Frugal Friday
Apr. 11th, 2025 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.Rule #1: this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #2: this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.
Rule #3: please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about. Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.
Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.
With that said, have at it!
Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-11 03:27 pm (UTC)The cost savings are considerable. Making your own yogurt is 25% of the cost of purchase, making tempeh is around 10%. Beer is around 30%.
But those cost savings are also built around the cost of ingredients. You have to buy in bulk. I am getting ready to bottle a case of basic beer (still better than all but the best microbrews). The cost when I purchase ingredients appropriate for a single batch is $26. When I cringe and buy ingredients for ten batches, that cost goes down to $13.
Tempeh is similar. The only real cost is the beans and the starter. If you make a batch with starter that comes in the little packets that folks sell for an ungodly amount and a single 1 pound bag of beans, the cost comes out around $8.00 for a kilo. If you work at extending the starter and buying beans in bulk (25lb) the cost drops to around $1.00 a kilo.
I suppose this kind of thinking is what drives one to become a prepper (a habit that I desperately try to keep in check for myself) but it does save money on the long run.
The Tempeh is the biggest cost saver. Especially when you look at the price that the health food store charge for this ($4.00 per 8 ounces)
The up front cost is painful, don't get me wrong. My beer supplies for my ten batches set me back $130 for ten cases of beer. 25 pounds of garbanzos and a pound of starter from Wally World runs $50 for 25 kilos of tempeh.
I suppose that this kind of cost is what our host referred to in a long-ago post about the "household economy".
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-11 08:01 pm (UTC)We have been working up our bread making like this. For health, our goal is freshly milled flour in our baked goods, mostly sourdough. It's taken quite a while to get our supplies in check and get a reliable source of affordable wheat berries in bulk. I haven't done the math but if we amortize the equipment over the number of loaves made over time it will get cheap, but yes, upfront cost as well as the learning curve is significant.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-12 12:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-12 10:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-12 11:32 am (UTC)The thought of grinding corn fresh is very tempting, I must try that!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-12 07:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-12 11:31 pm (UTC)Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-12 02:39 am (UTC)*Ochre Harebrained Curmudgeon*
Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-12 03:31 am (UTC)Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 01:52 am (UTC)(I'd also note that I did not experience the neurological benefits with commercial kombucha; I never looked into what they did differently, but they must do something differently)
Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 12:29 pm (UTC)Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 04:21 pm (UTC)Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 07:17 pm (UTC)Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 07:29 pm (UTC)best wishes, Emily07
Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 06:41 pm (UTC)Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-13 07:31 pm (UTC)- rinse everything you're going to use with boiling water before you start, and wash your hands thoroughly. Make sure you have plenty of filtered or other unchlorinated water, because the chlorine will harm your SCOBY.
- boil two cups of water. When it's boiled, take it off the heat and steep tea in it -- 6 tea bags or equivalent in the usual. I use half black tea and half green tea; yes, it has to be caffeine tea, because the bacteria needs the caffeine to thrive.
- when the tea is good and dark, take out the bags, and add one cup of organic cane sugar. Stir until thoroughly dissolved.
- pour into a half gallon jug. Add filtered water until it's about 3 inches from the top. Check the temperature with a thermometer -- it should be between 75 and 85 F. If it's too hot it can kill the SCOBY.
- put in the SCOBY, both the mushroom-y thing (technical name: pellicle) and the liquid it comes with. Check acidity with pH testing paper -- it has to be below 4.5 or you risk mold.
- cover the top of the jug with tight woven cloth, held on with a good strong rubber band. Do not use cheesecloth -- fruit flies can get in through that -- and do not use an airtight lid; your SCOBY needs to breathe.
- leave for a week. Keep it between 75 and 85 degrees F. -- a heating pad or the like will help. Don't move it unless you have to.
- in a week, check the flavor. If it's still sweet, leave it longer. If it's nice and tart, take out the pellicle and 2 cups of the liquid from the top of the jug, set those aside, pour the rest into bottles and refrigerate them. Then get a new batch going, using the pellicle and the 2 cups of fluid as your SCOBY.
- repeat until the end of time. If you need advice, I know Reddit generally sucks but I've gotten good advice from r/kombucha.
Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-14 04:35 pm (UTC)If your acidity is not below 4.5, what can you do to correct the problem?
Caldathras
Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-14 04:45 pm (UTC)If you use good strong black tea, though, you should be fine.
Re: Buy in Bulk
Date: 2025-04-12 06:32 pm (UTC)Yep. A friend of mine in her 70's or 80's has told me how her grandmother bought all the basic ingredients (that store well) in large, 50 to 100 lb, quantities. Her grandmother even mixed up her own brown sugar from molasses and plain sugar instead of buying it premixed.
My own parents built a huge pantry and a cold room in the basement. My mother, in charge of the groceries, always purchased in bulk and waited for sales before she really stocked up. She had a large garden and did a great deal of home canning.
We had 2 or 3 very large freezers as well. There used to be an independent butcher shop in the nearby city where you could buy beef and pork by the side. She would get enough to last our large family a year. Then there was the home-raised chickens and turkeys that went into the freezers as well.
We were doing this in the 1980s, as a large single-income family, but the lessons were learned from family that had survived the Great Depression and/or proudly lived a subsistence lifestyle (now called simplified living).
Caldathras