In another thread, somebody suggested a forum on frugality. My first thought was that it is a great idea. And then I tried to think of the types of things to talk about and how they would not fit in other forums. I thought of a lot of things fitting into the wildcrafting forum. Then the food preservation forum. Then the homesteading forum.
I dunno, for every frugality thing I think of, there appears to already be a good forum for it.
Well, is there a forum or topic dedicated to reusing items? I've made a pond filter out of a milk crate, a dolly from an old lawn mower, etc. They are on here somewhere, but not categorized as a reuse/recycle item.
The homesteading forum seems to be a giant catch-all for a great variety of information.
If you are specifically looking for ideas on reuse/recycling items, it seems to be a matter of hunt & peck. Just IMO. I tend to like to "cut to the chase" when I'm looking for something. I think the frugality forum is at least a little more specific. If I was looking for ways to reuse items, I'd look there first, before I'd look in general homesteading.
I agree that it would be nice to have reuse/recycled/reappropriated articles in one section but also agree that those same articles might be more important in the subjects they consern so I just tired late night rambling I guess.
It's not really a case of things not fitting into an existing forum, more a matter of having them all in one place, instead of scattered throughout the individual forums. I guess if a person knew enough about using the search mechanism, it wouldn't be necessary to create a forum for this. Here are some examples anyways:
I could probably find a lot more of things like this if I went thru each topic of all the different forums. Joel Hollingsworth made something out of a bottle:
"I almost never watch TV, but recently there was an ad for a blown-glass bulb with a long neck and a narrow opening at the end. The idea is to fill it with tap water and jab it into a planter, so that it will automatically release water when the soil near its mouth is dry enough to let air in.
I took a wine bottle with an aluminum screw cap, poked a hole in the cap with a nail, filled it with greywater, and jabbed it into a planter. It has emptied slowly in this rainy season. Not sure yet if it works."
I made a pond filter out of an old milk crate, it's on here...somewhere. I'd have to search for it to find it because I don't remember where I posted it, maybe in critter care. Sue Monroe posted a tip about using grease on junk mail for cheap firestarter. Leah mentioned dryer lint. A 5 gallon bucket was suggested as a mouse trap. Somebody started a thread about tips and tricks, but you'd have to know it was in General Homesteading to find it.
Some of these suggestions sprout from conversations about other things. I was talking about how to get more light reflected to my plants and TC Lynx mentioned those solar blankets, (which have multiple uses) and that is in a pond farming thread.
At HT they start threads like this every so often and the replies are great.
Someone will say I did blah blah blah yesterday and saved a bunch, what are your best frugal ideas... and poof the thread takes off and becomes a wealth of info.
This is one of the things I miss about HT and why I started the Tips & Tricks - What's working for you thread. I wanted a 'mixed' pile of nifty perma things that save work and work great.
So I can see the advantage of 'collecting' ideas that would otherwise be spread out all over the forum.
I think it is a good idea yet I can see how frugal type topics tend to work themselves into subjects in other forums naturally. often a problem is presented and (at least for me) my thoughts tend towards ways it could be tackled with common or inexpensive material. there is almost always a costly solution that is out there, those are the easy ones. the challenge can be finding a solution that is a realistic option in a real world, limited budget situation. for my own situation, often if something can't get done for free or nearly so, then it simply doesn't get done often times. so I guess I don't know if it would be something worth having a seperate forum for or not. I'm afraid there would be alot of moving threads around when one turned into a frugal idea that started as a simple challenge to overcome.
If there are two people willing to start a dozen threads each, I'll create the forum and move a bunch of other threads to it. And when things are going well, I'll announce it to the overall usership.
If there are two people willing to start a dozen threads each, I'll create the forum and move a bunch of other threads to it. And when things are going well, I'll announce it to the overall usership.
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