a great read about culinary frugality (most of it involuntary), take a look at MFK Fisher's 'How to Cook a Wolf'. It's a metaphor, of course, for keeping the wolf from the door--or maybe, if the wolf does show up at the door, make him into supper.

It's about wartime shortages and rationing and other times of want, and how she and others coped and lived well despite being having to deal with all sorts of privations alien to our present day. It's a fascinating read, and Fisher is a truly gifted writer.

Keeping with the frugal theme, while 'How to Cook a Wolf' is available from the link at Amazon, it is anthologized in a collection called 'The Art of Eating'--in addition to 'How to Cook a Wolf', it contains four other books by Fisher--which I managed to pick up at a used book store for about $3.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fisher: How to Cook a Wolf

Annie, I didn't say anything about 'white' bread but 'cheap store bought bread' and I was thinking of cheap store bought wheat bread-which mostly is just brown colored, rather than wheaty. When I was a crazed mom of 2 with a demanding full time job, I sure did buy cheap wheat, sliced, enriched bread for toast and sandwiches. I don't know if wheat was better nutritionally and one would have to compare labels, side by side. We haven't had white bread in 50 years.

I do bake my own artisan bread now, just flour, salt, yeast, water. I give it away, watching carbs.

westsider, I think if you compare labels, side by side, you'll find that the cheap "wheat" bread is nutritionally as deficient as cheap "white" bread. It's mostly coloring, not really whole wheat. I bought it too, because that's what Ashley wanted her tuna fish sandwiches on. She'd eat the home baked stuff for nearly everything else, but she had to have that squishy cheap store stuff for the tuna fish.

There was a period of time when I didn't bake bread at all, not because I didn't want to, but because my carpal tunnel wouldn't allow it, it was just too painful to knead the stuff properly. When I got a bread machine, it was a miracle, and I could finally have good bread again. I still use it, just made whole wheat/butternut squash rolls today with it.

For tomato sandwiches, though, I still buy squishy white bread and Miracle Whip. With my homegrown organic heirloom tomatoes, go figure!

I still don't think any of it is good for our physical health, though. Ah well, neither are Oreos, and I eat those too, although not often.

Annie