The "Big Project"

In a previous post, Kevin had alluded to some "big projects" that we are currently absorbed in. I'm here to finally announce one of them: Kevin and I are engaged and will be getting married later this year! As I'm sure many of you know all too well, traditional weddings are one of the most expensive events that will ever occur in your lifetime.

Kevin and I hope to share parts of our wedding planning on this blog as a way of helping others out there in a similar situation. It's difficult trying to balance the traditional aspects of having a wedding that both our families had hoped we would do, and the frugal and simplistic way Kevin and I are accustomed to living our lives. I will tell you, it hasn't been easy so far. Imagine the horror I was met with when I mentioned I didn't want anything to do with bridal salons or "princess" wedding gowns. Imagine the shock when I came home with my bridal dress: a sweet little (used) white lace dress that cost me a mere $5!

Every step of the planning process has been like this so far, but Kevin and I are confident that we can pull off an event that is both something that will please our families, and won't cause us to be in debt for the rest of our lives. More updates to come...

Simplifying cosmetics

I'm revising my array of cosmetics to deal with two problems. First, I'm concerned about harmful synthetic chemicals in mass-market cosmetics. There's debate over whether this is a grave concern or not, but then again I apply this stuff to my skin every single day. Second, I find choosing cosmetics to be annoying and have been frustrated with my favorite products becoming unavailable at my local stores for one reason or another.

Accordingly, I'm shaking up the line of cosmetics I use. My preferred disposition for any given product is, in order of preference:

1. Eliminate my need for it
2. Use a homemade version
   
3. Find an "all natural" product that's likely to endure
4. Find a "mass market" product that's as safe as possible

Eliminating something is the ultimate simplification, of course. "Homemade" ranks highly because I like the idea of knowing all the ingredients in this stuff, and staying stocked in raw materials is simpler than tracking various brands and products when they're changing all the time.

I've replaced shampoo, body wash, and even shaving cream with Dr Bronner's liquid soap. It's affordable and readily available at health food stores and the internet. It's a real win to replace the need for three separate packaged products with one substance that's sold in bulk.

Method seems to be a decent compromise for hand soap and dish soap. It's also affordable and easy to find.

I've never been convinced that conditioner does anything, so I don't buy that.

Replacing deodorant has been difficult. None of the "all natural" products have really worked at all. For now I'm using unscented Sure, which, according to the Skin Deep cosmetics database, is just as safe as "all natural" stuff.

I'm still working on face scrub, aftershave, toothpaste, and mouth wash. Face scrub and toothpaste are prime candidates for making at home, but I haven't found the right recipes yet.

Update on the Hefeweizen

I realized that I posted about bottling my batch of Hefeweizen but never said how it turned out.

It turned out pretty well! It certainly has the taste, appearance, and head of a Hefeweizen. I was trying to amp up the natural banana overtones produced by Hefe yeast, and was pretty successful in that regard.

It's a little more watery and hoppy than I'd like, so next time I'll steep the hops less and use a higher concentration of wheat malt.

Enjoying expensive hobbies frugally

A lot of simple living and personal finance advocates say you should drop expensive hobbies and take up cheap ones. This makes sense, but there's also a place for "frugalifying" hobbies that are typically expensive.

When I went to college I met Linux enthusiasts and became interested in Unix system administration and networking. To pursue those interests I needed multiple computers. I was a working college student, so buying several new computers was out of the question.

I poked around and learned three important facts: 1) computer equipment depreciates very quickly, 2) it's possible to tear down and reassemble a computer using with only a screwdriver and patience, and 3) free Unixes were available (Linux and BSD) and had very low system requirements. So I started scrounging around for free or cheap broken, derelict computers, pulled them apart, and built computers that met my needs from the parts.

This became a game: when I needed more hardware to try some new setup or run some new service, I would try to cobble it together from spare parts I had on hand. If this wasn't possible, I'd try to find some free or cheap parts that would be sufficient. I ended up with some weird solutions sometimes, but it was a fun creative challenge and I learned a lot.

The point of all this is that I found a way to participate in a hobby I enjoyed in a frugal way. Most of my computer geek friends pursued the hobby by running "gaming PCs" or by being Apple diehards. Those paths involve buying brand new hardware all the time, which gets very expensive (not to mention wasteful). I'm glad that I didn't give up due to sticker shock, since the hobby has given me a lot of enjoyment, and also bolstered my resume and helped open up some career options.

So it's possible to pursue conventionally-expensive interests in frugal ways, if you're willing to turn things on their head a little bit.

My other main hobby is cars...I've really got my work cut out for me there. More on that later.

DIY iced tea

One of our latest projects is to brew our own iced tea. Iced tea is a healthy alternative to other cold flavored drinks like soda or even juice; it has very few calories, and benefits from the same "superfood" qualities that hot tea does. And it's easy to make yourself!

Our recipe (if you can call it that): bring one gallon of water to a boil. Remove from heat and add two generic tea bags and one flavored herbal tea (e.g. rasberry, ginger peach, etc.). Stir once, then steep for about 15 minutes. Remove the tea bags, allow to cool, and refrigerate.

If you prefer sweet tea, you can add the sweetener of your choice to each glass. It would probably also work to dissolve in some sweetener right after you remove the tea bags.

We've tried it using only generic "TEA" bags, and with a blend of flavored tea, and definitely prefer the flavors. The result is similar to the flavored iced teas sold as soft drinks.

At our grocery store, generic tea bags cost about 2 cents each, and fancy flavored tea costs about 25 cents each, so a whole batch costs about 29 cents to make. If you get a full gallon batch, that works out to about 2.7 cents per 12 ounce serving. Which is pretty cheap.

We'll be experimenting with different flavors to see which one we like best. I also want to try using green tea, like some of the new green iced tea products I've seen.

Bottled the Hefeweizen

We brew our own beer.

Yesterday I bottled a batch of Hefeweizen that had been fermenting for the last month. I'm a fan of Hefeweizens, so I'm eager to figure out a homebrew "Hefe" recipe for my everyday beer. The bottling went smoothly; there were no mishaps and I got all 48 bottles' worth out of the fermenter. This was a batch of MoreBeer's malt extract based Hefeweizen kit. We tried a small sample, and it looked, tasted, and smelled like a Hefeweizen should, so I'm optimistic about the final result after the beer "mellows" and carbonates for a couple weeks in the bottles. I'm especially happy that the banana overtones are noticeable, since that was what I was going for.

Now we don't have any beer brewing, which is unusual. We still have some of the last three batches, plus these 48 Hefes, so I don't think we need to start another batch too soon. It's always challenging to decide when to brew a batch since the whole process takes 5-6 weeks, and we need to have enough empty bottles on hand when the fermenting is done 4 weeks in. Right now bottles are our biggest obstacle since my bottle scavenging has hit a dry spell for the last couple months.

Since this is our first post about home brewing, I'll give a couple references. My primary references are John Palmer's online book How to Brew, and the HomeBrewTalk forum. I get my supplies from MoreBeer.com and O'Shea Brewing in Laguna Niguel.

Homemade yogurt: batting .500

Yesterday we succesfully made homemade yogurt. We used a simple recipe based on the one in The Tightwad Gazette, by Amy Dacyczyn:

1. Mix a quart of milk with 1/2 cup dry milk powder.
2. Heat to 180 degrees F.
3. Cool to 115 degrees F.
4. Whisk in 2 tbsp store-bought yogurt with live cultures.
5. Incubate at 110 degrees F for 4-8 hours.
   

A few days ago we made a valiant first try that utterly failed. Following Dacyczyn's advice, we used a heating pad on "low" to keep the yogurt warm during the incubation step. However when it was finished Amanda noticed that the yogurt was at room temperature -- not 110 degrees. And, I completely forgot to add the milk powder. The result was a batch of milk with a slight sour taste. Ooops.

Yesterday we tried again, but this time I remembered to add the powder, and we set the heat pad on "high." This batch turned out to be actual yogurt! It was a little runnier than store-bought, but in retrospect I had doubled the amount of milk but forgot to double the amount of dried milk. I plan on using the prescribed proportion of milk powder next time, which I think will yield a thicker consistency.

At our grocery store, organic milk costs $3.50/half gallon (5.7 cents/oz), and generic plain yogurt costs $2.79/32 oz (8.7 cents/oz). We typically use about 40 oz/week, so making our own yogurt saves about $1.20/week and gives us an "upgrade" to organic. Not a huge sum, but a buck's a buck. There's also a convenience factor, since the store containers never last the whole week, but we can make a homemade batch in whatever size we want.