living on centerlink/min wage penny pincher thread

[bogfrog]

^

I recently found a small life hack related to this, i was at the supermarket with bugger all $, needed shampoo, conditioner and body wash and then saw the 'mens' hair and body wash, made sure it didnt smell toxic, and thought fuck it, womens and mens hair cant b much different realy so bought that 1 bottle of shower goop instead of3 sepearate ones and then had money left to buy a big bunch of rhubarb for crumble.

Also, convert money when u have it into big bags of rice, spuds, lentils, oats, flour etc so when time gets rough u can still make hearty foods with fresh additions of herbs, veges and weeds frm the garden and surrounding land. It really pays off to learn about ur local edible weeds, as alot of things grow all year round and are very nutrient dense - and free!

Ive been eating stinging nettle lately, cz its everywhere! You've just gotta boil it for5mins and pour off the liquid to remove the spines.

[Bigred]

oyster mushrooms are great they are tough and you just feed them scraps and cardboard . with a starter culture and

some scraps you soon will be enjoying fresh mushrooms .

[goneski]

I'm looking at quitting my shitty job soon (without anything else lined up), so I'm going to start prepping and following some of the suggestions here.

[nothinghead]

So much good advice in here.

Haven't seen sprouts and ferments mentioned yet. Mung bean (or moth bean, beetroot, alfalfa, sunflower, radish, etc) sprouts are cheap and nutritious. Fermenting whatever veg you might find in the bins or on sale is a good way to preserve them for months, and has the added benefit of lactobacillus (plus tastes amazing). Pickling is good too. Start saving up your vegemite etc jars so you don't have to buy mason jars once you get started.

If you need to use hair or skin products it can often be much cheaper to buy kids versions of things (shampoo etc). If you use a moisturiser coconut oil is (imo) better and cheaper than commercial mixes.

Get a bike and ride it everywhere. If you don't already know how you can learn to maintain and fix it very easily. Cheaper than public transport and better for you, as long as you live relatively close to wherever you travel in the day.

For the more dedicated frugalista with a flexible lifestyle, squatting is a good way to cut down on expenses (and protest the absurd rent many of us have to pay). Of course, it will take a lot of energy and you've gotta be prepared to deal with setbacks that can eat your time up.

[DiscoStu]

don't pay full price

wont work at a major chain (i.e. coles) as they move too much volume and don't care

but buy at smaller shops and say offer 50c less for you bag of lentils (i.e. 3.20 instead of 3.75 a bag)

tell them that's your offer or that that's all you have, they'll 9/10 times accept (works always at the indian grocer around the corner). be firm if they don't accept walk out and don't buy anything.

also, and this is just going by behaviour, if you give a cashier a handful of change (3-5$ of 5c) they usually won't sit there and count it all especially if there's others in the line. if you're shifty you could short change them by 50c or so and they won't notice . i haven't short changed anyone but i have paid in 5c pieces several times and they didn't count it (the girl at the veg market weighed them lol, I don't think she knew what to do )

[Strontium Dawg]

If you live on the coast, learn how to fish for food. You'd be surprised what you can catch using a loaf of $1 white bread and a simple rig. Don't overthink it either. You can catch a bucketful of yakkas and other small fish normally used for bait from a wharf or jetty, but they are actually very tasty and the healthiest eating fish, due to their lower status in the food chain (less accumulated toxins) and their high good oil content.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Glaukus

[Bigred]

thats a good point fishing is a great pass time and can be very rewarding .I catch fish out of the brisbane river

i eat the bream but i catch nice mud crabs but they taste muddy any tips on how to clean them out

[Strontium Dawg]

Sorry red, I've never caught muddies, only blue swimmers.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

thats a good point fishing is a great pass time and can be very rewarding .I catch fish out of the brisbane river

i eat the bream but i catch nice mud crabs but they taste muddy any tips on how to clean them out

We used to leave out yabbies in fresh water for a week before we ate em to help clean em out a bit maybe you can do the same with the muddies in a bucket of salt water at home?

[Bigred]

There is heaps of fish in the river i use the bait traps to get prawns and they make a nice feed and great bait

also up at the lake is great for read claw a trick is to pull the tail off and put into salt water and a little garlic

butter and i cant believe its not lobster.

Is it posible to start a bulk fuel group i.e a group of us pre purchases a lot or we start a group that

only uses certain companies to receive a discount

[gtarman]

Yeh wb dumpster diving is rad! there's a few threads on here already about it I remember posting in. I'll try and find em soon and ad them in

I feel like I may have been the starter of that thread lol. Forgot all about it!

[waterboy 2.0]

Bream can live for a long time for a small fish, and can bio-accumulate metals.

Mostly due to the crustacean diet.

Be wary of estuaries with a lot of development within the catchment if bream is ya target for the plate.

There a few estuaries that have a recommended weekly take/"dose" of bream now I am aware of.

[Strontium Dawg]

Yeah bream have very little meat for their size, taste pretty average and are a slow growing species.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Just read what ya wrote glaukus about the bait fish, I've eaten plenty of yakkas, a bit bony but if you announce it an "eat with ya fingers" evening with heaps of sides there awesome!

[Strontium Dawg]

Chargrilled with garlic and chilli, they're awesome. Also, they are good pickled. Which brings me to another tip - pickle some veges and things when you have them in the garden, then you will have tasty snacks all year. Dill pickles are yum.

[Bigred]

regarding bream Really the levels are that bad that eating weekly is bad for you i catch flowery rock cod as

well .Will start going for the freshwater fish bass silver perch ,but that is really sad we have gotten to this point .

[waterboy 2.0]

In some places Red sad to say yep.

Need some care when wild harvesting.

Edited July 7, 2015 by waterboy 2.0

[DeadStar]

You could also fish for squid/calamari. Target them with squid jigs over weed beds from jettys.

squid only live for 365 dayy and multiple readly so there very sustainable

Edited July 7, 2015 by DeadStar

[gtarman]

You could also fish for squid/calamari. Target them with squid jigs over weed beds from jettys.

squid only live for 365 dayy and multiple readly so there very sustainable

Not to mention that well-cooked and well-seasoned calamari is one of life's finer things.

My tips - if they haven't already been said: get whatever you can from op-shops, epsecially clothing. It's amazing how much we spend on clothing when there's so much that just gets given away or discarded, some of it is really cool designer shit too, and with a bit of imagination you can use some of the more out-there finds to create your own styles. Busking is always good if you have any skills in that sense, I've lived off of that before when I had to.

Getting connected with your city's dumpster-diving scene is a good move for those that are open to the idea - like clothes, our society throws away a lot of perfectly good food that has nothing wrong with it. It's more just a matter of getting past your own conditioned feelings and ideas about the concept (or not, if you don't want to).

Also oats. You can but almost a kilogram of rolled oats from Coles or Woolies for less than a dollar - buy yourself some sultanas for another dollar and you've got a kilogram of meusli for $2. Get yourself some powedered milk and that's at least a week's worth of breakfasts.

[shortly]

Has anyone played with solar sterilization or pasteurization for media, soil or perhaps water? I'm kinda over cutting driftwood for cooking media.

And we used to collect a fairly wide range of seafood for the plate, from oysters, mud mussels, mangrove worms, seaweeds (mostly Ulva & Caulerpa) as well as fish, prawns & crabs. We dont touch any of them anymore, between catching bull sharks with tumors & the reports of pollution levels dozens of times above the official safe level we now prefer to find other sources of calories.

[Bigred]

There are some awesome solar ovens on the market i thought about if you got one you could use it

but i used to do woodchip ferments for oyster mushrooms

but solar dehydrators (your car can be a good one ) are great beef jerky is awesome i use masterfoods

chilli con carn and some brown vinegar some brown sugar salt and your away to jerky bliss

[shortly]

The solar oven will get used for a lot more than just mushroom media, although it will be the first thing to go through.

I will most likely end up borrowing a good commercial design & duplicating it.

I have more junk than i do cash, a good 0.5 ton of mirror + a goodly pile of stainless should see the job done?

The dehydrator/s i have sorted, i builded one like the motherearthnews.com/diy/solar-food-dehydrator out of 3/4 plywood crates, some SS angle & racks and a bit of glass.

Although i have been thinking of adding a small PVC panel & battery pack to run a computer fan just to keep the air moving once the sun sets.

As it is everything seems to get to about 1/2 dry in a day but seems to partly rehydrate over night so using only winter sun it takes 3-5 days to dry most things enough that they are reasonably shelf stable. Hopefully the inclusion of a fan or two reduces the drying time?

[Yeti101]

Lots and lots (and lots) of good advice here. Doing ok now, but have had some really lean times in the past. I can certainly vouch for the lentils and oats. Big bowl of spicy dahl made with red lentils and a hard boiled egg - still one of my favourite meals!

Plan your meals. Only shop once a week or fortnight. Drive as little as possible.

Every time, and I mean every time, you go to spend money, think: do I really need this?

Borrow DVDs and books from the library. If there is a food cooperative near you, see if it's worth joining. Shop at aldi rather than the more expensive chains, but don't go nuts on the specials.

Save at least $10 a week, for fun or emergencies- the less you can borrow, the better.

[Bigred]

Not many people garden in my area its a shame as there is heaps of public space but the permits required to do it are political hoops .

If you live in Brisbane

Darra is awesome to go shopping at heaps of awesome spices and the only place you can get 2 hamburgers chipps and drinks for $10

plus the fish monger fillets all the fish there i got a flathead today filleted for 7 dollars some beans and rice and you have

a great meal for two .

Edited July 8, 2015 by Bigred

[nothinghead]

Every time, and I mean every time, you go to spend money, think: do I really need this?

I heard a tip for this which seems to work alright. Say you're about to buy something for, say, 40 bucks. Stop for a sec and think "if right now a stranger offered me 40 bucks or this thing, which would I rather?"