living on centerlink/min wage penny pincher thread

[Anodyne]

In a similar vein to the advice about stocking up on household goods when you can, I'd say if you have space for a vege garden (it doesn't have to be your own place, maybe there's a nearby vacant lot, or unused median strip, or your disabled neighbour can't garden for herself but will share the space) to buy seeds when you can. Heaps of ebay vendors offer small packs of cool heirloom varieties for ~$1 each. With a bit of effort, you've got yourself a years worth of veges for less money than you'd pay for a single meal at a restaurant. And of course if you've got a bit of space & patience you can save your own seeds too. If you have a garden but no money at all for seeds, you can always try planting seeds & pulses from your pantry, you might be surprised by how many come up.

The thing I like about all of this learning to make & grow things for yourself is how the skills are multipurpose. So when you start to get bored of reading about potato varieties, or how to keep sourdough culture alive, or catch yabbies or ID mushrooms, or whatever - instead of thinking "being poor sucks, I wish I had some cash so I didn't need to bother with all this", just think of all the mad skillz you're accumulating for the nuclear holocaust or zombie apocalypse. So see, Centrelink's cheapskatery is actually helping you to become self-sufficient & prep for the clone wars!

On a random note, I think the kind of people I'm friends with tend to start their sentences with the phrase "Well, come the zombie apocalypse..." way more often than is normal.

[ColinO'Scopy]

Of course, thank you Anodyne I can see it from a new perspective now. Centrelink is being cruel to be kind to me by making me wait for hours in room full of flu ridden people to strengthen me. So therefore Centrelink does truly care about me, and so does Tony. Joy

[Anodyne]

Exactly, so people aren't slowly dying of treatable illness & malnutrition because our government has whacked-out priorities, they're in training for post-apocalypse survival. Hoo-ar! or something.

We'll just see how all those folks who don't know how to garden & scavenge & hunt pigeons do after the zombiebolapocalpyse. If Tony Abbott was a character in Walking Dead, how long would he survive?

[Strontium Dawg]

[Darklight]

If Tony Abbott was a character in Walking Dead, how long would he survive?

Too long. However long he survives the zombpocalypse, it will be too long.

[paradox]

Tone abet is the zombpocalypse. It's been in full effect for years.. the brain munching part is just the final stage & only begins after full ecological chaos has obliterated food supplies. According to all the latest data, should come into effect some time in the next 25 years, when our sole purpose on this planet as the primary catalyst of the 6th great mass extinction has been achieved.. Yay!

[Bigred]

 

yankeeprepper is a great u tuber on survivalism and heaps of useful other stuff

[shortly]

Exactly, so people aren't slowly dying of treatable illness & malnutrition because our government has whacked-out priorities, they're in training for post-apocalypse survival. Hoo-ar! or something.

We'll just see how all those folks who don't know how to garden & scavenge & hunt pigeons do after the zombiebolapocalpyse. If Tony Abbott was a character in Walking Dead, how long would he survive?

Not my government! I wouldn't piss on any of those parasites if they were on fire!!!

And just to clarify, that go's for the lot of them, liberal, labor n greens. They are all just sides of the same fucked up dice.

And its good to see people prepared to take care of themselves, their kith & kin instead of just accepting that the the grubbyment and the capitalists who seek nothing more than to profit will take care of them.

[Bigred]

Pea and Ham soup is so easy to make and its really filling

1 ham hock (2kg) $4 kilo

dehydrated peas (the soup kind)

3 onions

rehydrate the peas blend half put aside

in a big pot put ham hocks and add

the finely chop onions add peas

and simmer for a minimum two hours

i use a slow cooker and leave it on

when cooked the peas normally break down

if not mash them up to your desired consistency

Try to find smoked hocks as there is a butcher in raceview

Ipswich that does them

[DiscoStu]

If Tony Abbott was a character in Walking Dead, how long would he survive?

he's the one throwing other survivors to the zombies so he can escape

[Anodyne]

Stu, don't ruin my dismemberment fantasies bro. I'll end up having to introduce some deus ex machina scene with dragons or something. Maybe the T-rex from Jurassic Park.

[Anodyne]

Err... sorry for the apocalyptic derailment Bigred, I'll try to get this zombie trainwreck back ontrack.

Has anyone mentioned homebrewing yet? Shop alcohol is insanely expensive, I didn't drink for a few years then went into a bottle-o recently & was appalled at the prices, I think if you're on centrelink payments & want to drink booze, there's no way you can afford not to homebrew. And it's a piece of piss really - if you need help there's homebrew shops scattered everywhere with very enthusiastic staff who'll chat to you for hours about methods, not to mention all the online forums. At the end of the day all you need to make tasty booze is sugar, yeast & flavouring. Unfortunately home distillery is fairly illegal in this country, but if you wanted to read about the theory there is plenty of info online, like this site which also tells you how to make all kinds of infused spirits, like limoncello & kahlua. If you want to make tinctures or liqueurs a bit more cheaply than with vodka, see if you can find "vkat" (previosly called "vodkat"), a neutral alcohol which is sold at half the price of vodka (by alcohol content) because the lower alcohol % puts it below the level for spirits tax - and 22%alc is still fine for many purposes.

[nothinghead]

Homebrew is definitely a good idea. Equipment pays for itself in no time, you get to play around with different brews (adding spices, different kinds of hops once you get into it etc), no preservatives... Even if you don't get into it, buying the brew kits from big dubs or whereever is still way cheaper and tastes as good as anything at the bottlo (i reckon).

Start saving your pop top bottles up!

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

You can buy water kefir grains cheap online and they multiply easy with brown sugar. I use em to cider up cheap Apple juice, can do about 2ltrs of 5% in 3-4 days. Just get preservative free juice and use coffee filters and a rubber band as the "airlock" on the original bottle, or even a balloon secured by a rubber band. I then do a 1-2 day secondary in another juice bottle with the lid on tight to carbonate. Then into the fridge to chill for 24hrs. All up the process is maybe 7days for the finished drink. And it's tasty!!

You can adjust the grains slowly to only take cider but I prefer to alternate them into sugar water to get em healthy again. A 1/2 cup of grains goes for about $5 on eBay with cheap post and is enough to do 4ltrs straight up and have enough grains in sugar water to do another 4ltrs when the first batch of cider finishes up. You can experiment with all kinds of juices, I tried making wine once with them but it was nasty. Apple and pear is my favourite.

I'm pretty sure you kill off any beneficial bacteria with the ferment but you can drink the kefir water you have your grains in whilst not in the juice. It's actually the one natural remedy that I feel works wonders for me and the misso. You can flavour it with any fruit you like during a secondary kefir ferment too.

If you use about 25grams of brown raw sugar per serve 200-250ml and dissolve in boiled water you can then flavour it with fresh berries spices etc just make sure they aren't anti bacterial or nothing will happen... When strawberries were cheap I used the about ratios and then blended in 1 punet if strawberries per litre of water. Man was it the best strawberry booze I've ever had! Beat the shit out of that sugar water stuff from the bottlo

[shortly]

Perhaps we need a continuous trading thread for Kefir, kombucha and any other ferment bugz ppl are keeping?

[ThunderIdeal]

asexual hookups thread.

[goneski]

Well, I've been considering quiting my shithouse job and going into sex work. I'm sure I could roleplay as asexual.

[ThunderIdeal]

Sorry mate, colonies of organisms only. Are you a diverse colony of organisms?

[naja naja]

I have recently had a reduction into our families income. But it's been good in a way. I am saving more now than ever. Strange. Most recently I also made my first venture into homebrew cider. 8 days from beginning to end. Use champagne yeast or s-04 strain. Add sugar for a sweeter or stronger cider. Very drinkable and works out about $1.50 per 1.25 liters. A simple airlock in the lid and that's all you need. Very very easy. If u don't like a batch u leave it to turn into apple cider vinegar for ahem science.

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

Perhaps we need a continuous trading thread for Kefir, kombucha and any other ferment bugz ppl are keeping?

I'll happily swap a few good table spoons of water kefir grains for a small kombucha starter and scoby

Edited July 17, 2015 by theuserformallyknownasd00d

[Anodyne]

I've read that you can start your own scoby from a bottle of unpasteurised commercial kombucha. Just get about a cup of commercial kombucha tea (plain flavour is probably best) - you can drink the rest of the bottle, just make sure you reserve all the sediment & floaty bits (if you can find a bottle with a chunk of "baby scoby" in it you're off to a good start) - then put it in a jar with a few cups of sweetened black tea (similar ratios to water kefir, ~1tblsp per cup). Cover the jar with a cloth or something & leave it somewhere warm for a few weeks or until it forms a smooth jellyish layer a few mm thick on top. The first batch will be very vinegary as it takes awhile to grow the original scoby, so you might want to toss that or use it for pickling or something, but you can run thru subsequent batches much quicker so they're more palatable. There are a lot of brands of unpasteurised kombucha around - Mojo, Remedy & Buchi are a few I've seen, and there are probably others too - I was going to try using one of these. So hopefully I'll have some spare scoby in a few month's time!

Edited July 18, 2015 by Anodyne

[etherealdrifter]

i've recently began reading The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz .

http://www.goed-geboerd.nl/resources/ArtFermentation.pdf

There is alot to get through but it's an excellent resource. The book explains every little detail concisely of essential concepts. The authour's backstory is very interesting.

if ya wanna just chill and watch a vid about it, maybe have a geezer at this link:

 

I can't wait to get a repeatable and stable system in place for making some kombucha - it's abit pricey aye!

[theuserformallyknownasd00d]

I have recently had a reduction into our families income. But it's been good in a way. I am saving more now than ever. Strange. Most recently I also made my first venture into homebrew cider. 8 days from beginning to end. Use champagne yeast or s-04 strain. Add sugar for a sweeter or stronger cider. Very drinkable and works out about $1.50 per 1.25 liters. A simple airlock in the lid and that's all you need. Very very easy. If u don't like a batch u leave it to turn into apple cider vinegar for ahem science.

People should forgot about my post and just do this

[waterboy 2.0]

Even if you are in a unit without any dirt available you can grow some herbage in pots.

Can get some additional goodness from things like chives and parsley as examples (silver beet).

Even if its to jazz up 2 minute noodles.

Edited July 19, 2015 by waterboy 2.0

[naja naja]

When u buy coriander with roots on, put in jar of water and harvest as needed. It will stay alive and fresh a long time.