BellaOnline Forums Money Frugal Living Jilly's small town homestead journal

To go along with Lori's suburban homestead journal, i thought i'd start a journal for me. I encourage all of you to start your own thread!

I live a quarter mile from main street in a small town in AZ. I have a quarter acre property on top of a hill that has a few mature trees, a lot of tall brushy bamboo and a mobile home that is not liveable.

I fixed up a 150 square foot shed in the back and live in that. I put a tremendous amount of insulation in it to help conserve my heating and cooling bills.

I collect rainwater from the mobile's roof (a very low tech system that involves buckets set under the eaves). I collect grey water from the washer and sink to a hose that dumps into a bucket. In turn i dump that bucket on my plants.

I have a small herb and veggie garden, several fruit trees.

I do a lot of wild food foraging, since the edible weeds are everywhere and free.

This fall i'll be planting nut trees too. I do forage for nuts around my area.

I do a lot of clothes washing by hand (using a plunger) and line dry everything.

I am working on getting everything totally off the grid. Right now I am free from paying propane and trash, and have my water and electric bills down to less than a dollar above the 'service fee' amount.

I've been free from city water before, and after the monsoons this summer I might go there again. There really is enough free water for all my uses. Having enough barrels is the limiting factor.

I compost everything that can be broken down. I divert urine into a composting system too, and I barter with a hydroponics store for compost tea that I use as foliar feed in the garden.

I recycle everything. I create a very small baggie of actual trash each week that gets tossed in a gas station garbage can. Thus, no trash service fees. As for metal, I get cash for all the steel, aluminum, brass and copper I can gather.

I reuse everything I can think of. Today I just used grocery store plastic baggies as ties for my staked tomato plants.

I shop at thrift stores and free places, use craigslist and freecycle, exchange out used books for more used books, use the library, and read free and dollar ebooks on the free kindle app i downloaded on my smart phone.

I would like to learn to cut my own hair.

I buy a lot of things for free and nearly free with the so-called super couponing techniques. I also shop at farmer's markets and i go to food banks for the tons of free food that grocery stores otherwise would throw away.

I have my household watt usage down to a science and am constantly looking to find appliances with the least watts. I scour the thrift stores looking for them.

I walk for local errands in my own town, or for participating in town activities. I love not using my car! I'd love to not have to even have a car but i go camping too much for that.

There is no hot water heater in use here, which is an issue. I miss hot baths. I take warm splash baths with water i heat in the electric kettle, or take hot showers in several free places in town. My clothes are happy being washed in cold water.

I will make homemade laundry detergent when my supplies of premade stuff runs out.

I have a tiny pot bellied stove I will add to my studio before the next winter, and have a variety of low watt heat bubble systems I'm working on.

I've been able to get away with a fan system and my really good insulation in here on even 100 degree days. I'd love to not turn on the AC at all, and am documenting on this forum my techniques for staying cool.

I don't really cook, but am learning to preserve food. Mostly by dehydrating. Also I'm exploring solar cookers, hay boxes, root cellars and home brewing.

I don't use disposables, mostly. I have cloth TP, cloth menstrual pads, hand towels and microfiber cloths and save all my old clothing for rags, ties and other possible uses.

I'm having a lot of fun exploring solar gadgets and systems, and am of course documenting everything here.

NOTE: I don't want anyone to be intimidated by my activities. Living frugal and green is my life's work and I am constantly refining my techniques. I live for this!

My goal is to help other people think about their habits and make small changes. Even the smallest changes equal a lot of difference when many people do them.

Today I officially moved my kitchen outside. I had most of the appliances outside but it was a jumbled mess. Today I made it nice and orderly, like a little patio kitchen.

I like it. It's not an issue to open the door and use the microwave, hot plate, mini-fridge or coffee pot. I don't want anything in here that will make heat in the studio. Besides me and the cats.

I also did some cleaning inside, hand washed my toilet cloths, and used the grey water on my trees. I charged up some of my small solar gadgets too. Sunshine is nice!

Tomorrow I'd like to do some mulching, refill the saw dust toilet, dehydrate some tomatoes and apples, and taste my finished Kvass. It looks great.

It would be cool to see pictures of your outdoor kitchen.

It's pretty astounding to see all of the green modifications you've made to your life enumerated in one place. I'm proud of you.

Wow.....Jilly, you are an inspiration! If we all did just a few of these things to conserve it sure would make a big difference.

I have a few questions for you....

I assume you are drinking the rainwater you collect? How are you keeping it clean and free from bacteria growth?

Also....do you own your property or rent? Just wondering because some landlords may not want outdoor kitchens and some other things you mentioned. They may consider it unsightly, even if it isn't bad to look at. Sometimes you have more flexibility when you own the property.

Today I used grey water and compost tea in the garden, made food in the outdoor kitchen, used my own basil, refilled the mulch in my composting toilet, took in the plastic recycling, read with solar lights (doing it right now!), drank my homebrewed kvass, and took a nice cold splash bath to clean up and cool down in the heat.

I really love my little space! It has everything i need.

@polyGeek, thank you for the kind thoughts. I will add pictures eventually. probably when i write the Outdoor Kitchen article. I feel proud of me too.

@Debbie, i own my home. I deliberately looked for a 'knocker downer' mobile home that had no value, so I could own the land and live in an RV in the driveway. Seriously, no one wanted this house. It;s good enough to use it for storage, but not to live in.

With foreclosures left and right everywhere, I was able to pay $7k down on a Owner Carry loan. I had to find an owner carry situation. No bank loans, since my credit is terrible. And I pay only $335 a month mortgage. How's that for affordable? I feel so brilliant for working this out.

Later, I converted the backyard shed into a tiny house by adding a ton of insulation, drywall and a window. It's perfect. I can do what I like and no one bothers me. The land is a quarter acre and has lots of privacy.

Right now I have city water, mainly because Dan wanted it in order to live here with me. In the year i was here before him, I just used the rainwater for cleaning uses, and got 15 cent gallon refill water (from kiosks) for drinking and cooking.

After the monsoons come and refill my rain barrels I'm going to cancel the city water again. I really don't need it. It's a minimum $26 a month expense for JUST the service. Plus, i now have a friend with good well water, so i fill my five gallon blue camping cubes at her place. I use those for drinking now anyway. It tastes better than the city water.

I would absolutely drink the rainwater if i had to. I'd just treat that water the same as any creek water when camping: boil it, use iodine, bleach or hydrogen pyroxide.

I also add a little bleach to the rain water barrels from time to time just to keep microbials down a little. Bleach is safe to drink in very dilute amounts. On river rafting trips bleach is the only thing we used to use, since it's easier to use that for large groups than iodine.

I think even a rental unit would allow for a nice little balcony or porch kitchen. It doesn't have to be obvious. It's the same as having a BBQ, except that a few more appliances are added: coffeepot, toaster, crockpot, microwave. Most people won't be yanking their fridges outside, but my dorm fridge is not really noticeable. Things that don't make heat, like blenders and Cuisinarts, can stay inside.

Great tips Jilly, and you certainly have a good situation going for yourself. I think depending on what is visible to others outside, leaving even small appliances outdoors could lead to them to being stolen, but if they could be hidden in some way then maybe not. Nice that you have the privacy.

Thanks for the wonderful ideas!

Jilly, I have really enjoyed reading this thread so far! You have worked out great ideas! I like cooking outdoors, especially, it reminds me of my camping as a girl scout.

I love what you did to get your home! In 5-7 years me and my DH are hoping to move, and we may be looking for something similar We want more acreage, and he really wants us to build our own place. If we got a worthless mobile on a nice chunk of land, we would be able to get things together where we want. Raw land is actually more expensive in a lot of cases than land with a rundown mobile on it. I daydream sometimes about different locations for the future and I have found that there is usually good rural land cheap with a mobile on it, often right down the street from gorgeous homes.
The way you are handling water sounds so much like what I did for all the years I lived without running water! Except the water fill places here are cheaper. five cents a gallon - since so many people don't have water, the market is different.

Do you boil your water for any hot water jobs (cleaning, laundry, etc.)? Do you have one of the counter on-demand units for hot water?