What are You doing right now for PO?

strider3700

I've reduced my electricity usage to about 40% of where I started from.

I'm building a outbuilding to hold my water filtration system and a shop and have lots of storage space.

I'm collecting rainwater in my 3000 gallon cistern

I'm converting an old shop into part of the house and adding a woodstove.( so close yet so far away still)

I'm storing food (maybe 1 months worth at the moment)

I'm reading a crap load to see how to get more out of my gardens next year

I'm collecting firewood

I'm going to work and making money to spend on all of these preperations and pay them off each month.

I'm slowly going into powerdown mode and I have the girlfriend interested in joining me in a nice slow hippyish lifestyle. Now I just need to get to the point financially to finish it.
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shame on us, doomed from the start
god have mercy on our dirty little hearts

SinisterBlueCat · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 06, 2005 Posts: 950

the_red_pill · Tar Sands Joined: Aug 12, 2005 Posts: 58

Other stupid things I'm doing that make me feel better but maybe don't make a difference:

1. Take the damn stairs! Leave the elevator and the juice that runs it for later.
2. Pick up that aluminum can! Recycle it and save the fuel that would take to mine another one.
3. Take short showers....use a low flow faucet. Scrape every frigging piece of toothpaste from the tube.
4. Try not to waste anything!

No one answered me before: anyone know anything about making common household trash into logs for fireplace? Lots of paper going into my apt dumpster. Worth my while?

Contrary to others' opinions here, I'm really not on some self righteous trip here....just want to share ideas. If you don't agree with me, fine! I am just trying for the common good and sorry if I have offended anyone! We're on the same team! Remember...we all took the red pill and we're in the real world!

Pops

http://www.24hrgiftstore.com/newspaper_log_roller.htm

BTW, don't pick up that can if it's in a subway station.
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Make a plan and work it:

mommy22 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 264

I just happened to be re-reading a Tightwad Gazette Book III, and she has a method of using newspaper for logs for the fire (she makes it clear enough, though that recycling is the best thing to do with newspaper.). Anyway, basically, you can roll newspapers tightly and wrap metal coathangers twisted around. After the fire, you can pull the rings out and reuse them. My husband wanted to make a fire this afternoon, and I mentioned it to my daughte, and she ran to the closet and mad a couple of thse. I'll let you know how they work! Oh...make sure there is no plastic around the wire...thus sending toxic fumes in the air.

drew

You're going to hate me but......

I've been busy playing the stockmarket, oil of course.
Got out before the correction.
Interested in gold too

Also read everything and anything on PO,
learned to weld, would love a wood stove, and a GS heat pump.
I don't have any spare cash for the above since my investments are locked into an rsp which can't be touched till retirement, or the gov takes a huge chunk for taxes.

I am not a capitalist pig (truck driver), I would be barely debt free if I chose to cash in my investements to pay off the loan that made them possible.

Number one, I think having money will be very important, which is why I worry about investing more than anything else.

Why?

Reline the chimney, and buy wood stove ~2k to 5k
GS heat pump ~10-15k
Solar ~30k
Drill well (not allowed in city anyway) ~10k

I can't afford any of this right now, but it sure would be nice to have it a few years down the road.

Money will help.

Drew

marko

What I am doing now:

1. Learning to garden in a shared community garden plot.

2. Reading up on crop raising, animal rearing, and other aspects of homesteading.

3. Signed up for a bicycle repair course. Planning to master bicycle technology.

4. Have been riding my bike 10 miles each way to work when the weather is good, taking the bus when it is not.

5. Putting as much money from my urban job as possible away and investing it in gold, euros, anything but US stocks. Planning now to buy silver coins because 1-oz. gold coins may be hard to sell or hold during an economic emergency. (Security risk. Too much value per unit.) Paid off debt before I learned about peak oil.

6. Looking into rural relocation sites, mainly here in North America.

7. Preparing an application for a Canadian immigrant visa, because I'd like to have the option of relocating north of the border.

Terran

As far as me, my age is what limits me.

I'm a college student, so I'm taking classes in horticulture, permaculture, and natural building.

I also live in a co-op house, everyone I live with knows about PO, and testing and experimenting with skills that could be useful. In our backyard, we're growing food, building cold storage, and various other things. Outside of this we're learning how to sow, and repair bikes. Good thing its Berkeley, there's quite a few gardens around here that we could work in.

I also made my own webpage on informing the masses.
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my page:
www.myspace.com/peakoil

Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3112 Location: Maine

We've installed PV solar emergency lights, solar hot water (which heats our water up to 140 degrees even in October!), got a woodlot and built a maple sugar house, tubed the sap so that it comes into the tanks that feed the evaporator, shrunk both our cars, installed a woodstove and a woodshed. The wood comes from the woodlot. Insulated the house and got a new washer that uses less energy and water. Changed a few things on the oilburner to use less electricity, switched to green power, insulated everything we can, replaced leaky windows and pray every night that we're ready.

Windmills

My girlfriend and I are considering buying a piece of land and getting completely off the grid. But that doesn't really count as "doing" so much as thinking about doing.

However, in the mean time, we're paying off our debts as quickly as we can. In a month or two, we'll have paid off a truck (the other was bought with cash), paid off a couple of lines of credit. After that we'll start on the last credit card and then the shack, making us pretty much debt free. The shack might take a couple of years to pay off.

We're also buying the odd piece of farm equipment, books, and practising basic skills. We have a small garden, a couple of horses, and have been breeding rabbits for food.

We've been looking for other people of a similar mind with whom to start a small farming community, but it's been very difficult locating anyone willing to get things going. Everyone has their own set of ideas, of course, so finding a match is beginning to remind me of dating. Although everyone in my family believes PO is real, they are all waiting for the Techno-Messiah, so they're no help.

TT

I've been doing a lot of thinking about peak oil. It's made me totally reevaluate my life and goals.

Up to now I don't think I had any true goals. I was satisfied with putting food on the table and just living each day. But it was a lonely and unsatisfying life.

I had investment house and a mortgage free home and thought that this was all there was to life. My daughter lived about 2 1/2 hours drive away. I satisfied myself with seeing her every month or so, although I admit I missed sharing more of her life. She also says she misses us being closer.

Hubby and I are on superannuation and had just accepted that this was our lot in life. After all reasonable, sensible people don't just up and leave all the daffodils and camelias that they've so lovingly planted.

As I mentioned in another thread, I had put my investment house up for sale as I was tired of the constant outgoings and hassles associated with it. Well, after 4 months I've finally managed to sell it. Had to take a price drop in any event. The Aussie housing market is certainly losing steam. I've also decided to sell my current home (hopefully it won't take too long) and we are looking at a house in the same country town as my daughter lives. The property is 5 acres, has a lovely mud brick house complete with water tanks, wood burning cooker, heater and hot water service. It has two dams and great growing soil.

It will mean that we will have to spend somewhat more than we get for our current home, but it will give us something we have been sorely missing - our family.

We will still have enough left over to pay our daughter's mortgage and have a little nest egg - which is more than enough for us.

Peak oil has given me the motivation to take a step I should have taken years ago.

perplexd

drew

Posting on PO Very Happy

.. Seriously, trying not to worry too much, and in the process make rational decisions. My wife and I are essentially debt free if we cashed in our investments, so I am primarily concerned with short term macro economic conditions. I seriously believe PO will be a long drawn out affair, with many opportunities to make, and lose, one's money. For instance, I smell recession, and debate daily whether to have my wife cash in her blue chip mutuals. I hold cash and a precious metal fund and wonder if this is the right gamble? I was lucky and sold my energy plays a week before the recent correction. As for the doom and gloom stuff, which is quite a few years away, I may put in a Ground Source Heat Pump. This depends on my future debt level dropping by 10 k or so. I would do it tommorrow, except that it would completely wipe out our modest buffer. A heat pump would give us at least 15 % on our money due to absurdly high gas prices. As well I have read tonnes on biodiesel, gas turbines, stirlings, and gasification units for heat and power. I should read up on gardening since I dont have a green thumb yet have a half acre to grow things on. I am quite seriously just living my life, raising my kids, loving them and my wife, trying for a better job, working on the house, car, etc... , and trying to place myself in as safe a position financially as possible with my current very boring and unstimulating vocation (truck driver Crying or Very sad

).

Drew

perplexd

skyemoor