I've spent the day reading old threads about people who are/were poor and the sacrifices they/their parents (often single moms) have had to make, and it hit me hard. I've been fortunate enough that I've never really gone without, but we (my family when I was a child, and later in my adulthood) have been through some tight spots. A few things I've done to help ease the hard times came to mind,and I thought I'd share.
Honestly, I'm amazed at the amount of canned food that seems to be cheaper to buy in other countries (where I'm from it's more expensive, and things like cheese are a luxury, even when I have extra cash!), so I'm not sure whether some ideas are viable, but who knows. Sometimes a little inspiration & ingenuity can make all the difference. From personal experience I know that some little things don’t cross your mind (force of habit), like making bread instead of buying it for example, so I’m hoping to contribute some ideas. I realize this doesn’t “fix” situations (especially if cash & time is a problem), and I’m not trying to be disrespectful at all, but I do hope someone can get something useful out of it.
Let's start with the most important thing: food.
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Buy/save spices whenever you can. Even if you only eat rice and beans for a week, being able to flavor it differently can make a big difference.
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Keeping starches in the freezer (pasta,flour,rice) keeps it from getting bugs/weevils
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Any leftovers can be mashed up to make “burger patties” :just add an egg & dried bread & shape – or add water & spices for a soup
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An egg a day especially for children boosts their nutrition
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Cut the ends off vegetables if they have roots (lettuce/celery/carrots/potatoes) and let them sprout in a bowl of water,you can plant them later
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Bread & butter pudding with stale bread & sour milk & sugar is awesome at any age
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use a whole chicken 3 ways: roast/boil it whole, eat what you want, debone the leftovers for chicken sandwiches/salad and boil up the bones for chicken stock – best soup ever.
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Make your own marinara sauce,the riper the tomatoes the nicer the sauce. It freezes amazingly & you can always add meat etc
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Invest in a big bag of flour & bicarbonate of soda/baking powder. There’s so much you can do with it (I’m happy to provide my recipes,there are loads of versions online):
*soda bread
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flat bread(great for wraps and if you leave out the salt can be used with sweet stuff)
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pancakes
*sweet dough balls
*pasta
- dumplings
*muffins of every kind
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the list is endless
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Stews with thick gravy require less ingredients, cut all the ingredients into small pieces for better distribution and make it go further. Way cheaper than trying to do individual servings of meat & veg.
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Buy bulk whenever you can, portion and freeze at home.
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Learn to pickle/preserve/dry to reduce wastage
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Turn spoiled milk into cottage cheese
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Cucumber sandwiches are awesome!
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Save used teabags and boil them up with some sugar/mint/lemon/orange and make iced tea
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Marmite/spices in hot water boiled with flour dumplings as a "starter" help fill a tummy before a "main" meal (I still use bones/vegetable cuttings to make a stock and do this)
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Onion slices sprinkled with sugar & left for a few hours will produce a syrup (albeit yucky) that helps soothe coughs.
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Stretch ground beef by adding bread (soaked in water and wrung) - you can increase it by about 1/3 without killing it too much
Now a few other things:
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Buy dishwashing liquid to wash everything – including general cleaning & clothes. It’s great for getting grease and grime off anything, and usually the bulk bottles are cheaper than washing powder.It also makes great bubble bath & bubble blowing fun!
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White vinegar: use for cleaning,disinfecting, treating bites & cuts, pickling and as a hair rinse (helps condition & dandruff), helps reduce fever & treat sunburn (also a good facial toner when diluted), bug repellant
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Instead of buying pet food, cook up leftovers for pets into a form of mush… maybe add a meat flavoured stock cube as a treat(this is actually standard practice where I live – apparently eggshells added to this really helps their protein)
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Wash and dry dark clothes inside out. It keeps them from fading too quickly.
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Keep old plastic containers, you never know when you'll need them
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Swallowing a piece of charcoal can help with food poisoning/upset tummies
Some of the things I remember my mom doing that made my childhood amazing:
- Hard boiling eggs with food colouring to make colourful “easter eggs”, or using markers and paper to make them into bunnies.
- Mixing flour,salt,water & food colouring to make playdough and sitting by candle light making Christmas mangers
- Making paper ropes out of old office magazines for Christmas decorations
- Being “allowed” to have tea and a jam sandwich for dinner because it was “grown up” food
- Convincing us to fight over chicken innards because they were the “special cuts”
- Making little lanterns out of an old jar with a hole in the lid and string dipped into spirits
- Sprinkling candles with salt because it would “make them last longer”
- Melting and remoulding old crayons in a can on a fire outside to make “new cool colours”(and using old wax from burnt out candles to make new ones)
- Leaving notes from the tooth fairy (complete with fanciful handwriting) when the tooth fairy was too broke to pay for our teeth
- Putting diluted juice concentrate into little plastic bags and freezing them so we could have ice lollies in summer
- Teaching us to make kites out of 2 sticks and old shopping bags
- Making paper mache EVERYTHING including gifts, lampshades, etc
These are things she did out of necessity, but I plan to do them out of tradition with any kids I may have. They aren’t life changing ideas, but sometimes a little happiness can make a difference, even if only for a few hours.I haven't experienced even a fraction compared to some stories I've read,and I don't assume to know what real hard times are,but I try to help out where I can IRL, and this is my internet contribution. Sorry for the length!
EDIT: formatting & paragraphs
May 04, 2017 at 09:40AM
