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Buckshot's Article
Hard Times
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Buckshot's Article
Hard Times
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Ok folks, we are headed for some hard times. Winter fuel costs are Skyrocketing. I don't have to tell you about gas prices. You know they are skyrocketing. Everything you need to survive this year is going to skyrocket in price. Here are a few tips to help you save money. This is in no order. Just suggestions for you to save money.
Your House
Caulk. I can't say this enough times. Caulk, caulk and caulk some more. Get 10 tubes and seal all around your windows and around your doors inside and outside. I can not believe the amount of houses I have been in that the windows are not sealed properly. A good tip is; seal the outside and inside of the trim. Seal any opening coming to your house such as water pipes, electrical wires, cable TV, etc. Get the clear plastic window kits and seal your windows. Check your attic. I have seen lots of houses with only 3½ inches of insulation in the attic. You can add 6 inches of insulation right over top of the old insulation. It will change your R value from R-11 to R-30. One big tip most people miss in caulking is the gap between the basement-crawl space cement and the wood frame of the house. Make sure this is sealed real tight.
Your Vehicle
I have tried most of the gas saving tips on the market and this is what has worked for me. Acetone in the gas did NOT work for me. All the addictives, some work others are junk. My best advice is switch to synthetic oil like Mobil 1 or Castrol synthetic. On 4 cycle engines just switching to synthetic oil should show an increase of 2-3 mpg. Buy a tire gauge and keep your tire pressure even on all four tires 32 psi works the best for me. Change your air filter. If you have an American made car over 100,000 miles the best thing you can change is the Oxygen sensor. They are a bit spendy, mine cost $58.00, but I got 3 mpg more and at today's prices it would quickly pay for itself.
Learn to cook. Sounds funny, but I am talking about saving money by cooking. Corn is sold for $5.00 for 50 lbs. Now you can grind this corn and make cornmeal. Hard winter wheat is being sold for under $20.00 for 50 lbs. Again you need to grind it. So a grinder is a real good idea to buy now. I know it is expensive I bought a $50.00 hand grinder and let me tell you grinding enough wheat for a loaf of bread is hard work, took me over an hour. The cheaper hand grinder you have the more times you will have to grind the wheat. You will have to grind the wheat 3-4 times before it is fine enough to use. Buy a good one. One thing I found out was mixing 1/2 cup of processed white flour per 1 cup of grounded hard winter wheat makes a better bread. Also not all flour in the store is equal. The "Robin Hood" brand gives me the best flavor. A good recipe for making pan bread and pancakes is:
1 cup of flour
Mix dry ingredients, then add just enough water to make a thick batter like pancake mix. Add to grease in a frying pan. Turn the pan to medium heat. Cook like pancakes. When it has bubbles all along the batter flip it, and turn down your heat. Use a toothpick to check when it's done. You can add butter and eat it like bread, or slice open and make sandwiches, or thin the batter to make pancakes. It is really good too.
Now a blatant pitch for my own products and to help you all out too. Read my articles Hard Choices & Decisions We All Have To Make, and If I Only Had One Gun; What Would It Be?
Check out my Instructional DVDs, My Wilderness Guide CD-ROM, Snares, Emergency Snare Kits, The #110 Conibear Trap, Lure Attractors and Other Equipment. Time to save some money even if you live in an urban area there are still animals to trap and snare. With the high cost of everything every animal you bring home could be worth a small fortune soon.
This is going to be a very long, hard winter for all of us. Time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Don't panic. Make a plan and stay with the that plan. Decisions you make for the next 2 months are going to reflect on how you pay your heating bill this year. Right now there is still cheap harvest coming in on produce. Buy 50 pound bags of carrots, potatoes and onions. Buy an Electric dehydrator and paper bags sandwich size. Start drying the carrots and onions. This is simple to do. Simply wash them, make slices about 1/4 inch thick and place on trays for the carrots. Onions about a 1/4 inch thick 1 inch squares or smaller. Once they are dried store in the paper bags out of direct sunlight. Use the onions, carrots and potatoes and add a little meat and you now have a soup or stew.
How to get the meat. If I was just starting to trap I would order 3 DVDs. They are Survival Snaring, without a doubt, Beginning Trapping and Wilderness Survivor Volume 1. Target the easy animals like rabbits, raccoon, beaver, muskrat (Marsh Rabbit), etc. During trapping season you can check the traps or snares early morning on your way to work with no wasted gas. Put up the fur for some extra cash and cook up the meat to save on your grocery bills.
If you plan any hunting trips set traps out in the morning and then hunt the rest of the day. Camp out for the night. Check and pull the traps the next morning. Hunt for the rest of the day. The easy way to cook raccoon, muskrats, beaver is to par boil for 30 minutes. Allow to cool then strip the meat off, tossing the fat away and then add to spilt pea soup or white beans or in your stew. Warning on muskrats I would just take the back legs and not gut them. If you do gut them they smell to high heaven. But I BBQ the back legs off the muskrats I caught last year right on the grill and they tasted better then rabbit to me.
Either way folks, make a plan on how to pay for your high heating cost, your high gas cost, etc... A little extra work right now could really help this winter when the $300.00 a month heating bill comes rolling in.
Bruce "Buckshot"
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