Accessories August 30, 2008

For something a little different than the earlier posts (and my apologies on the amount of time between posts), I’ll discuss making things for yourself, rather than buying.  And what precisely do I mean by that?  Read on.

A few years back, both my mother and I attempted to learn to knit.  My father and brother could both easily accomplish the task and so we expected to do the same – it was a failure.  Casting on, perl stitching, it all eluded us.  So instead, mom went out and purchased knitting looms.  At first, just the circular which we used for a lot of hats, most that went to donation, then the long loom which I have just used to make a pretty spectacular scarf.  The initial cost of the looms was about 10$ as mom had used a half off coupon for them; they’ve certainly paid for themselves with the number of alpaca-yarn hats my mother has made for my father.

This is how I defrayed some living expenses in the last few years – go handmade, yourself if you can.  Instead of spending 20$ or 30$ on that nice knitted scarf, take up a hobby that teaches patience and skill and make your own.  Find a tutorial online in a style you like, buy the yarn, and sit down with a loom instead of the TV.  I’ve been crocheting since I was a young child so it’s not unreasonable to have kids sit down to try it too.  It especially helps people with dexterity in their hands as it requires some strength and tone.

Jewelry, too, I’ve gone for handmade.  My college roommate made me some of the most exquisite and unique necklaces and earrings I’ve seen.  Using gauged metal and beads, she even got professors to buy her work.  I’m not as good with the medium involving tools, but you give me stretch string and some beads and I’ll make you something cute.  Keep this in mind when you’re looking at that adorable glass beaded bracelet in JCPenney.  Actually, keep the bracelet in mind next time you’re in Michael’s Crafts – make it yourself for a lesser price and have the pride to say “I made it myself!”

Before anyone starts in on me for the price of starting these hobbies, think of it this way: you could pay flat out for something, say 40$, and be done with it.  Or you could that that 40$ and get supplies, then you could make multiple items for the price of a skein of yarn or a pack of beads, or a paint brush.  Instead of buying the same item every year, you’ll end up saving at least half that money while you do something that can help you relax after work.  I personally enjoy taking a loom to work with a skein of yarn and just going, row after row, to calm my nerves on break.

And the Pets, Too. August 15, 2008

Keeping a pet, even in a small space on a small budget, is possible.  A small pet like a rat, mouse, hamster, or gerbil can live in a proper-sized cage for several hours a day comfortably.  Larger pets such as ferrets, rabbits, and guinea pigs need larger cages and while they also do well in small spaces, require more time out of the cage than a gerbil or mouse.  Please note that all animals need time out of their cages to roam and as a rule, the larger the animal, the more time they need.

Food wise, guys, you need to determine what their nutritional requirements are and how you plan for them to get it.  I feed my rats lab block as their primary food so I allocate a larger part of my budget to buying bags of it – I believe 15$ for 3 pounds from the local privately owned pet store – but try to stretch the bag by using a homemade mix twice a week.  For 10$/12$ a month, I purchase cereal, puffed rice and/or wheat, oats, dried fruits & nuts, and pasta which is then tossed together in a large container.  It is not nutritionally complete, so it’s more a treat than food, but it does help to lengthen the time between lab block purchases.

Treats for small animals can also be cheaper than the junk from pet stores.  Fresh fruits are often a good choice, especially animals that shouldn’t have a lot of sugar.  Gerbils and Hamster both can get diabetes if not given a proper diet, so sugary foods are to be given sparingly.  The rats enjoy sharing a banana with me and will actually push each other out of the way to get to it.  A banana from Trader Joes is 19 cents, which makes for a tasty, healthy snack for both pet and owner.  However, please find sites that list forbidden foods for your pet as some are known carcinogens or can cause fatal reactions.

Cage accessories… aside from the cage itself, a wheel if needed, and water bottles, there is nothing that can’t be made or purchased from the dollar store.  For instance, cat or dog bowls work for rats and other animals or ashtrays for gerbils.  Hammocks can be made from fabric placemats – cut a hole in each corner and add some shower rings.  Ziptie a basket to the side of the cage and you’ll get an additional level or a hideaway.  Cut a hole in a bin and you’ve got a house. This site will soon have a list of links for examples of cage additives and instructions, but hopefully those suggestions help out some poor soul.

I’m sure someone’s confused as to why I haven’t mentioned anything really about cages themselves.  That’s due to the issue that unless you find one on craigslist or have a pretty decent hand at making one, there are few options to find one cheap.  You can try freecycle in your area, a tag sale, or flea market.  Sometimes a pet store will have one marked down because it’s missing a piece or was damaged, so keep an eye out for that.  But be prepared to spend a sum of money on something good, especially if you work or am at school for most of the day.  I personally own a Ferret Nation for my rats, a homemade 3′ by 4′ cage for my guinea pigs, and a large tote (equivalent to 17 1/2 gallons) for my gerbils.  These cages, combined, have cost around 350$/400$ and are somewhat customizable.

This evening I’ll be setting up pages on the site with links, information, and other tidbits.  Please excuse the lack of posting yesterday, I was ill and unable to write.

Good Eats on a Dime August 13, 2008

I have heard every excuse for not eating healthy, ranging from “I can’t afford it!” to “I’m not a vegetarian.  I can’t eat healthy.”  I have one word for that garbage and it’s not PG.  Do yourself a favor and get the idea of salads and low-cal foods out of your head before you screw your body over.  It doesn’t have to be that age old expectation of restricting yourself to bland food and tiny portions.

Before I go further I’d like to state that I am a believer in the current school of thought that American portion sizes are huge.  I’ve seen people eat thousands of calories in one meal (and done it myself!) and then complain that they don’t know why they’ve gained weight.  If you’re eating half a bag of cookies every other day, you will find yourself getting heavier.  Do I believe that the only answer to obesity is portion sizing?  No.  But it’ll help if we stop thinking that we have to fill plates to capacity or go up to the buffet line five times.

Living on a budget, as most of America is due to the current financial climate, is difficult especially given that while paychecks aren’t getting bigger, our food and gas bills are.  Parents worry about feeding their children good meals, dieters worry about gaining weight on subpar food, and plenty worry about their bank accounts.    But a budget doesn’t mean taking away nutritional content from one’s daily caloric intake.  Think outside the box, research recipes, and shop where you can get good deals.

Yes, I am a vegetarian. Do I believe it’s omgthebestthingeva?  No.  It’s my choice for my health which, partly due to genetics and partly due to ill care of myself in the past, has helped me learn to make better choices.  This is something that everyone has to learn to do without excuse when trying to live on a budget.  It is not enough to buy a vegetable and say “I’m healthy!”  I doubt a doctor would commend you on that alone.

While in college, where living on a shoestring is commonplace, I relied heavily on cafeteria food.  Non-cafeteria food included microwaveable meals like rice cups or instant grits.  Staples like grits, rice, and other grains remain relatively cheap per portion.  I have to do some price checking for future pages on this site, but a serving of rice is less than a dollar a person.  To make it even less per serving, add beans or a pound of ground meat – the meal is filling, healthy, and whatever’s left over can be saved for lunchboxes.  I take a lunch to work to stop me from spending money everyday on meals and even if I pack it in ten minutes before work, it’s better than stopping at the chinese food place or the deli.  (For tips on lunches for children and speed packing, try lunch in a box.)

Vegetables are good for you and compared to the prepared meals found elsewhere in stores, cheaper, but a salad doesn’t generally appeal to construction workers or dieters alike.  However, I want to know who said veggies are only for salads?  Make a dipping oil with whatever oil is on hand and whatever spices you enjoy to enjoy with zucchini and carrot sticks.  Toss corn and peas in a saute pan with asparagus or green beans until just lightly cooked and season with garlic and black pepper.  I’ve even made the latter with potatoes for an actual meal; lentils would be great.  If my dad ate ham more often, I’d probably make him the meal with dices of it.  Don’t be afraid to try something you haven’t before if it’s on sale.  Take a small something and cook it, fry it, bake it, or eat it raw.

Small Spaces August 12, 2008

Living in a small space be it at home with parents, a dorm room, or a first apartment, we all know that flat surfaces are a premium.  Any place that something can go, it generally does until it’s one thing on top of another and you’re looking around, wondering where to start because you’re living in clutter.

This is not a new story.  Everyone lives in a place extremely small at one time or another.  My best friend and her husband spent their first year in an apartment that is about the size of my living room.  It’s learning how to utilize space that some people never get.  After all, it’s easier to just toss things on a dresser or a desk and then deal with it later.  It’s taken me years to figure out how to make my life easier by not living in a mess of my own making.  Particularly in my bathroom.

In the last three days, I’ve made the concerted effort to actually put into practice what I preach because (I admit) I tended to tell others tips for organizing and then came home to an overfilled bathroom and a cluttered bedroom.  I said it was because I knew where everything was, but the reality?  I am chronically tired which makes me lazy.  I’m more likely to lay in bed for an entire day off than to get on my hands and knees and clean out under it.

Once going, I’ve gotten both places set up to look great, make finding things easier, and look fun at the same time.  The dollar store is heaven for me and for anyone living on a budget, it makes sense – a bin from there can be any color, any size.  I’m particularly fond of anything that looks kitchy like the jumbo-sized popcorn bins I use in my bedroom and the plastic “basket weave” bin in my bathroom.  (All can be seen on my flickr account in various pictures.)  Many of these were acquired throughout the last year with specific ideas for how they’d be used; amusingly enough, all of them are in different places.

In my marathon cleaning sessions, I was able to organize my totes to specific purposes.  One bin under my bed has all books, another all my craft supplies.  I can reach under there, and with minimal effort, extract either one for what I need.  I wish I’d thought of that in the dorm as it would have made move out so much easier than the last minute “I need boxes!” dash.  There’s open top bins on my dresser that have headbands, my straightener, and other products within reach.  Fabric collapsibles from Target (5.99$ a bin) live on my storage unit, holding pet supplies and other items.

Note I said storage unit – in my small room, I have two wall shelves.  That’s it.  By getting a unit from Target for 14.99$ (white with 3 shelves) in college, I was able to keep my closet in some semblance of order.  Getting a second one to attach as you can put two together safely, I expanded my usable surface space and with the shelves being adjustable, I can have it in as many combinations as I choose.

If you live at home or an apartment and can’t get a unit or something like that, think about your wall space.  3M makes hooks that attach to the wall strongly and remove cleanly.  I used them in the dorm all four years and they held up to filled backpacks, jackets, and bags.  Currently I have screw-in mug hooks in every wall and they’ve been great for putting up belts, necklaces, and clothing.

Repurposing August 11, 2008

This word has come up several times and truthfully it was the catalyst for this blog’s creation. It’s pretty obvious what it means so I really won’t explain it other than to say one item changed. That is exactly what it is without getting into long paragraphs.

In my house, we reuse a large percentage of stuff that would otherwise go to waste. My mother’s more apt to throw things away, however, than I am and it shows (as stated in my earlier post). On the other hand, this makes for a lot of items that would come to be in a landfill – an old shower caddy, plastic cups, and a plastic lunch tray. These are things that should be used for what it sounds like: in the shower or on the table.

Me? The shower caddy makes a great pseudo-medicine chest. The plastic cups? They now hold hair accessories, lip balm, and acne products, while the lunch tray is a cute holder for miscellaneous items. Currently my tray holds a few batteries, my jumpdrive, a necklace and bracelet, and an unopened bag of sunflower seeds. (Tray does not have a picture at the moment, sorry.)

When looking to throw something away, think about what you need and if you can use it for something else. Old cups, as stated, make great holders for things like coins and bobby pins. An old bead organizer can be a cheap pill case. My own happens to come from Michaels for about three dollars; I shelled out an extra dollar over another case as this one locks the compartments, making it child-safe. I can throw the entire thing (a bit bulky but that doesn’t stop me!) into my bag to take for a weekend in NH without worry that my 3 year old nephew will get into it when we’re not looking.

And things don’t have to be repurposed for storage alone. Sitting around my room was an old CD rack I no longer used.  New purpose: a ladder in my rat cage though it’ll  be moving to my gerbil cage soon as the rats are too large for it now.  They have a litter box made from a serving bin.  A hammock made from baby burp cloths.  So much that will be discussed in another post.

Think outside the box when you’re organizing.  Try to avoid buying, but don’t be afraid to toss things.  If something is broke, torn, stained, or otherwise disgusting or just sort of useless, let it go.  There’s nothing wrong with getting rid of something if it clears up space for you to have more area to use.

If you absolutely have nothing to repurpose, well, that’s another entry on buying cheap bins, totes, and organizers.

Parting with the Past August 10, 2008

I am a HUGE packrat.  Why?  A lot of it is the belief that I’ll be able to use something for something else: scrap paper for cards or writing, old cookware for fun storage bins, or old clothing that could be used in sewing.  Because of this, I’ve held onto a lot of things that I don’t need nor are momentos I want to keep.  They’re just there.

My attempts in the past to rid myself of this clutter have made for much frustration as the belief in the past was that my family was forcing me to get rid of beloved items.  These days, though, I have more than enough to my name and I have made the promise to live better (another reason for the inception of this blog) as such this means cleaning.

Which means letting go of some things I once treasured.

I think it’s the hardest thing in the world for packrats to donate or throw away something.  Whether it’s the beanie baby mom gave you for an Good Job! on your grade school book report or the book report itself, it’s the memory that really makes the decision hard.  How do you know you won’t forget that great feeling if you don’t have the thing that will remind you of it?  (If that makes sense!)  The answer: you won’t.  It’s in your mind and it can be drawn up easily enough.

If you still can’t bear to part, take a picture of the item and put it in an album online or tangible.  If it’s a paper, get a three ring binder, some paper protectors, and put the pages in the protector backwards.  I.E.: So you can’t see the words and are forced to pull it out to read it.  If after a year, the pages are still unread, let it go.

It’s really not the item that we cling to – it’s the emotion it evokes and damned if it doesn’t feel like someone has a gun to your head when contemplating getting rid of it.  Do yourself a favor, though, by saying goodbye to it and instead, write down the memory.  Get a journal, put it into words, and then when you need to, read the entries.  Clutter free and you’ve rewarded yourself with a bit of an endorphine rush from recalling great times.

Yup, I’ve done it again. August 10, 2008

As if I wasn’t already using eighteen million sites to put out my brand of information, I’ve added word press. This blog, however, will be different than either of my LJs (including that poor neglected one!) or my other WP site.

Within these entries will be information for repurposing items that would otherwise collect dust, creating earth-friendly things, and living healthy for cheap. I’m a young woman (23!) but I live on a relatively small amount of money in an area that makes for a lot of driving. I’ve been out of college since ‘07; still, that lifestyle is easy to continue if one is careful and gives thought toward the value of an item compared to the value of the dollar they’ve earned.

To the right is a flickr widget that will take you to pictures of items I use or have made. Pet gear (I have 2 gerbils, 3 rats, 2 guinea pigs, and a cat), cotton grocery bags, and healthy bento boxes can or will be found there. I will also try to include a page on places where items for cheap can be found or places where discounts for a product make for a good deal.

Guys, you’ll also get to see the transformation of my messy, cluttered bedroom as I par down my collection of knick-knacks and other items to make way for the me I’m trying to nurture. I’m hoping from there to include tips on making small spaces more inviting and easy to deal with. Since I’m pretty poor and only a year out of school, I’ve spent more than ten years in the same bedroom and there is bound to be some interesting bits & bobs in there that will make for a few laughs along the way.