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Starting out...

When starting out on the healthy, simple, green living, homesteading style journey, there are always some practical steps you can take to get started. Have a look through these posts to see if there are things you can do at your  house to get you inspired to start living a greener, healthier and often cheaper way! Some of these things are not quick and easy... Frugal and green are not always the cheap or quick option. But there is a lot more satisfaction in making and doing it yourself and having a level of independence that cant be unlearned. The big corporations have a vested interest in enslaving us all to their products so that they can make as much money as possible while keeping us all in the dark on how things are made and what's actually in them.... I'm not so keen to live like that - so I have been experimenting on making and doing it myself - sometimes successfully and sometimes not so...

Have a look at some real life examples of how to make and do it yourself!
 
In the kitchen
In this list are some practical things you can do in your kitchen to start on the journey to become more frugal, healthy and green! I found starting with some basics and working my way up to more complicated things helped. Figure out what changes you can make easily and when they are a habit - move on to the more challenging things. Don't take on too much at once as if it doesn't work you may be disappointed and give it all up and go back to the convenience that the big corporations are counting on.


Making a weeks worth lunches in 20 minutes
Cooking pizza in the home BBQ
Bunya nut collection and preparation
Home made small batch mixed vegetable pickles
Measuring ingredients by weight the easy way
Easy to change jar labels for preserves
Quick easy labels for preserves
What I did with excess eggs
Last nights left overs lunch ideas
Scotch eggs made with Quail eggs
Reusable ice for iced water
Plastic potato bag apron
 
Sparkling rose petal drink
Making your own home made ginger beer
How to eat a single beetroot
Make your own cheap, but good, dog food
Reusable ice for iced water
A small amount of rosella jam
Make your own peanut butter at home
Beginning of the year freezer defrost clean and sort out
Make your own chai flavoured tea
Quick cheap fun birthday cake idea
Easy to make plum sauce
How to make a great cup of tea
How to smoke salmon at home
How to make Kahlua and Baileys at home
Making pumpkin bread at home
Easy to make successful homemade bread rolls
Making yoghurt at home
Making ricotta cheese at home
Home made tomato sauce
Cooking Pizza's in the back yard BBQ

 
Green Cleaning
Green cleaning is the in thing to do these days - just have a look at the shelves in the supermarket. They are jam packed with bottles of chemicals labelled green! Green cleaning involves a limited amount of ingredients and a little more elbow grease but your aren't breathing in chemical laden lungful's of unknown chemicals every time you clean!


Home made cleaning product recipes
Putting Christmas decorations away
Beginning of the year freezer defrost clean and sort out
Need more room in the bathroom? Cover the bath
Citrus vinegar
Getting rid of ants in your home - naturally
Cleaning dusty bedside lamps
Greening my skin cleansing routine
Home made lemon and salt body scrub
Rosemary Hair rinse for no 'poo-ers
Cleaning tarnished brass candlesticks, naturally
Home made cleaning product recipes
No 'poo shampoo and conditioner
Using Eucalyptus oil to remove stickers and labels
Citrus vinegar
Cleaning dusty bedside lamps
Greening my skin cleansing routine
Making home made soap from Lamb fat
Home made lemon and salt body scrub
Rosemary Hair rinse for no 'poo-ers
Cleaning your toilet the green way
Home made cleaning product recipes
Making my dish scrubber go further


Organising and Planning

Part of the trick to living a simpler life is to be organised and to prioritise your time. Yes, you have to get off your backside but once its done, you gain back more time than you gave back. Time that you can use to do the things you want to do rather than the things that you do that you do so you don't have to do the things you know you should be doing...! Go on, get up off the couch and start planning and organising!


Making a weeks worth lunches in 20 minutes
Sorting computer cords in drawers
Lables to mark kids or guest space in the bathroom
Cute and easy pin cushion that took 1/2 an hour to make
Putting Christmas decorations away
Beginning of the year freezer defrost clean and sort out
Need more room in the bathroom? Cover the bath
Eco friendly party
Making my Christmas cards go further
Decluttering - the throw out 50 things challenge
How I tell which gas bottle is off or on
Planning parties at home and remembering what happened
Link to a 2013 planning meditation
Why we bought heritage chickens
Putting Christmas decorations away
Time saving, Money saving Menu planning
How to choose your fruit and veg when they are in season
Making your New Years Resolutions easier


Repairing
Repairing instead of rushing out and buying new things is going to be the cheaper and most frugal option most of the time. It also has the advantage of empowering you and giving you a chance to be creative. And even if you only get one or two more uses out of something, you've learnt something and have moved one more step away from being an unthinking, automatic consumer of material goods...


Fixing tears in a curtain
How to turn collars on a work shirt
A cheap and reasonable cheap cushion revamp
Hiding scuff marks on school or work shoes
Making a home made hand made watch strap
Fixing a wicker wash basket
Fixing my clothes peg hanger thingy
How to fix a cheap plastic washing basket
Fixing my watering can with a bit of TLC
Hanging tomato plants - revamping some hanging baskets
Making a chipped plate look better
Rubber band over a paint can makes less mess
Patching big holes in the seat of jeans
Refilling Candle holders with new wax
Making Spoon Butter for your wooden spoons and bread boards

Repurposing
Finding a new use for something that it wasn't originally intended for give a surprising amount of satisfaction! Before I rush off to the shops, using up petrol and time, its often worth wandering through the house and shed to see if I can see what I have that might work as well as what I am using now.... Can I modify it? Can I change it? Can I find a different way to do something - get your creative juices running and see what other uses an item might have in your unique life!


Fixing a cheap plastic clothes basket
Making a home made hand made watch strap
Fixing a wicker wash basket
Easy to make Fabric covers for Milk Crates
Reusable ice for iced water
Cheap or free bases for card making
Plastic potato bag apron
Make your own reusable party pennants
Make your own free bike racks out of milk crates
Picnic cutlery roll made from a tea towel
Making new inner soles for your shoes out of meat trays
Cooking Pizza's in the back yard BBQ
How I tell which gas bottle is off or on

 

Soap making
This one is a basic homestead skill that sounds harder than it is. Its not cheaper in a lot of cases but its a skill that's worth learning so you are not blindly accepting that shop bought soap or petroleum based 'soap free' body washes are the only way to go - if I'm going to put something on or into my body, Id like to know what's in it.


Home made soap from Lamb fat
No 'poo shampoo and conditioner
Homemade laundry soap powder

Take on the things that you can, slowly, one at a time. You don't have to become an unwashed, off grid, conservation fanatic (unless you want to) but for most people, a few changes here and there will evolve into a mindset that helps bring a confidence to try the harder things! Being green isn't always frugal and being frugal isn't always green. Its about finding homesteading ideas that work for you and your family and enhance your life. So go forth and change a few things. Its fun, makes you feel good and that cant be a bad thing. Enjoy!


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