BellaOnline Forums Money Frugal Living Need help working on my plan for living

Jilly: Are there rust spots on your RV? A coat of clear fingernail polish will keep it from getting worse, temporarily- or use a color that matches, if possible. This will work on any metal surface exposed to the elements. My aunt Patty uses this method on her car door rust spots once every two weeks.

Jilly, as for the butcher idea, try going to a game processor and /or taxidermist and ask for left overs. A commercial domestic butcher will charge for everything, including dog bones. However, not too many hunters want deer liver for their displays...

jilly: Most game animal meat will come from older animals, so here's an inexpensive marinade: 1cup cooking oil, 1 cup cider vinegar, 1 cup of crabapple pulp, 1 onion, handful of peppercorns: Rest 2-3 pounds of meat in mixture for 24 hours in fridge, turn meat at least twice. Bake very slowly or use a crockpot for a reasonably edible roast, or make a stew.

For Quick Cube steak: Cover meat with wax paper, run over it with your RV a few times. This should tenderize it nicely. Never use the liver, gallbladder or kidneys, not for you or your pets- these organ meats hold toxins.

I'd also look into Amazon's mechanical turk program. If you're paying for being online anyway, you can use that time to earn money in fairly easy ways!

Every little bit counts.

But definitely, getting those items out of storage is key. That's a huge expense for you. I am sure we can brainstorm a way to get you to do it even one item at a time, one day at a time.

I have many frugal ideas for Thanksgiving, also. Did you know that Native American introduced us to popcorn? Nothing could be more American than molasses or Maple candied popcorn balls- kids love em, too. Legend has it that during their first winter, pilgrims barely survived on parched, roasted corn. Spread 1 can of drained corn kernals on cookie sheet, Dry in oven at 250 degrees until corn has shrunk and has a nice chewy texture ( about 3 hours) Everyone gets a little just before dinner.

Cindy and Jane, thank you once again for your great ideas. I love the idea of tenderizing my meat by running over it. I want to explore cooking on my engine block, too. I think that would be convenient and fun for those long days on the road.

I have been offline the last few weeks and am glad to be back. I found an inexpensive trailer park (not an RV park - totally not the same thing) here in Sedona, to live in for the winter/spring. I hope to be able to stay put for a while. What is nice is that I have an actual physical address now, so I can start to sell off my things on Craigslist.

I do have the AZ storage emptied. So that is a $42 month savings. I still have the $109 one in CA (with attendant late fees and monthly lien fees, arg). That one will be a while though - there is a lot of stuff in there. A house's worth. We will have to rent a uhaul truck to get it out here, and... then all that stuff will have to go somewhere! I am going to not worry about it right now. It will keep me up at night worrying.

It will be enough effort to deal with the emptied-storage AZ stuff. Baby steps. I still need to finish setting up my utilities for this place for both the RV and mobile trailer Dan will be living in. I need to apply for food stamps, get myself to the local food bank once I have proof of local residency, change over my health insurance...it seems i am always dealing with logistics.

If I get too overwhelmed I won't end up doing a darn thing. I did make a run to the Dollar Store and a Super Walmart to stock up on marked-down food supplies/pet food/necessities.

That is just so awesome about your Arizona storage being completely empty now. That is a huge step - congratulations!!

Thank you, Lisa. Yes, i am so pleased about the AZ storage. The AZ trailers still need to be attended to, but since they do't cost me any fees, it's not a priority at this time.

I still have some of the bins from the AZ storage kicking around and I would like to get all the things handled before bringing the CA storage into my home (which will be overwhelming). So the next two weeks I will be focusing on that.

FYI, I am not in Sedona at this point: dan and I are in a cabin in Camp Verde. The RV is parked in the lot, which is exactly the situation I was hoping for. So that is a positive thing! The Sedona situation ended up untenable. I do like it here, even though the place needs a tremendous amount of cleaning and fixing up. I can be patient in making this place just right.

I just found this old thread. I can't wait to update everyone. Hopefully i will have time tomorrow night.