Sunday 11 November 2012

Minimizing

Since I mostly write about how to be somewhat self-sustaining and "just in case" preparation, I have been exploring the idea of being a minimalist. If you've never given it a thought, let me come at this from a different direction: - If you're a prepper, you obviously like to have a bit of everything around in case you need it... but what if something happens and you can't find what you need due to TOO MUCH STUFF? - If you like to be independent from "the man".. then why buy so much? All you do is clutter up your home and keep supporting Big Box Company and their overseas sweat shops. - If you're on board and think "Hey yah I should declutter... I haven't work that pink shirt in two years and have 4 different turkey basters" well then good job!! Take it step-by-step and room-by-room to slowly decrease your "junk"... This is not saying you have to contribute to our landfills by throwing things out! Please do what I did and put an ad on the local community boards or in the newspaper saying "FREE STUFF TO GIVE AWAY" and people will flock to take it off your hands. My tip: put all your giveaway stuff in one area (for me it was the walk-in closet off the laundry room) so that you can tell people "anything in this room is free", then they don't have to dig through several areas and they know which items are off-limits. One man's junk is another man's treasure!

Thursday 1 November 2012

Post-Halloween Pumpkins

I was very lucky to travel into the city yesterday, on Halloween. Superstore happened to have three huge bins of pumpkins and a sign saying "FREE PUMPKINS". They were the "rejects", ones that probably wouldn't sell by night, so I grabbed two of them (not being greedy). These pumpkins will not be jack-o-lanterns though... they will be for pie. Think about that... free pie! Canada is fortunate to have an abundance of food, even in places we don't think of. Superstore thought they were giving away Halloween decorations, but I saw a way of minimizing the family food budget. Head over to the Recipes page for my recipe on turning regular large pumpkins into pumpkin pie. Great way to use up your jack-o-lanterns!