13 Simple Home Hacks to Save Money

Saving money??? Because we dont have many left around that went through the hard times during the depression and just after. the knowledge on how to save money is about lost. We even with a down-turned economy are still a land of plenty. And this will be our downfall. We are wasteful with every act we do each day. In preface if I may expound upon the life I had growing up in the days that ended the 2nd world war. My home was a 900 sq foot bungalow two bedroom, kitchen dinning room and front room. plenty large for my parents and I. We had no central heat. there was a potbelly stove in the dinning area that was replaced by an oil stove. we had no carpeting. linoleum covered our floors. no hot water tank. My mother had four canning kettles she set to boil to fill a cast iron tub which my Da. had his bath first. another kettle was added to warm the water again for my mother. I was last but got a fresh pot of water to warm it up. We all used the same water. no dumping it out for clean stuff. we all used “rainbow” soap. nothing was ever tossed out but added to the next bar so it was large enough to use. the soap was always left to dry out because it lasted longer that way. We had two types regular and lava for heavy scrubs when regular wouldnt work. We had no telephone, or TV or air conditioning. one thing we could depend upon was neighbors joining us at dinner. usually the young. because it was hard to find work. My Da was fortunate. because he worked as organizer for a governor he got a job as ditch digger for Wayne county drain commission. Each day he would come home with food he bought from the farmers he met during his job. many times he would be carrying a fifty Lb. bag of potatoes on the bus ride home. Did I forget, we didnt have a car
he could get fifty pounds for a dollar. we never tossed the bag out. it went back to the farmer so they could cut costs. by the time winter came my Da had carried home hundreds of pounds that kept so many from starving in winter. The women knew how to make food last longer and make more meal’s So many times the neighbors would get together at the end of the month to make “stone soup”. All would gather in the home that had the largest dinning area so all would have a meal that all the women cooked that day. It wasnt all bad. my Mother was a seamstress. Having a sewing machine ” peddle powered” she would mend and alter the clothes the kids outgrew and wore out from play. We had a single roller skate and our neighbor had a key so we all took turns using the skate. My Da made us a swing from some old pipe, chains. some old boards and clothes hangers. not pretty but it worked. Then they tore down the barn at the fire-station. they got a new firetruck that didnt need horses. My Da took the bricks and dug out a hole and made a swimming pond. it was great and all the kids from the neighborhood came to cool off each day when it was hot. Yes we were dirt poor but we didnt know it. so many times all the neighborhood would gather together to sing and dance ( and to meet the girls) it would last to the wee hours knowing we had to get up early for chores was what broke it up.. Looking back I see what they meant by the term waste not want not. We all worked as an extended family. we had many races and religions all pulling together. We had no time or effort to spend on the hate we see from todays neighborhood’s I remember our front door because it didnt have a lock We knew all our neighbors and knew they had less then we did.. slowly the jobs came back. that was when I lost my brother. Grady was black. his Da worked at anything he could. He got a letter from his brother telling of a job down in Georgia. so they moved away. I couldnt understand why my best playmate I shared a teat with when my mother was sick when I was only a few months old was cared for by my Mam that cared for me as a wet nurse. At five years old he didnt have a choice. His Da had to work. so many people today turn down jobs because they are hard, or get dirty. Today we think nothing of tossing out food. A thing that was never done when I grew up. We buy appliances and tools or cars that are poorly designed and built to fail. I dont remember ever replacing a stove or refrigerator. In fact My Mother saved the frig when they had to get a larger one. I used it when I got my first apartment. and was used by my sister when she got married. it outlasted the frig that was purchaced to replace it. Think about how you need to choose what clothes to use to go to work. I knew what I was going to ware because I had two sets. my work clothes and the ones when I went to church. The bottom line is the fact that we have become wastefull as a nation. our piles of trash piles up. We even “import trash” from other places so government can also have money to waste. Our technologies that should solve our problems create more and more dangerious ones that wont return to the land from which it was taken. when it does it is toxic and pollutes our water. Do we learn from our mistakes? Hell no ! we have government to save us as we travel through life in our controled fall. We point fingers of blame at everyone else for our failuers. We know this because our government tells us so. They now keep us entertained with our favorate sport that we can name every player and data that applies, but dont know or haven read our constitution or how our government works, or supposed to work, billions are spent each year without an accounting of where it goes. we send billions to a nation that is larger than its gross national output. Why are all of our represenatives rich on wages that are 150 thousand dollars a year but have millions in the four years they represent us? All the lessons on how to save money should start by getting a control on government spending. I am sure the books have some great things to do to save money. what could we save if we had just half the taxes we pay to gov. to put into our savings each year. sadly many wouldnt have a single cent saved. to ready to party and have a good time, forget that tommarrow comes. many who believed that social security is the only thing they need to retire on. Well I came up dirt poor, as did my wife of fifty years Plus. our assets were over a million untill biden moved into the white house. We did it with only high school education. I sit on mt patio watching the deer walk by in the woods behind my half acre lot and home that is large enough to put the house in Detroit into four times. I enjoied my Easter with four generations around me. Sorry but saving wont be found within a book. Turn to your grandparents and learn from them while you can. they are your best resource. sorry for my long post.——— I, Grampa