Who Let the Chickens Out?

Mindful Chickens i.e., being frugal and living by our values instead of by blithering consumerism is how this blog started. Yet I seldom post lists anymore about choices Len and I make that hit that marker because I can tell from who follows me that this is not why most of you are here.

But today I have a lot of things I want to accomplish. Preparing the Light Posts takes me a long time so I am not going to do one – I do plan to be back at it Monday.

Light Posts take hours to assemble, although the time flies when I work on them. I look up, another 45 minutes just vamoosed. One afternoon Len PUT A COOKIE NEXT TO ME and I didn’t notice it! Leaving time and space; going to that place we go when we concentrate – this is, I think, is one of the primary goals we should aim at in our life. Not riches, not fame, not mindless power for the sake of power – but pursuing the thing that makes us forget ourselves.

Most of us can’t make our living from that activity. So be it. We get jobs and earn paychecks and feed the kids. That’s okay.

But the activities that disassemble the clock in one’s brain? Honor that thing.

So back to choices that facilitate living less expensively so we can live more expansively.

I’m only going to list kinda unusual things; you all know how to do without or shop on sale.

1. Library books. Yeah, very simple but our library informs one of the $ total of books one has borrowed– and both Len and I have tallies close to $3000 in 2020! This includes lots of picture books for facetime reading to our granddaughter. I’ve read 35 novels this year and I only bought one of them new. (After avidly reading library copies of William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor 17-book series, I thought I ought to buy one of his books. I now own This Tender Land, which I think is meh.) Also, have you read Raymond Chandler? Amazing writer. It’s dated because he was writing in the 50’s and 60’s, but his brilliance comes through.

I think the trickiest part about using the library -- is knowing what one wants to order. Few libraries (any?) are allowing patrons in to browswe, so you have to get a system. I have a note app on my phone, when I hear of a good book, I notate it. The Natiopnal Book Award books have been awesome. 

2. I bought many books at the Racine AAUW Book Sale. Say what? You can contact them through their website, they facilitate private sales for not more than five shoppers at a time, if and when volunteers are shelving donations. This is not a promise, but a suggestion. Proceeds go to college scholarships for women. https://racine-wi.aauw.net/book-sale/

3. Len fixed things.

• The printer. Len looked at online guides, decided it was a part that would cost $150. He ordered it and fixed it. A new printer would have cost $400.
• My iPhone’s memory was too full to use. The Apple guy told us how to uninstall everything and reinstall it clean. The phone works again.
• Len replaced the car’s headlight and a sideview mirror. There were, ahem, some equal opportunity loss of sideview mirrors when backing the car out of the garage incidents.

Len is mechanically curious and inclined. Not everyone is. He often knows what to do, other times he looks on the Internet/YouTube to see what could be wrong. Not everyone has a Len, but if you or someone close to you is patient and curious, most of what we need to know is out there. I often ask YouTube questions about how to do particular maneuvers in Microsoft Word, Excel, or Zoom.

4. Son put me on his Spotify account when they were having a deal. Costs him $7/month.

5. We wanted to buy a particular picture book for our granddaughter – it was $17 at an independent bookstore, $23 on Amazon, and $4 on eBay. Shopping eBay for books can be a very good deal and the $ goes to small bookstores or individuals and the shipping is generally USPS.

6. I generally hang the wet laundry on clotheslines in the basement. This adds humidity to the house, saves us money (the dryer is electric). Mostly though, it’s a way of respecting about the world my grandkids will inherit.  

7. We go through a lot of cottage cheese and big-sized yogurts. Then we wash the containers and stack them on a shelf until they no longer fit, and after which one is allowed to rinse and recycle. 7.5. Len made and froze 13 of these containers of turkey broth after Thanksgiving. He pulled off the meat and put it into the broth.

8. I make three meals-worth of soup in our crockpot. This week it was turkey, beans, and sweet potato chili. I buy jalapenos one or two at a time, mince them, freeze on a cookie sheet, then put those frozen nibs into a bag tucked in the freezer door (so I can find them when I cook). Eating beans three nights in a row increases the need for loud Spotify music. 

9. Our adopted, new-to-us, 13-year-old sister cats were FREE! Free cats! Such a bargain! We donated to the Human Society anyway. Their food is about $40 a month. Their first check-ups were certainly not free. I bought them a $35 covered cat littler box which they do not like, so there was that. They are not interested in toys; they have one toy fish with a feather tail which one of them will bring upstairs each evening, to our room, while caterwauling as if they caught a mouse. Free wifely terror every night. They don’t play with it; they just bring it to us. Right now, Len is trying to work on my website while Weijia is determined to sit on his keyboard. The humor is priceless.

10. Zoom is easy, and they offer free 40-minute sessions. If you are intimidated, ask YouTube how to open and do zoom.

11. We have a credit card that pays cash back which we use for everything, including our monthly health insurance premiums.

12. I don’t know. Do you have hacks or strategies you’ve used this crazy year to decrease $ outgo and increase your energy to do things you care about?