The Next Species

In a rare fit of prior planning, my husband and I are weighing options for adding one more animal species to our budding suburban homestead next year. This year we added a tiny backyard flock of laying hens, and it's been a great success. We have almost wholly positive feelings and experiences from the girls. The eggs have been absolutely fantastic, and have helped us trim our food budget significantly. There are four candidate species for next year, each with pros and cons to consider. I would love to get some feedback from readers who have experiences either positive or negative with any of these animals.

Here's an exploration of the issues as I currently understand them. Since we do not have real experience with any of these species, please don't take what I have to say here as a reliable guide to your own decision making.


Bees
Work load: none daily, occasionally significant

Positives: Pollinators! A good food source without killing anything. Husband can make mead. Potential for some honey sales. Probably won't be considered a violation of local ordinance limiting us to four "outdoor pets." Maintenance will not be a daily activity. We know people nearby with expertise in beekeeping. Support for a species having trouble lately. Honey has a long shelf life. No noise/smell issues.

Negatives: Financial outlay for equipment may be significant. We don't eat all that much honey, so I'm concerned about using up the product. Potential for stings and freaked out neighbors. Maintenance and harvest will need to be done in a timely manner which may fall at particularly busy times of year.


Worms (vermiculture)
Work load: minimal daily to semi-weekly

Positives: Easy to prepare for and care for. Equipment will cost very little. Incredible soil amendment value. Probably won't become an issue with the four "outdoor pets" ordinance. Potential for sale as fishing bait. Potential for use as feed supplement to chickens. No noise/smell issues.

Negatives: Boring. So boring I might slip into neglecting them, which I hope would be benign neglect. Would have to split compost and kitchen scraps between hens and worms. Don't know anyone who practices vermiculture. Doesn't produce anything we can eat directly.


Dwarf dairy goats
Work load: significant daily

Positives: Interesting, intelligent species. Will provide a steady supply of a food that is difficult for us to source locally. We know a local dairy goat farmer to turn to for advice. No need to kill the milk goat for several years. Male offspring may be sold or eaten. Potential for cheesemaking, yogurt, etc. Grazing will help keep our lawn maintained.

Negatives: Significant effort will be required to arrange/build housing, especially for the winter months. Housing and feed costs may be significant. Will add a significant daily chore that cannot be skipped under any circumstance. A minimum of two animals will be needed for the social well being of this species. Would definitely violate the outdoor pet ordinance limitations, unless we reduced our laying flock to two hens. Arranging for breeding may be a hassle. Arranging for their care if we go away will be a major hassle if the doe is lactating. Manure issues are unknown to us. Noise issues unknown.


Meat rabbits or hares
Work load: moderate daily, occasionally significant

Positives: Housing will be cheap to build from materials we have on hand. Steady supply of meat. Feed may be very cheap if they can partly or wholly subsist on our untreated lawn and damaged produce from our own garden/trees. Can be integrated into our rotational grazing system for the hens. Rabbit manure is an excellent soil amendment that requires no aging/composting. Daily labor will be minimal and can be done at the same time as for the hens. Possible secondary product of the pelt or fur? No noise/smell issues if properly maintained. Their grazing will slightly reduce our need to cut the lawn.

Negatives: Would definitely violate the outdoor pet ordinance limitations, unless we reduced our laying flock to two hens. We have to slaughter the animals to derive the primary benefit from them. We don't know anyone who raises rabbits for meat. I'm not accustomed to cooking with rabbit. Slaughtering and butchery will add to the work load and may need to happen on a fairly strict timetable. May have to go to some trouble to source the breed we want. Animals will be vulnerable to same predators as hens.


- So there are the arguments for and against each candidate species, so far as we understand them at this point. It's a lot to consider, no?

I became interested in the dwarf dairy goat idea after reading about two tiny, urban farms in California that include Nigerian dwarf dairy goats. Our lot is small, but bigger than either of these properties. We've already had a tour of the local dairy goat farm, which has a herd of normal sized dairy goats. It was enlightening and encouraging.

I'm pretty willing to flout the local ordinance limiting us to four outdoor "pets," because I don't think anyone would report us. We're considerate neighbors, and there are only two occupied properties close enough to ours from which someone might see enough to realize that we're over the limit of the ordinance, if they actually knew about the limit. No one has complained about the hens. I'm not wild about reducing our flock size below four hens. Even if we were reported, I'm pretty certain we could find good homes for the goats if need be. The rabbits could be slaughtered.

I am concerned about the increased work load that another species would add. I think the biggest daily increase in labor would be with the dairy goats. Vermiculture would offer the lowest return but also the lowest investment in labor and money. My husband will be away from home much less in the next year, so he may be able to help with the new additions to the homestead. But that's something we'll need to work out so that we understand the responsibilities we'll each be signing up for.

So what say you? If you've had any experience keeping any of these animals, I would love to hear your comments.

Another Kind of Free Haircut

A while back I posted a video of one enterprising young man getting a free haircut from passers-by in San Francisco. Today a quick search on the internet turned up a video I once saw of George Whitman giving himself a "haircut" in a most unusual manner. George Whitman is the owner of the legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris. He's famous for his frugality and eccentricity.




So many ways to avoid paying full price for hairstyling!

Stop Wasting That Heat!

I posted last week on ways to keep yourself warm in cool temperatures. Today I want to talk about ways of warming the house without cranking up the heat. There are lots of little things that generate heat around our homes. Frugality dictates that we capture these incidental and free sources of heat, so as to reduce expenses, and conserve the heat we generate where we will get the most benefit from it.

I've divided these tips into short-term and long-term situations. The short-term tips can be used by renters or homeowners, with little to no financial outlay. The long-term tips will be of more interest to those who own a home and are likely to remain in it for several years at least.

Short-term options

Hot water This will fall into the category of tiny tips for most people. All the more so if you have a very large home. Both heat and moisture are welcome additions to many homes in cold weather. When you heat water for any reason, think twice before you dump it straight down your drain, effectively throwing away good heat. Whether you're boiling water for pasta or some other food, consider letting that hot water cool to room temperature before discarding it. This may take a little creativity when it comes to getting pasta out of a pot of boiling water, but some chefs actually recommend using a pasta spoon, tongs, or a hand-held strainer to do just that. It's a little easier to scoop out boiled potatoes or eggs. I usually dump the water I use to preheat my tea mug into any dish that needs washing or soaking. The same goes for baths. If you indulge in a bath during cold weather, let the bath water sit in the tub to gently heat and humidify the air. Hot water is stored heat, and you've paid for that heat. So you might as well get the maximum benefit out of it. Remember to have faith in the little things.

The oven Winter is a great time for baking. There are several good ways to optimize the use of the oven. First, bake a lot at one time. Overloading your oven is not a good idea, because it can affect the way in which things bake and the time it takes to bake them. But you can fire up the oven once and then bake a couple of dishes together and/or several items sequentially. This takes some planning, as you need to get things ready to go in the oven one after another.

Potatoes are also good to add to the oven when it's hot, because they don't take up much space. So sneaking in a few at a time won't throw off the other items in the oven. They also aren't too picky about what temperature they're cooked at. They can be stored in the fridge for a few days before you use them, and they make great hash browns or soup.

When you're done using the oven, open it up so the hot air comes into the room. Most ovens are backed up to a wall, often an external wall. No sense letting some of the heat slowly leak outside that way. And if your oven door will stay slightly cracked, you can drape any damp kitchen towels on the inner part of the door. Drying your hands with a warmed towel is luxurious in winter.

The dishwasher Even if you aren't using the heated drying cycle, there's a lot of heat in a dishwasher when it finishes cleaning. The dishes themselves are quite hot, and obviously they're damp too. So I try to catch the end of the wash cycle so that I can open up the machine and let the humidity and heat into the kitchen. Otherwise, the heat seeps into the under-counter cabinets on either side of the dishwasher. I'd rather warm those parts of the kitchen I walk around in.

Partitioning your home and the heat If you're able to heat just part of your home at a time, there are several things you can do to conserve the heat you're paying for. Closing off extra rooms that aren't much used is the first, obvious step. If the rooms have doors, close them. If there's no door, hang a blanket or a sheet in the doorway. If you have a door to the attic, check for air leaks around the door. Remember that heat rises, so the air you've paid to heat is trying to get up into your attic and escape. You might want to hang a sheet or a curtain over such a door for the winter months. If there's a whole section of your home that's not used much in winter, think about what you might do to isolate it from the part of your home you use on a daily basis. The old towel at the bottom of the door trick isn't an aesthetic wonder, but it works. If you don't have the money or motivation to get a better sealing door, you can at least work on keeping the cold air in the cold room, and the warm air in the warm room.

A caveat: Don't go overboard with this idea. You want to maintain a safety margin with a temperature of at least 45F in any any room with water pipes in the walls. One burst water pipe could cost you much more than you could possibly save by trimming your heating bill. Also, I haven't been able to find a reliable source for this claim, but conventional wisdom says that paint on walls can crack and flake if temperatures fall too low. I don't know if this is an old wives' tale, or whether newer paints have eliminated this problem. Readers? Any definite information on this issue?

Wall outlets When you've dealt with the major heat leaks around your home, it's time to consider the minor ones. Take a screw driver and remove the face plate from a few light switches and electrical outlets on external walls of your home. What do you see under there? If you live in a cold climate, you should see an insulating foam pad that fits neatly under the face plate, without obstructing the outlet or the switch itself. If you don't see one, you're looking at a small but steady heat leak. Fortunately, these pads are sold very cheaply at hardware stores. If you plan to be in your current home for even one more winter, you'll probably break even on the cost of adding these to your outlets and switches. Count up the number of each on your external walls, and head to the hardware store to buy as many as you need. It'll take you probably no more than an hour to install the pads, and your savings begin immediately.

Solar energy You don't need an expensive PV panel to use solar energy. Sunlight is free warmth. Any windows with good exposure to sunlight during the winter months should be clean and uncovered. All others should have curtains that help keep the heat in and the cold out. If some of your windows get sunlight for only a few hours each day, then open the curtains during those hours and close them as soon as the sunlight has shifted away from them.

I have heard of people taking the passive solar energy thing further. Dark colored bricks will soak up the heat if they get hours of sunlight each day, and release that heat slowly when it gets dark. If you happen to have some dark bricks, they can be placed on sunny window sills or even on the floor if it's sunny enough. You might want to protect your flooring with a piece of cardboard if you wish to try this.

Long-term options
If you own your home and don't plan to resell it soon, consider the return on investment for some of these options. Remember that return on investment can come in the form of savings to you, or in a higher value for your home if you plan to sell eventually.

Insulation Almost every house could use more of it, especially older homes. Yes, it'll cost you some money, some hassle, and possibly create a mess. But insulation is the single best return on investment when it comes to conserving heat. Find out how much insulation you have in your attic, roof and walls. Consider adding at least as much as required to meet the Department of Energy recommendations on insulation and R-values.

Better windows After the attic and roof, windows are the biggest heat leaks in the average home, and they're expensive to replace. As fuel prices rise, however, window replacement becomes a more and more attractive option to conserve heat and money. If replacing windows would put a strain on your budget, then prioritize the windows in those rooms where you spend the most time during the day. If you're building a new home, or even an addition to your existing home, buy the best insulated windows you can afford. The return on your investment will be substantial over the life of the building.

Trees can help shade a house, or screen it from strong prevailing winds. Deciduous trees (those that lose their leaves in winter) are a good choice for planting relatively close to a house to shade it during the hot months. When the leaves are shed in the winter such a tree will shade the house very little. On the other hand, evergreen trees shouldn't be planted close to a house unless you live where it is hot all year. They provide shade all the time, whether you want it or not. But they can serve as excellent windscreens if you have strong winds during winter. Plant staggered rows of fir or pine trees far enough from the house so that they will not shade the house even when full grown. Traditionally, mature trees have raised property values. Given the current slump in real estate prices, this may now be less reliable. But in any case, a healthy, mature shade tree will certainly not hurt the value of any property.


Please add your heat conservation tips in the comments!


Related posts:

Staying Warm with the Thermostat Set Low

Being the Squeaky Wheel

Today my husband was in the mood to nag. Fortunately, he got on the phone and started politely interrogating the company that provides us with a package of phone and internet services. We're not crazy about this company, but we live in an area where there aren't all that many providers to choose from. Our package includes very high speed internet access and unlimited long distance calling. Normally, these would both be unwarranted luxuries. However, because my husband has been telecommuting about half time for the last two years, and will be telecommuting about 80% in the new year, these are both really fundamental to his job.

We got this package almost two years ago, and at the time it cost us $95 per month. In the time we've had it, the monthly charge has crept up by about $18 per month. We weren't happy about it, but calling around told us that there were no better deals. But today my husband got ahold of a customer service rep and had them go over every detail of the plan, as well as pricing information for alternate plans. He's pretty devious. All he did was spend about 45 minutes having the rep explain every line item on our bill, and go over the pricing for other local, regional and long distance calling plans, as well as pricing for different internet connection speeds. During all this time he was up front that we were looking to trim costs for our plan, and willing to cut parts of it or find another provider entirely.

In the end the rep offered him a $20 reduction per month for the next 12 months. That's $240 for the next year that can go to our mortgage instead. That 45-minute phone call was effectively worth $320 per hour. Not bad, wouldn't you say? This is the kind of thing that brings a warm, devious glow to our hearts. The squeaky wheel got the grease. And he got his urge to pester out of his system without taking it out on me! I call that a good day.

Which of your regular utility bills might be worth reviewing? Could you spare 45 minutes for a tedious phone call that might save you a few hundred bucks?

Confession Time: What We Save For

I've mentioned before that paying off the remaining principle on our home mortgage is my primary financial goal. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you've probably also gotten the sense that I'm a foodie. Good food is a huge part of what makes life enjoyable for me. And as many personal finance bloggers will tell you, you have to live life too, as well as do the right thing with your money. Sometimes that means spending some money on what you love.

Frugality is often seen as penny-pinching misery and an endless parade of joyless deprivation by those who don't practice it. I would argue that frugality is all about clearly identifying your priorities in life, and then arranging your finances to best serve those priorities. In our case, we want the mortgage gone so that we have more assurance we'll be able to go on eating good food in peace well into old age. I'm not kidding. My golden visions of the future revolve around meals cooked in a home we own outright with lots of home grown, top-quality produce, and a few luxury ingredients we can't produce ourselves.

This week we made our annual daytrip into Manhattan, taking a two-hour bus ride each way. We made our gourmet rounds to Zabar's, Neuhaus Chocolates, Murray's Cheese shop, Kalustyan's spice bazaar, and visited a little pub where my husband enjoys draft beers. We also dropped a wad for an epic meal at an astonishingly good and expensive sushi restaurant. We tried to get into the Morgan Library for a dose of book fetishism, but we got there too late, so it was an all foodie day. We didn't set a price cap to this excursion. I was afraid to look at the total damage on our credit card statement, but inevitably I had to. It came to more than $450 including transportation costs (no taxi rides though). Ouch.

For that money we got many foods that we know and love well, and which are not available to us in our immediate area. The cheeses we bought were all new discoveries made in a shop that allows us to taste everything before buying. We brought home seven different varieties, and rejected as many others. From Kalustyan's we brought home cooking and baking ingredients we'll use for many months. We did pick up a few things that we'll use as stocking stuffers for family members, but mostly we shopped for ourselves.

I wanted to include an honest accounting of our trip, in the interest of self-disclosure. Frugality is important to me, and I take a lot of measures to save small amounts of money here and there every single day. If I figured out how many loads of laundry I'd have to hang to dry to save the amount we blew in one day in Manhattan, it would probably depress me. But gourmet goodies truly make us happy. This is an authentic and self-motivated pleasure for us, not something we're goaded into by marketing. And we'll appreciate our purchases as we savor them over the next several weeks and months. In my book, this was a justifiable occasional expenditure. I wouldn't do it every month, but once a year seems reasonable.

So if there's something you truly love that costs a good deal of money, don't let anyone tell you that occasionally indulging in it is incompatible with a frugal lifestyle. The key is in evaluating whether spending your money on that ephemeral indulgence balances out with a net increase in your long term happiness. A lifestyle of week-in, week-out frugality is what allows us this very occasional splurge without jeopardizing our overall major goal, which is eliminating our debt. So we are very mindful that we earned this splurge, rather than simply telling ourselves that "we deserve it" without thinking through the implications. That money might have gone to our extra principle payment next month, but our day-to-day happiness on our way to our happy golden future is important to us too. We pay our credit card balance off in full each month, so this treat will not contribute to revolving debt or cost us anything extra in interest payments.

What do you scrimp and save for?

Staying Warm with the Thermostat Set Low

Winter approaches in the northern hemisphere. I'm invariably ready for the next season by the time we're most of the way through the current one. I like the significant changes of season where I live. I've lived in several places without four "real" seasons, and I always felt slightly ripped off. Still, winter is a tough sell when your region experiences prolonged months of cold and dark, and when heating is a major expense.

So, confession time. In wintertime, I keep the most popular room in the house at 64 F (less than 18 C) during the day. The rest of the house is cooler, some used areas as low as 56 F during the day. I crank the thermostat down to 52 F (just over 11 C) when we go to bed. I actually love sleeping in a really cold room with warm blankets. Sleep has never come easily for me, but a cold room helps considerably. Daytime is another story. Our house is not toasty, but we manage. So I thought I'd share some of the tips I've found useful.

Get used to it. Slowly. If you're trying to reduce your heating bills, don't crank your heat down from 72 to 60 from one day to the next. You can accustom yourself to significantly cooler house temperatures, but you're less likely to succeed if you attempt an abrupt change. So adjust the house temperature by a few degrees every other day or so. You'll find the going much easier.

Layer Up. Fleece clothing is a godsend in winter. So are a few pairs of long underwear and sweatpants. No, it's not sexy. But it'll save you money if you use it to compensate for 5-10 degrees of heating for three or more months. Invest in a really warm pair of slippers, and the best thermal underwear you can afford. Camping stores have good options for very thin, layerable clothing that can keep you very warm. Keep an eye out for sales on these in late spring.

Really Layer Up. Plenty of people have given me crap for this, but I don't care. I wear fingerless gloves and a comfy fleece hat for most of the winter. I'm cheap and I'm a wuss. I don't want to suffer too much in pursuit of saving money. Remember your mother's admonition that you lose more body heat through your head than through any other part of your body. Find yourself a comfy hat that you can wear indoors for warmth. If you're crafty, you can make pairs of these knitted fingerless gloves for yourself and other family members.

Activities I know winter is hibernation time for many people. The temptation to hunker down and become sedentary is always there for me. But I've found that having small activities spread throughout a winter day helps keep me pretty warm. Even five minutes of vigorous movement will make you feel warm for quite a while, especially when you're layered up. If a part of your day requires you to be sedentary, then try to break it up with some of these activities:

• Handwash some dishes. The water will warm up your hands nicely. This is a nice excuse for not tackling all the dirty dishes right after dinner, too.
  
• Vacuum one room at a time. Rather than cleaning the whole house all at once, break up the chore so that you get your blood moving several times during the day. If your rooms are small or few, then do the details, like using the brush attachment to get the cobwebs, clean the trim, and vacuum under the couch cushions.
  
• Shovel some snow or rake some leaves. Do a little yard work, whatever you've got. This will warm you up with aerobic exercise, and when it's cold out, the house will seem warm by comparison when you come back inside. Again, when your goal is to warm yourself up, working in 15-minute increments is totally legit. No yard work of your own? Offer to help an elderly neighbor or nearby relatives. You'll earn good karma and maybe a warm cookie.
  
• Shake that cosmic thang. No productive chores to tackle? Then just put on some music that makes you want to boogie. It's hard for frugalites, who won't pay for gym memberships, to get enough exercise in winter. A few minutes of dancing around your house like a lunatic is good for you in more ways than one.

Have a hot cup of tea. The igloo-dwelling Eskimos have a theory of warming up that differs from our own. Obviously, heating their homes is not the best option. So they warm themselves directly, from the inside out, most often by drinking warm liquids. You might be surprised how well this works, and the cup will heat your hands as well as the rest of you. Keep a supply of herbal tea on hand so that you don't need to overcaffeinate to use this trick.

Bake something. Wintertime is a great time to use your oven. Not only does it warm up your kitchen, but the smell of something freshly baked, whether it's bread or brownies, is just incomparable in a winter house. Consider stocking up on homemade goodies now if you have the freezer space to store them. That way you won't have to heat up the house in the summer months. Pot roast, casseroles, and meatloaf are great choices for oven dinners too. (While you've got the oven going, throw in a head of garlic, some beets, a winter squash, or a few potatoes to maximize the value of the energy you're using to heat the oven. There are lots of good uses for leftover baked potatoes.)

Cuddle up with a loved one or a (mammalian) pet. Body heat is the best blanket, in my opinion. Get cozy with someone you love for a reading session, a movie, or something more interesting.

Go to the library, or somewhere else that's heated, preferably where you won't be tempted to spend money. Make a day of it; hang out for hours. Hey, I'm not above mooching heat off someplace that's funded by my tax dollars anyway. The library is one of my favorite places: cool in summer, warm in winter. It's a great way to save money on books, magazines, movies, music, and heating or cooling costs. You're paying for it, so you might as well get your money's worth. Before you leave, turn down the thermostat halfway to your overnight setting.

Devices The old standbys are old standbys for good reason: they work well and cheaply. A hot water bottle will warm your lap during the day or your bed at night. When I was a poor student, I rested my feet on a hot water bottle while I studied and read for hours each night. Hot water bottles are cheap enough to replace on a regular basis, and they do need replacing every so often. Eventually the rubber breaks down and makes a catastrophic high-temperature leak a real possibility. Check your rubber hot water bottle carefully each winter before you begin using it. Or make your own substitute with a one-liter plastic bottle stuffed into an old sock. Old tube socks can also be used to make the "bed buddy," which is just a cloth tube half filled with whole grain barley or rice. Sew up the opening and any holes or just tie off both ends of the tube sock to prevent the grain from coming out. Then microwave for 2-3 minutes and enjoy the steamy warmth for 30 minutes or more. This project is easy enough for kids to make one for themselves.

Eat hot foods, especially soups. I remember reading an account of an obscure part of World War II, the Russo-Finnish theater. The border between Russia and Finland is a rather chilly part of the world in wintertime, which is when most of those battles took place. The history book I read said that a hot meal often meant the difference between life and death for those soldiers, which occasionally played out in tragic ways. No joke. Warm foods affect our body temperature powerfully. Include a soup in your weekly meal plans for the winter months. You can make great soups with beans or potatoes, two extremely economical staples.

Did I miss anything? Sound off in the comments if you've got a good way of staying warm when the heat is set low.


Related post: Stop Wasting That Heat!

Wrong season for you? Check out Stay Cool Without Touching That Thermostat