~ from my home to yours, living the Working Pantry lifestyle ~ surviving today's economy ~ a can-do spirit and attitude ~

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Our Journey to a Mortgage Free Home ... #11

(You can read previous entries in this series HERE.)

STOP ... HIT THE BREAKS!!!!

It's time for an insert ... the kind where you realized you omitted something very important and you have to go back and insert it ...

that's what we're doing in this post ...

inserting something that I should have included before now ...

Remember what the outside looked like from the beginning?


As you can see the outside needed some help.  It was most definitely not 'weatherized' and as you can see had holes in various places. We knew that eventually one day we wanted to put some nice siding or maybe even brick the outside but that was way down on the priority list and in the distant future. But, we did need to put something on the outside for cosmetic reasons and to protect all the work that was going on inside.  So, we opted for this siding ... It's supposed to last for 20 years ... that should give us enough time to be able to put what we really want on it!



The first layer was tar paper and then the siding was put up ... boy oh boy, did we ever work hard on this part ...  (We are so thankful to the friends and neighbors who came and helped!)

Don't you just love our temporary steps!!!  They were unsafe and we took extra precautions when on them ... but it was the only way we could get up into the house unless you used a ladder and we'll just say that I'm not into ladders and leave it at that!  We purposefully built the foundation so that the house would sit up high off the ground to make things like plumbing and any future work or repairs that needed doing under the house easier.


the back of the house ....

The roof looks really bad doesn't it?  But it would have to wait ... we had repaired the hole in it and patched it up so that it was not leaking ... a new roof would have to wait a little longer!  Remember, we were (and are) paying as we go and that meant we had to wait on a new roof!


painting the siding came next ...


... painting all done ... the whole house!

See, this was an important part of the journey that I left out!

In our next entry we'll go back inside and get to work!

Until next time,
She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 43 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

Items I use in keeping my pantry well-stocked:

Dehydrator

Dehydrator Teflon Sheets

Dehydrator Cookbook

Food Saver Vacuum Sealer

Herb/Coffee Bean Grinder

Manual Food Chopper

Pressure Canner

Canning Supplies

Food Scale

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Building A One Month Preparedness Pantry ... part 3

Part 1 of this series can be found HERE and part 2 can be found HERE.  

The reason I started this series can be found 
HERE.

Part 3 is about disposables ... paper plates, plastic cups, plastic utensils, paper towels, etc. As a general rule the only one of these items we use on a regular basis are paper towels unless we have a power outage!

A power outage for us means we do not have running water and if we do not have running water I'm all about those paper products.  I'm all about using and throwing it all away. Why?  Because it's just easier not to have to heat water to wash dishes in and in a temporary off-grid situation where everything takes longer and is harder to do this little convenience is one I'm going to use if at all possible.

Are they expensive, they can be, but they don't have to be!  I have a collection of holiday paper plates we use that I've gotten by purchasing them for a fraction of their cost after the holidays are over.  Just recently I added the plates in the picture above to my collection about a week after Halloween for $.37 a package.  It doesn't matter to me that they are holiday plates, to me they are our emergency preparedness plates.  So, in a plastic tub they will go along with our plastic cups and plastic utensils.  

Once a year, at Christmas, we purchase red plastic cups in bulk 
to package the fudge in that my husband makes for food gifts (We get the cups at Sam's Club and I think there's either 180  or 200 cups to the package.  The package usually runs around $10.).  Whatever is left of those goes into our emergency paper products preparedness tub. When we travel and have to stay in a hotel, we bring home the unused styrofoam or plastic cups that come with the price of our room. Between the two, we can usually keep enough in our preparedness tub to get us through a power outage. Remember, we're preparing for a 1 month power outage so save accordingly.

We do purchase a box of plastic utensils at Sam's Club, the one's that are individually packaged with a napkin, fork, spoon and possibly a knife, to have in our preparedness tub. One box will last us a long time and it sure does make cleaning up from a meal in a non-electric situation a lot easier.

Being prepared by having disposables on hand will make a difficult situation a little easier to handle!  Trust me on this! 

Patsi 

Sharing 42 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

A Working Pantry

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine 

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You can view my privacy policy HERE

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Our Journey to A Mortgage Free Home ... #10

It feels like it has been forever since my last entry in this series, so let’s see where did I leave you …

Oh yes, it was with this …

It would seem like we were ready to move out of the garage we were staying in and into our bedroom and bathroom combination wouldn't it????  Oh my, were we ever ready but there was just one little problem ... and it would take lots of digging, money and another permit!

Are you ready????

We had to have new field line to our septic tank installed!  We were under the impression that since the old field line was not damaged in the fire that this would not be an issue, but before we could hook up the water we had to have the septic system inspected. It was and is the law!


The results … the septic tank was fine but the field lines had to be replaced … which made no sense to us … but we had to do it.  So off we went to pay for another permit and to buy these …



and have them installed ...



and then re-inspected and covered up!

After passing the final inspection on the field lines, we hooked up the water and guess what we did ....

we moved into our one bedroom and bath ...

Oh, what a happy day that was!!!!

I felt like I was living in a palace!!!

So, now that we were in it, what was next???

Well ... you'll just have to wait until next time and see …

Until next time,
She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

Sharing 43 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building 

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine, where I share my love for God and His Word through my personal Bibe study.  Physical preparedness is important, but not near as important as spiritual preparedness.  Join me over at From This Heart of Mine and study God's Word with me.

Items I use in keeping my pantry well-stocked:

Dehydrator

Dehydrator Teflon Sheets

Dehydrator Cookbook

Food Saver Vacuum Sealer

Herb/Coffee Bean Grinder

Manual Food Chopper

Pressure Canner

Canning Supplies

Food Scale

You can view my privacy policy HERE.

Thank you for using my Amazon affiliate link when placing your Amazon orders. I earn a small percentage that doesn't increase what you pay, and it helps me keep my pantry well-stocked! 

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links.  This means that if you click on the link and place an order, etc I earn a small fee at no increased cost to you. Thank you for your support through these means.