[Prep] On the Cheap

by **Pops** » Sat 19 Feb 2005, 10:14:27

Prep on the Cheap

Many folks want to make preparations for emergencies or possible energy price spikes / interruptions but have a hard time justifying the cost to their spouse or maybe even themselves.

So this thread is for cheap alternatives, here's 2:

Food grade plastic barrels for water storage cost around $1/gal new + shipping. Soft drink bottlers usually recycle but sometimes sell their old 30 and 55 gal drums cheap.

Someone mentioned soda cans with the bottom cut off for seed pots, I've used plastic drink cups, about a penny apiece - just burn weep holes in the bottoms with a hot nail.

So, how cheap are you?

by **born2respawn** » Sat 19 Feb 2005, 18:34:14

If your local supermarket has a "reduced" area, look there often. I've seen perfectly good stuff marked down for no readily apparent reason, and marked down plenty myself. There are stupid deals out there, admittedly getting a 23 pack of lager for half the price of a 24 pack isn't going to interest most people here, but getting a lot of water proof plasters at half price probably will.

by **CarlinsDarlin** » Sat 19 Feb 2005, 20:50:44

So, how cheap are you?

Well, I'm so cheap, I've built a greenhouse out of scrounged and leftover materials, and the total cost is $68. That cost includes two full 4x8 sheets of plexiglass, which we had to buy new. You can build a lot with used lumber if you're willing to pull a few old nails.

The same batch of lumber has built our entire deck, and part of our hen house.

I routinely buy from the scratch and dent bin at the supermarket. I agree there are many good deals.

I have built 7 raised beds for my garden so far, using wood that I got by breaking apart free pallets.

I captured 12 wild chickens that were left when a neighbor moved, and now they are a nice part of my flock. I was given 18 white leghorn hens as well, so they didn't cost me anything either.

I recently scrounged 16 windows for use in my garden - I'll be making cold frames from them. And they were also free.

There's lots of goodies you can get for free or nearly free, just keep your eyes open and don't be afraid to put the word out that you're looking. Folks will find things for you.
Kathy

Website · by **Yavicleus** » Sun 20 Feb 2005, 00:12:54

Fermenters work great too.

I'm an avid homebrewer, but right now I like to keep at least one of my 6 gallon fermenters empty incase I need to fill it with water.

I usually top off the fermenter with an airtrap, so as to prevent spores or anything else from getting into the water and start growing.

Over a year ago we had a hurricane roll through this party of the country. It knocked out power to our water processing plant, so nobody could drink the tapwater. There was a rush at the supermarket for bottled water. It sure was nice having two full fermenters (12 gallons total) full of drinkable water.

Granted, the fermenters can cost you around $20 each, but...they're dual purpose: the rest of your fermenters will have booze in them. :-D

by **Possum** » Sun 20 Feb 2005, 08:08:49

Prep on the Cheap

We have used newspaper strips to make seedling 'pots'
When ready to plant into the garden, you pop them in as is, and they decompose easily, allowing roots to spread.

I love trolling charity shops (sell 2nd hand goods) for storage jars. I picked up 40 the other day for 5c each. Bargain. This is for my PO back up.

Our local council tip is into recycling green waste. Seaweed, lawn and tree clippings etc are left in enormous piles until they have rotted. It is offered to residents free for pick up.

We get this mulch by the trailer load. It is in these massive mounds about 2 stories high. It is rich, black stuff that is still composting (you need gloves to handle as it is steaming hot.) Mix it with chook poo and you can grow stuff in it.

That's where I'm at
Time for a nap
(actually I've been sleeping for 36 hours (sick) so I'm not sleepy anymore)
Possum

by **CarlinsDarlin** » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 06:08:33

Pops suggested I add this link to the thread - and bump it up a little. Surely there's more cheap preps out there?

Check out www.freecycle.org to see if there's a chapter in your area. Freecycle's mission is to "spurn the landfill and spawn goodwill." Trying to keep as many useful items out of the landfills as possible, and passing on those still-usable items to people who can use them.

Recently, I was able to acquire 136 quart canning jars from a local freecycle. There may be items offered in your area that will help with your preparations, or, you may find someone who needs something you have.

Anymore cheap preps ideas?
Kathy

by **lagomorpheous** » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 18:09:25

Freecycle is an interesting idea. In one of the towns I used to live in, that had a town dump (well, transfer station) they had a shed called the "swap shop" People could put anything useable that they didn't want in the shed, and other people coming to the dump could go in and see if they wanted anything. It worked really well, and it seems an easy enough thing for most towns to do.

Jenn

by **CarlinsDarlin** » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 18:46:29

WOW! Lookie what was posted on my local freecycle...

I have two cherry trees that are just getting old enough to bloom. They are about 4-6" diam trunk and 6-8". The varieties are Stella and Van. I need the space where they sit for something else. If you would care to try to dig them up and move them, they are yours. But I am sure the root ball will be heavy. The pecan is only about 7 or 8' tall and maybe 2-3" diameter at the base.
I also have numerous plants which I will give you starts of.

I sent a reply email and now have my fingers crossed that I got in first! Now I just have to figure out how to get them out of the ground if she picks me

..
Kathy

by **CarlinsDarlin** » Sun 06 Mar 2005, 07:28:41

I got the trees!!!
[smilie=qgreenjumpers.gif]

Now I just gotta figure out how to get them out of the ground and home

...
K

by **madison** » Sat 16 Apr 2005, 23:57:29

I have a toddler in diapers, and I made really nice wool diaper covers by buying some 100% wool sweaters from Goodwill. I had one just plain soft one and two lambswool sweaters.... very nice. I washed them in hot water, dried and felted them in a hot dryer. I then cut out shorts and sewed them together on my sewing machine and lanolized (waterproofed) them by soaking them in water with lanolin melted into it. Presto! Really cute "shorties" that cost $75 online (believe it or not) and a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. And my kid looks really cute, lol. The shorties wear just like shorts, nothing over them. The wool is waterproof/extremely water resistant and naturally does not keep odors. A wonderful system.

I save at least a pack of diapers each month by using cloth at home in the evening and weekends, and save the 'sposies for daycare (they won't take cloth). I don't find cloth diapers difficult or gross at all.

Oh, and I made my own diaper liners by cutting rectangular strips of polar fleece, which I lay in the diaper.... then poop gets on the liner instead of the diaper, and it just shakes off of fleece into the toilet. Easy, easy, easy! Saves me $25/month for very little effort. And everyone comments on how cute the shorties are! Wish I could post a picture!

And I make my own diaper wipes for home from flannel squares and a spray bottle containing distilled water, Burts Bees apricot oil, and a dash of liquid Castille soap. Spray the butt, wipe off mess, toss in diaper pail. Much easier on my kid's butt, actually, than commercial wipes which usually contain alcohol, which is really drying. Plus cloth "grabs" more than paper wipes.

Cloth diapers, homemade wool covers and homemade diaper wipes are cheap, but also so much better for my kid's skin, the checkbook and a feeling of self-sufficiency.

by **Ebyss** » Sun 17 Apr 2005, 10:36:43

I plan to re-home the surplus chickens from factory farms. They usually get rid of chickens after a year or so, because their laying drops off a little (it's marginal.. I don't fully understand why they get rid of them). You can pick these up from animal shelters for a little as a one Euro. They take a while to adapt to outdoor living, but they very quickly learn to love it.

Check out the greenhouse made from plastic bottles : http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk/images/greenhouse.jpg

Now that's recycling.

by **Pops** » Wed 11 May 2005, 12:47:48

OK, so this thread didn’t get much response so let me change the premise somewhat…

What can you do now (in a relatively cheap energy world) that may be prohibitively expensive and valuable down the road?

I was spouting off earlier regarding the use of mechanical power in the initial stages of preparing a garden. My point was that the effort to loosen tight soils and break hardpan is very high when done manually. Typically using a tractor, a single 18” – 24” implement (this could be up to 4 feet long for big time Ag) called a subsoiler is used to both break and hardpan and provide a channel for excess water to drain. If the ground is then not packed down again it will stay loose with the addition of organic matter and deep rooting plants.

The benefits to the soil in additional humus, quicker warming in the spring and deeper root penetration is worthwhile even if done manually. I doubt this is really something that cane be done with a horse - just too much resistance.

The manual option is to dig a trench 12” deep then go back and turn over the subsoil – VERY hard work!

Today one could hire the work done – maybe $25 and hour, then simply plant flowers or whatever on the beds. If the time should come when additional garden space is needed the cost or availability of fuel would probably make hiring the work done prohibitively expensive.

Standing in the sun busting that hardpan would certainly make one wish it had been done back in the good old days!

OK, that’s just a gardening example, any other ideas?

by **strider3700** » Wed 11 May 2005, 14:08:05

Along the same lines I'm prepairing to have a machine come in to move about 5 dump trucks worth of material out of a hill behind my house to another location 20 feet away. The hole is so that I can move one 2500 gallon water tank into it and add a second beside it. The extra material goes into a ramp to give me access into the back half of my property. Doing this by hand would take me all summer at least. Doing it right now with a properly sized machine will cost me about a weeks worth of wages.

Other things I'm doing this summer while I can still do it include

- increasing the insulation in my roof to R40. Not sure what it is at right now but it's not enough. Hell I think I even qualify for free delivery. (you try moving that many bags of fiberglass insulation around without a truck)

- Taking a workshop area with a gravel floor, putting a real foundation under it and concrete down. Then I'll finish it add a woodburner and punch a hole into my living room to let the heat into the rest of the house. I much prefer wood heat to electric baseboards when things get bad. Power outage last year left me pretty cold 18 hours later.

- My power pole needs replaced. I'll handle that this summer as well while a machine can come in and dig a hole with an auger. Hand digging it would really suck.

Thats about it for this summer I think.

Next summer or the year after (if things are still possible)

- Extend the foundation of my house out effectively doubling the floor space to 1400 sqft. Frame up the addition and add new trusses and a new metal roof. THis puts my house at a size that I can easily fit kids and so on in and deals with my issue of needing a new roof sometime in the next 5 or so years.

I know that all of these things are possible in a post peak world but they will be much much harder. I'm not sure where metal roofing even comes from so If I really want it( I do) I might as well do it while it can still be shipped here.

by **Pops** » Wed 11 May 2005, 17:00:11

There you go!

by **Laurasia** » Wed 11 May 2005, 21:27:27

On a much less technical note (and on a much smaller scale than the posts above, I might add!), I'm ordering lots of heirloom seeds from far & wide while there are still petroleum products available to get them to my front door. I'll have a mini-seed bank for when things are no longer global. Also I am saving glass jars & lids, dark plastic bowls(like frozen food containers) and mylar emergency blankets. I'm not sure I know what I'll need them for but I want to have them there when the need arises. At some point, plastics especially, will be hard to find.

Regards,

L.

by **Schneider** » Wed 11 May 2005, 23:08:45

Laurasia wrote:On a much less technical note (and on a much smaller scale than the posts above, I might add!), I'm ordering lots of heirloom seeds from far & wide while there are still petroleum products available to get them to my front door. I'll have a mini-seed bank for when things are no longer global. Also I am saving glass jars & lids, dark plastic bowls(like frozen food containers) and mylar emergency blankets. I'm not sure I know what I'll need them for but I want to have them there when the need arises. At some point, plastics especially, will be hard to find.

Regards,

L.

Go for some rolls of mylar

!!! Far more efficient than most material when it come to reflect sun power and so cheap at Home Depot right now ..

Can do a hell lot of things using sun power with this : Solar Oven,concentrator for a water heater,air heater (more easy to build if you want warm air fast in winter) and much more !

I even plan to try some small scale metal casting using solar power ,lol :lol:

!

Schneider
French-Canadian

by **Riverside** » Thu 12 May 2005, 04:38:59

I am "stockpiling" building materials. Mostly used stuff I can find, like windows, that will be harder to get in the future. Explain that one to a disbelieving spouse

I'm saving for 2 woodstoves, one for us and one for my parents "apartment" (part of my house but needs seperate heat). Not really cheap, but I'd hate to be without one!

I go to auctions to look for old farming tools, last year I got a scythe for $5 that just needs sharpened. I check out flea markets too. I've gotten canning jars, cast iron skillets and a foodmill there.

Carla

by **oowolf** » Thu 12 May 2005, 17:12:26

Have a pond dug. I've always wanted one but the estimates are $3500-5000 for a 90' dia 12' deep. If I don't get this done this year I'll NEVER dig it by hand!

by **oowolf** » Thu 12 May 2005, 17:14:49

The second-hand store here has a Monarch wood/electric range circa 1935 for $150!!!! The "wood" section looks virtually unused.

by **RonMN** » Sat 14 May 2005, 08:04:34

DARN good thread pops!!!

Alot of prep can be done simply by NOT throwing things away. Old torn cloths will still keep you warm, phone books (TP, or burning). Without even knowing it you have a 30-40 gallon supply of drinking water in your house already (hot water heater).

You can go to a surplus store & get items for pennies (canned goods, tin foil, soap, veggie oil by the gallon, ziplock bags, etc).

Ebay is great for old hand tools (now...when this catches on the prices will skyrocket), i got a froe, hand drill & bitts, maple taps, etc... all on ebay for cheap.

cost co. or sams club has a 50 pound sack of rice for $10

For things that are cheap now but will be more expensive in the future i'd focus on anything metal or plastic (cloths line, tarps, duct tape, axe, saw, wood stove, shovel, hoe, and a gas mask!!!).

A gas mask because our rail system ain't the best in the world!!! Even now you hear about towns being evacuated because of a chemical spill. This initially occurred to me a few years ago when a slight train derailment 1 mile north of me caused a leak of molten sulpher. There was no evacuation because (as the news said) molten sulpher freezes at -18 and it happened to be -19 F. that day.

[Prep] On the Cheap

[Prep] On the Cheap

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