Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Money Saving Tips (add yours)
#31
Those are both great ideas. We are doing the cell thing. Is there anyone out there that can build me a clothes line? My husband is hopelessly un-handy.

quote:
Originally posted by macuu222

Get rid of your landline telephone if you also have a cellphone. Cellphone is more mobile and just works great for us. Get rid of your clothes dryer and start hanging clothes to dry.. Save at least $100.00 a month!


Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com
Reply
#32
There isn't a male gender requirement for making a clothes line. Nor do you need specific posts. Find some light line (preferably from a garage sale - ours came from a "free" box at a horse farm garage sale) and tie one end to a handy tree. If you thread a bit of old garden hose on it, the rope won't bite into the tree bark as badly. Or screw in a big eye hook and tie the rope to that. Then tie or fasten the other end of the rope to the house or another tree and you have a clothes line.

If you have no handy trees, then two of those big wooden fence posts from Del's would work nicely. Dig a hole several feet deep, put the fence post in it and pour quickcrete around the base to hold it in place. Attach a cross piece of part of a wooden fence post or a chunk of four by four or whatever else you can find that is heavy enough to the fence post and then screw in more eye hooks to tie the line to. It would probably be easier to put the cross pieces on before putting the poles in the holes and adding cement. Put the crosspiece on the side of the pole away from the clothes when you set the pole in the hole.

If your house is up off the ground, then you may have enough room to string clothes lines under your house. That has the added benefit of keeping the laundry dry in the rain. Ours are under the house but I strung them right across the middle of the work space. I'm going to restring them with some pulleys so I will be able to stand at the washer and then clip the clothes onto the line and then pull the line to shift the clothes further away. Kinda like they had in those old Chicago and New York City tenement housing pictures where they do the laundry out the window.


"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson

"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales." 
Kurt Wilson
Reply
#33
quote:
Originally posted by Adam79

Greg,
Regardless of how ethical that may or may not be, it is effing hilarious! My wife is a hairdresser so she probably wouldn't find the humor in it like I would. Even if the salon products are far better for your hair, there's no debating the price discrepancy. I'm just counting down the years until my hairline "heads for the hills" and I don't have to worry about it anymore.


To get you out of hot water, you wife would probably say its only expensive if people use the more than a silver dollar amount, if you use a dime sized amt it lasts a long time.
Reply
#34

"75% of the energy used by our home appliances is drawn while we think they are 'off.'" -U.S. Dept of Energy

Why pay a much bigger electric bill than need be the case? The definitive word from Umbra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM2WtQKONC8&eurl

Umbra (of online environmental newsletter Grist fame) is a solidly trustworthy source. She says to turn off even florescent lights when leaving a room (versus leaving them on in the mistaken belief it saves energy to not turn them off and on again) --and-- connect electrical devices into power strips then hard-switch the power strips "off" when the devices are not actually in active use. (In some places doing this has the extra added benefit of conserving the life of the devices by protecting them from power dips and surges when not actually in use, plus the power strip surge protectors buffer those fluctuations a bit when devices are in active use).



)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Reply
#35

Diaper crystals in food-growing soil?

Short version: those diaper crystals may be safe to mix into soil you are growing food in, but doing so is probably not saving money long-term and there may be other drawbacks. I would suggest using crushed charcoal from local wood instead of diaper crystals if you want/need an economical and more securely safe method to increase the moisture content of food-growing soil.

Long version, with all the details and evidence:

Regarding the safe use for growing food of those super water-absorbent crystals commonly found in diapers (and available in bulk via chemistry and garden supply houses) when they are mixed in potting and bedding soil, I scanned around a bit to see what I could find.

I have used polysodium acrylate (PSA) crystals --the most common form of this type of hygroscopic material-- many times in the laboratory but not in soil mixes for growing food which people would later eat. Some materials which are rated safe and nonhazardous for nonfood uses can become problematic when ingested, and the break-down products of those compounds even more so.

Here are the MSDS for PSA in a couple of different formats:
http://www.unitednuclear.com/msdssodiumpoly.htm
and
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:iIbcUV0T0MkJ:www.stevespanglerscience.com/uploads/file/MSDS/MSDS%2520for%2520Water%2520Gel.pdf+MSDS+polysodium+acrylate&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a
The MSDS statements indicate that PSA is safe unless inhaled or eaten in large quantity (whereupon it would be a problem due to swelling, not toxicity).

According to Zohuriaan-Mehr & Kabiri (2008) in "Superabsorbant Polymer Materials - A Review" (http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:Amj9SQ6g6sAJ:sid.ir/en/VEWSSID/J_pdf/81320080606.pdf+MSDS+polysodium+acrylate+hygroscopic+crystals&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a) these "materials cannot return to their starting monomers, i.e., they are scientifically irreversible to toxic initiating materials. Here, like so many polymers, the starting toxic monomers are converted chemically to totally non-toxic product via polymerization reaction [2-6]. SAPs are organic materials with well-known general structure. For instance, the agricultural SAP with the name of “cross-linked acrylamide/potassium acrylate copolymer” has been recorded in the most valid data centre of chemicals, i.e. the Chemical Abstracts, with CAS No. 31212-13-2. In the material safety data sheet (MSDS) of the superabsorbent manufacturers, they are called as “Safe and Non-toxic Material” [146-149]. The conventional SAP materials are neutral and inert. They are moderately bio-degraded in the soil by
the ionic and microbial media to convert finally to water, carbon dioxide and organic matter [146-151] Therefore, SAPs do not contaminate the soil and environment. They do not exhibit systemic toxicity (oral LD50 for rate 5000 mg/kg). In addition, their safety in the soil has been approved by the Agriculture Ministry of France (APV No 8410030) [146]. Research has shown little or no consistent adverse effect on soil microbial populations [152]. The environmental fate of SAPs and their microbial degradation was investigated by many researchers [152-157]. The researchers at the University of California, Los Angles (UCLA) found that no toxic species were remained in soil after several-year SAP consuming [158]." (Page 19).

A careful reading of the whole article, however, indicates the PSA can uptake, hold, and concentrate pesticides or other toxins.

In Iwahashi (2003) "Mechanism for Degradation of Poly (Sodium Acrylate) by Bacterial Consortium No. L7-98" (http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jbb/...e/-char/en) a number of specifics are indicated regarding PSA breakdown products. Some of the chemical groups found in PSA's decomposition are fairly active, which is neither good nor bad, it just means they are available to react with whatever else may be present.

As I read the data it seems as if using these hygroscopic crystals in your soil mix to grow vegetables to be eaten raw or cooked will probably not cause anyone to become ill. Probably, but there may be some as-yet unknown aspects to all this. Personally, I think I would rather use activated charcoal mixed into the gardening soil before I would add polysodium acrylate crystals into my food-growing soil. (Using PSA in potting soil for ornamental plants may be cost-effective, but eventually that soil may end up in a compost heap and mixed back together with food-growing soil, so even there I think I would hesitate to use the polysodium acrylate crystals).

Charcoal is way less expensive, especially if you make it yourself from guava wood; please see JWFITZ's well-informed comments in the Punaweb thread "Words of the Lagoon ...on sustainability and culture" at http://www.punaweb.org/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6319&whichpage=2 for more detail on that process. Charcoal is also infinitely longer-lasting than PSA and I suspect charcoal not only retains water in a porous lattice structure but also ongoingly facilitates the development of that ultimate magic ingredient in soil, humus, via facilitating bacterial and fungal action on the vast surface areas and interstices of the charcoal particles.

[Cross-posted to Words of the Lagoon ...on sustainability and culture]


)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Reply
#36
Here's a thought for saving money: EAT LESS MEAT!
Vegetables are easily grown, much healthier and do not produce fecal matter that contibutes more greenhouse gas emmissions than all forms of transportation combined, as does livestock.
A couple of other tips for saving dough that our family puts to practice are:
Utilizing our wood burning stove. (propane has gotten just too expensive & is not renewable.)

We have only 1 pet sheep, but that bugga gives off alot of free fertilizer. ( my advice is don't get more livestock than you need or can collect from regularly the bulk of their droppings)

We have a couple compost piles going continuously as well as green manure piles from cut vegetation (all of this is free fertilizer and soil dress)

And lastly our family tries to save money by preparing the bulk of our own food and staying home more. I like a lot of the "treats at the health food store but let's face it, it can et down right expensive, the food there is not always "health food" and most of it is highly proccessed, heavily packaged food-like substances.
My wife has gotten pretty good at making bread (especially sprouted bread) and when we can begin producing our own nut and grain based milks as well as organic cheeses we'll be pretty set foodwise.
As for the staying at home more bit; we realized that not only are
we spending more on gas when we're out, but we're more likey to "just pick something up" somewhere when we get hungry rather than enjoy home based food. So when you do leave home, try to think ahead and bring some nutritious foos from home with ya and avoid the marked up retail joints!
Hope this gives someone at least one good idea. Best wishes to us all!

Reply
#37
rasman, that is great. I too want to make my own bread once i get there. can you ask your wife for the recipe for me? and also where do you pick up your grains for making the bread? I want to bring a bread maker with me when i go. it is possible that we will be getting a goat or sheep and would love to make our own cheese also. if it happens, then we can trade goat for sheep!!! thanks brother
Reply
#38

I was wondering about that 75% figure (for total energy used being drawn while we think appliances are off) since it seemed high to me, along with a lingering doubt about the light-switching issue, so wrote to a couple of engineer and architect friends. To summarize their responses, they said-

-the general principle is correct (switch off a power strip with appliances plugged into it in order to prevent devices using electricity when we think they are turned off) but the actual phantom electricity drain is more usually between 10% of total energy used up to (rarely) 75% depending on the type of device and how often it is used versus just sitting there inactive yet plugged in to a live circuit.

-with incandescent lights it is cost effective to switch them off every single time one leaves a room, but with florescent lights it is only cost-effective overall (factoring in life of the bulb and so on) to switch them off if you will be out of the room for at least five minutes. Five minutes or more out of the room, switch off florescent lights; re-entering in less than five minutes, leave florescent lights on.

Also, by way of money-saving strategies, the airline rules have changed recently and the reward for giving up one's seat is not always as generous as it used to be (depending on the carrier) but to save money if my schedule is flexible enough to allow me to do so, when I check in I always put my name on the "I volunteer to give up my seat and be bumped if this flight is overbooked" list. I have received quite a few "free" tickets that way, plus sometimes being put up in an airport hotel room for the night and flying the following day.

A couple of retirees I know who have all sorts of leisure time actually go it one better with this strategy and in consequence only pay for one in two to one in four of the tickets they fly. One's schedule must be completely flexible to do this, but you if you deliberately book yourself only on flights which have historically been way overbooked (certain times of day on certain days on certain routes have a high likelihood of being overbooked) and arrive an hour early to check in so you are standing at the desk when it opens, so to be the first to place your name on the volunteer-to-be-bumped list, then the odds favor you receiving a "free" ticket. Basically, with this strategy you buy one ticket and often get a second in exchange for your time and bother for perhaps having to wait several hours to overnight. You can also get another "free" ticket by giving up your seat on the next flight that you were bumped to, and so on ad infinitum. I know a gal who bought one ticket and got her name listed first for "volunteering to be bumped in case of overbooking" on several successive flights both outbound and on the return segments of the same re-arranged trip (they routed her through multiple cities instead of on nonstop flights ...but the connections were repeatedly overbooked); her one ticket turned into FIVE tickets (four as rewards for being bumped). She arrived a day later than originally scheduled on both the outbound and return, but that was in her planing from the outset so was not a problem. This has to be a world record for leveraged airline tickets, one turned into five! You only have 365 days from date of issue to use those reward tickets, so she took a couple of special vacations just to make use of all the extra tickets she had. Such a deal.



)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Reply
#39
About once a year, call your credit cards in as lost. They will reissue you a new one and any perps that have your old number are S.O.L.

Also, stop using credit cards all together. (neither a lender nor borrower be)

Have one for emergencies but never carry a balance.
Reply
#40
Getting bumped on airlines is a good thing, especially when they bump you in Honolulu and put you up at the Waikiki Beach Marriot, but you have to fly an airline that will stay in business long enough for you to use the free tickets afterwards. We got bumped two days in a row a year ago last spring and had $1,600 worth of airline coupons. We took a vacation again later that year and still had enough coupons left over to fly some relatives in for a visit the next spring. However, a week after they went home, the airline folded. Had they extended their vacation like they had originally planned, things would have been much more interesting!


"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson

"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales." 
Kurt Wilson
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 2 Guest(s)