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. 

What do you all think?

im a member here


http://www.frugalvillage.com/

good site

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.

What about the homesteading forum for that sort of thing?

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.

Can ya'll give me some examples of topics that don't currently seem to have a fit?

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.

hankie versus tissue
hang your laundry to dry outside in the winter
  breastfeeding
retrieval of motor off squirrel cage for chicken plucker

frugal things

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.

Well,

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.

paul wheaton wrote:
Well,

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.

So .... a dozen is too much?

The frugality forum has been created.