Cheapo Groovo

Cook Without Gas or Electricity

Check out solar cookers. To do-it yourself, here is a great site with lots of plans. For folks who want to purchase one, try Google or look on Amazon for one!

How to Grow a Salad in Your Window

Countless people tell me they don't have room for a garden. That excuse cannot be used anymore! It is called Windowfarms and you can do it yourself or buy a pre-made system. A community of users  supports any issues or questions you may have.

The Natural Way To Do Laundry & Save Money

Soap Nuts!

I first saw these at Green Fest and I love them. They are also called soap berries. They contain large quantities of saponin in their shells. It acts as a natural, gentle detergent when it comes into contact with water. If you buy the big bag, your cost is about 6 cents per load. I found this site has the best deal.

You can also use the the berries as a natural insect repellent, and when the saponin is gone, just throw them in your compost pile.

3 Ways To Reuse Old Newspapers

• Wet newspapers placed around plants and covered in dirt will keep weeds from growing.
• Ripen tomatoes more quickly by wrapping them in newspaper and storing them in a dark cabinet – this is a useful tip if you need to pick tomatoes early to protect them from frost.
• Place several sheets of wet newspaper onto the grill after you put the fire out, and close the lid. The dampness will create enough steam so that the grease will easily scrub off in an hour or so.

How to Create Seed-Starting Pots From Newspapers

 

 

Aloe Vera Plant Versatility

Aloe Vera is well know for it's medicinal purposes - treating burns, relieving itching from stings, bites, and various "stinging" plants, such as poison ivy. It is also good for the same problems when your pets encounter them. I just found out that they are good at removing indoor air pollution as well.

Since I'm no green thumb, here is what the experts say.

 

Free Food = The Easiest Way to Become Frugal

• Start you own garden indoors or out
• Barter with neighbors who have large gardens
• Use the Leftover app
• Take up hunting/fishing
• Work at a hall that hosts weddings and funerals - or get friendly with someone who does – take home salads, leftover chicken, etc.
• Go to the grocery store and take advantage of free food demonstrations since they usually give samples
• Take up Freeganism

2 great ways to save on printer ink!

Did you know that with a scant 17 milliliters of ink in some cartridges, you end up paying about $2 for a few dribbles or about $8,000 per gallon! :-((

• Use ecofont. It uses 20% less ink than standard fonts (thanks to the holes) yet looks very professional.
• Use the print what you want bookmarklet. Web pages are notorious for graphics and Google ads, so why not cut them out. This is really an incredible piece of software and I use it all the time.

 

Foraging For Food

The other day I was watching the news and they had a Chicago chef, along with an expert forager, picking up food along side a Wisconsin road. Happy hunting!

• Mushroom Guide (PDF)
• Apple Picking
• http://www.ediblewildfood.com

BEST BETS ==> Cattail, Inner Pine Bark, Purple Clover, Dandelion,  Acorns, Squirrel, Rabbit, Trout, Crayfish, Snakes, Frogs,

The Less is More Lifestyle

Ditching the car

•  Census data shows that the share of 16 to 24 year-olds traveling to work by car declined by 1.5 percentage points between 2006 and 2013, while the share of young people getting to work by public transportation, on foot or by bicycle, or else working from home, had increased.
• Young people aged 20 to 30 are less likely to move from central cities to suburbs than at any time since at least the late 1990s.
• Millennials consistently report greater attraction to less driving-intensive lifestyles — urban living, residence in “walkable” communities, and openness to the use of non-driving modes of transport — than older generations.
• Fewer young people are getting their driver’s licenses than even a few years ago. The percentage of high school seniors with driver’s licenses declined from 85 percent to 73 percent between 1996 and 2010, according to the AAA Foundation for Highway Safety, with federal data suggesting that the decline has continued since then.

Living in shipping containers