Frugal Ideas, A Good Way to Start This New Year

A fresh new year, a clean slate. I thought it would be fun to share a couple frugal things I do and to ask for your favorite frugal tips in comments.
Heating the House
I turn down the heat to 61 degrees F (16 C) at night (from about 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.); the living room heats up quickly to 73 degrees F (22 C) in the morning which I like. My dog Bounce sits right in front of the new wall heater in the morning. I am out and about for several hours each day and turn the temp down to 68 then. Since my house is well insulated it holds the heat. We had insulation put in in the attic, a new front door that doesn't leak air, and a newer living room window.
Is that frugal? Everyone has their own ideas on favorite temperatures. I don't heat my bedroom or the house at night, I like it cool for sleeping.

Growing Vegetables
Come spring I plant vegetables and I read that a square foot of garden can produce a dollar's worth of vegetables. For a 10 by 12 foot garden that could be $120 you won't spend at the grocery store. Seeds are a cheap way to go. I like to plant Chinese sugar pea seeds, edible pea pods are so good fresh from the garden. I always plant tomatoes and zucchini, two zucchini plants are plenty for one person and I plant one green and one yellow zucchini. I plant cilantro, green onions and greens like rainbow chard, kale, or lettuce.
I think my three blueberry plants count as a frugal garden choice since they have provided me with blueberries for eight years. I planted 3 different blueberry varieties, just for fun. They each have a slightly different flavor and berry size and are ripe a few weeks apart which lengthens the blueberry season.
Re-use Egg Cartons
For good drainage for flower pots, I tear up cardboard egg cartons and put them in the bottom of the pots. That is free since you will likely buy eggs anyway.
Doing Laundry
To save water, cost of heating water and to use less laundry detergent I have a front loading clothes washer. I got an energy rebate from our city water department when I bought it several years ago. Also it does not have that central post or agitator so is more gentle on clothes.
Flower Vases
New flower vases can be expensive so I buy them from shops like Goodwill and yard sales. It is useful when I give a friend a bouquet and they can keep the vase.
Lin mentioned saving money by stopping cable TV, which I forgot to include here. My cable bill was getting up to about $90 a month, awful, and I didn't find much to watch. So I cut the cable about 4 years ago, and already had Amazon Prime so I get those TV shows, a family member gets me Netflix, and I pay a total of $20 a month for Britbox, Acorn TV (two sources of British and some Australian and Canadian shows), and Hulu. I am pleased to save $70 a month which adds up to $840 a year. Over 10 years that is $8,400, a huge amount of money saved. One of my sons bought me an Amazon Firestick so I use that to turn to the show I want to watch. The Firestick has the neat feature where I hold down the search button and say the name of a movie or TV show and it looks for it and shows viewing options. Thanks for the reminder Lin.
What are some of your best frugal ideas? I like to get new ideas to try.

Apples and I love the seasons

I love the seasons and even living in California I do experience them.

 I grew up in Wisconsin where the seasonal changes are more dramatic. Is there anything in nature more lovely than when the leaves of trees turn fall colors? Winter in Wisconsin means snow, pure white and snowflakes falling gently or heavily. I miss that. Eventually in my beloved Wisconsin snow becomes grey slush and icy driving conditions appear so that is the down side of cold winters. Seasonal changes are definitely more subtle here, but they are here. My tomatoes give up in September and then I can plant a fall veggie garden which I did last weekend.
May Sarton wrote of the autumn that
"For the joys a garden brings are already going as they come. They are poignant. When the first apple falls with that tremendous thud, one of the big seasonal changes startles the heart."
"Plant Dreaming Deep", 1968.

I am using a patio chair to support the heavily weighed apple tree branches from this old tree in our back yard. Our apples are organic, no spray used. The ones that fall to the ground are very fragrant. When we owned an apple tree orchard the fallen apples were fed to happy pigs.

We don't know what kind of apples these are as we did not plant them, but they are a bit tart and ideal for apple crumble and apple pie. A friend on Facebook suggests these are Gravenstein apples and my husband says she may be right.
If you can tell by the photos, let me know what kind of apples these are.

Wordless Wednesday: Sun ornament and jasmine in our garden

The sun ornament is a gift from my friend about five years ago, and the jasmine is a volunteer. I watched over the months as it climbed up the fence and reached the sun.
I am linking with Wordless Wednesday

Gardening is exercise, good news for spring

Good news! Gardening uses calories, since it is a form of exercise, and you can get a good workout gardening.

While you are out in your beautiful garden, weeding, planting, digging or mowing your lawn, you are expending calories.

There are two books (and probably more) on this topic.

Jeffrey Restuccio’s book is titled “Get Fit Through Gardening: Advice, Tips and Tools for Better Health” and in it he recommends that you spend 30 minutes to an hour to get physical benefits from gardening.

This means active gardening, not just admiring your roses.

Bunny Guinness, niece of David Austin, wrote “Garden Your Way to Health and Fitness”, which explains how to stay strong and injury free, while working in the garden.
There are two helpful websites that show how many calories different garden activities expend.

One site is www.calorie-count.com. Here we learn that for a person weighing 150 pounds, weeding uses 315 calories per hour, general gardening 280 calories per hour, planting seedlings or shrubs 315 calories, digging/spading/composting 350 calories, watering lawn or garden while standing 105 calories, and mowing the lawn with a power mower while walking, 385 calories per hour.

The second site is www.healthstatus.com, with its Calories Burned Estimator.

You type in your weight, select an activity, and the number of minutes and it gives you the calories you will use up. I typed in 120 pounds for weight, and found that gardening for one hour uses 320 calories, water aerobics 234 calories, talking on phone 62 calories, riding a walking horse 148 calories, and intermediate Pilates exercise 304 calories per hour. Sleeping uses 63 calories per hour, sitting in church 70 calories, and preparing food at church 140 calories.

One thing I noticed while using various calorie counters is that they give different results, but general gardening uses on average 300 calories for an hour of steady work.

So we now have even more incentive to get out in our gardens and work there.
See, gardening is not only good for the soul but for our bodies too!
Truth to tell, I have never counted calories or been on a diet, and my main exercise is at a health club three times a week, and walking. I just think this is a fun added plus to gardening, to know we are burning calories.

Moments in my garden

I like to step into my garden when I am alone and when it is quiet.
The birds are often singing abundantly so it is not really quiet; I mean quiet from man made noise.
The hummingbird chirps. It wants me to spray droplets of water in the air so it can drink and bath, while I hold the hose up high, trying not to move.
I feel God there in the garden, and everywhere.
The green things are pulsing with life.
Strawberries turn pink, then red and sweet.
Overlooked bok choi dies back but not before forming tiny yellow flowers with a promise of seeds.
Cilantro bolts and goes to seed.
Green tomatoes promise to turn red and succulent.
My heart and soul are nourished in this modest garden.

I took this photo of a garden created in honor of my dad, located at a favorite golf course.

Hydrangea, Peas and Garlic

Hydrangea
Originally uploaded by tony4carr
Many gardeners are preparing their gardens for future freezes and letting their gardens sleep in the cold months to come. Not my friends in the Southern Hemisphere of course.

And not me since I live in climate zone 8, where it rarely freezes.

So a few days ago I separated a huge garlic clove in to individual cloves, and planted the cloves pointed side up, in a 3 feet long by 6 inch wide container. The container provides good drainage and prevents our gourmet gophers from eating the tasty garlic.

We especially like the taste of the green leaves which look like chives, and have a light garlic taste. They are delicious in a salad or on a baked potato.

The other planting thing I did was plant Shelling Pea seeds for a hoped for late season crop of peas.

We gardeners live in hope, don't we?

We have room for a small hydrangea and I found a Bombshell Hydrangea in a local nursery. It is smaller than the typical hydrangeas which grow four to five feet tall, and the Bombshell is said to grow two feet tall, or no more than 3 feet tall. I planted it in a chicken wire gopher cage to keep the previously mentioned gophers from chewing up all the roots.

The bush I bought is dormant and because of that doesn't look appealing, and the gal who rang up the sale said "only a real gardener would buy a dormant plant like this one."

I smiled and told her "we gardeners are hopeful people, and I am a Christian, and we are also people of hope."