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| Today was crabapple sauce day. I made 13 pints of crabapple sauce for the freezer. |
In the comments from yesterday's post, Tina reminded me of a thought I've had over the years: Once you learn a frugal skill, you own that knowledge for life. And if you learned that skill early in life, you own the knowledge for a long time, which means you save yourself a lot of money instead of a little. An example, if you taught yourself how to change the oil in your car when you were a teen, you can save thousands and thousands of dollars on home oil changes over your lifetime.
Even if you're living on easy street for a while, if the tide turns for you later on, you can revert back to your learned frugal skills. Frugal skills and knowledge remain with us throughout our lives. We own the mental access to that information.
As Tina mentioned yesterday, returning to some of her frugal skills learned in her younger days is allowing her to choose her career at this later time. She's not locked into a job that she doesn't enjoy.
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| my Foley food mill for making applesauce |
As with other types of skills, we build on our frugal skills with useful tools or seeking out better ways to do things. And mastering one frugal skill often leads to the mastery of adjacent frugal skills.
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| a cup of sour milk that no one would drink was used in a batch of pancakes this morning |
homemade pancake syrup -- brown sugar, water, salt
Sometimes it isn't a skill but a tip that you learn and incorporate into your life that is money-saving. Once you've learned that tip, you own that knowledge and can refer back to it over and over.
I believe that many of these basic frugal skills and knowledge should be taught in school again. While you can learn them on the fly as needed, it's a whole lot simpler to learn them when you're young and not in the throes of a spoiling milk emergency. After all, life's emergencies often don't come with a warning.
Covid, the lockdowns, the shortages were evidence that many of us weren't really prepared. Imagine how much less stressful that period would have been all around if everyone had gone into the pandemic with some basic frugal life skills, like cooking at home. Having survived 2020, are we as a society better equipped to handle a future emergency? Did many people learn some useful skills for thriving in adverse situations? I hope so. Learning how to bake bread is like learning to ride a bike. It all comes back to you when you try again.
(Tina, I hope it's okay with you that I referenced your comment in this post.)
I think developing good habits that are frugal and healthy is a smart thing, no matter how old we are. Of course the younger the better. However, in my old age, I'm making it a priority to correct habits that are not healthy or frugal enough, before I can no longer change a habit. Hopefully, this exercise will keep dementia away.
ReplyDeleteHave a nice evening,
Laura
I agree, Laura. No matter what age, we can benefit from improving habits and routines. Good for you to be so proactive!
DeleteEven though we only spend 18 years or so living with our parents, the things we learn there, good and bad, stay with us for life. It's up to us as adults to embrace them or try to change them. Frugal ways, which were definitely part of my childhood, are something I have embraced. And speaking of baking bread during the pandemic, a lot of people were trying it. Remember it was close to impossible to buy flour during some of the time?
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteOh yeah, flour shortages and especially yeast shortages in my area. I remember lots of YouTube videos of folks trying bread making for the first time.
Interesting you mention the difficulties during covid and people not knowing how to cook, bake, etc. just dawned on me that covid didn't affect us that way because that was how we lived everyday. I see many families that couldn't tolerate being together so much and ended badly, others it helped relationships. It was just a normal life for us. Yes, we ran out of flour to bake the bread we always made anyway but we took a trip to an Amish community where business was as usual and we could get what we needed. I knew how to can and preserve from my childhood so we continued to do that using garden goodies. We always kept a well stocked pantry and cupboard so the shortages were handled with stuff I already had in stock. Cooking and creating a meal with sometimes some odd things was normal because we did that all the time. All because of being raised frugally and living that my entire life helped and will continue to help in difficult times.
ReplyDeleteAlice
Hi Alice,
DeleteI think we were much the same way, knowing how to cook and bake from scratch meant that I could put together a meal no matter what.
I consider myself fortunate that my family enjoyed all of the time together during Covid.
Lili, I am honored that you referenced my comment. :)
ReplyDeleteThe more discussion about frugality, the better.
Thank you, Tina.
DeleteSuch good points! I enjoyed reading everyone's comments. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree, Kris. I learn so much from everyone else. A little shift in perspective is very helpful..
DeleteThis is such an interesting topic. I gave it some more thought so here goes.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I lived in a place that had good public transportation and did not have a car for over a decade. Now I live in the Seattle area, where the public transport is adequate at best. Last week, my car was in the shop for three days, so I used my "taking public transit" skills instead of renting a car. While the bus was much less convenient (for example, a 25 minute car trip took me 1.5 hours), everything went fine. I mentioned my bus experience to a younger coworker, and she said she'd be scared of getting lost. Well, now we have cell phones with GPS, so getting lost was not a problem. Google Maps even told me the most efficient bus route and where to change buses.
Another frugal skill is "do frugal thought experiments". One day I had time to kill before an appointment, so I went to Safeway. While I was there, I decided to look around at the various deals and calculate how much it would cost to make frugal dinners for a week. Or, at the dollar store, I do research on how many meals I could make for $20 (there are YouTube channels on this subject too). I actually think this is fun, and then I already have the knowledge if and when I need it.
And how about the frugal skill of "get stuff for free"? For example: I have foraged for berries and greens, watched YouTube to learn more skills, used Google docs to create spreadsheets to keep track of things, utilized the library for both paper and digital books, taken many walks on local trails, along with many more things.
Hi Tina,
DeleteI love your frugal thought experiments in grocery stores. That is such a great idea.
Alice’s response to Covid reminded me of my dear great aunt’s comment on the depression. Aunt Jewel (appropriately named 😊 who would be about 120 now!) remarked when I asked her about the depression: “It didn’t affect us. We were always poor back then, so it wasn’t much different!” Poor perhaps, but they lived on a rural homestead and raised animals and preserved their food, so they weren’t affected like “city folks” as they had always been self-sufficient, and remained that way.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely lessons to be learned from that example.
Hi Lynn,
DeleteI've read the same thing as your great aunt expressed, that folks who lived on farms or in rural areas tended to not feel the depression as much as others. If you'd always raised your own food, sewed and mended your clothing, preserved what you could, then lit wasn't a. shock to "have to" do those things with the Depression.