Catie George

My mother is a huge fan of fondue pots for emergency prep. They can be used indoors, which is a huge bonus. You can often find them inexpensively in thrift stores.  Fuel is methyl hydrate.

I call her during power outages, and she's fried up some toast or an egg for breakfast, perc'd a cup of coffee, and heated up soup for lunch or hot water for a hot water bottle, all without going outdoors and getting chilled.

I have a stick stove, and I like it for camping,  but expect to ruin any pot you use on it with soot.

If it's colder than normal for your area, and your house isn't well insulated, remember to leave your taps dripping overnight, and sink cabinet doors open to avoid a freeze and an expensive pipe burst! I have been known to use an incandescent lamp (if you have power) to add a little heat to a cold bathroom, utility room, or pump room, though be careful not to knock it over or get it wet!

You can buy electric heaters that turn on if the temp gets below 10C (whatever that is in F), and I have one set up constantly in my utility room in the off chance my boiler fails (again) while I am not home.

Figure out where your water shut-off is, and if it's possible to drain your water at all, well in advance of any power outage.

There is always the 'watch the smoke from a smoldering piece of cotton twine" trick to find drafts.

I hang a curtain up in the winter in my entry with a cheap tension rod , to block cold air as we go in and out. Makes a big difference, and also blocks some of the remaining draft from my well sealed door. In a pinch, duct tape willhang a curtain!  The best curtains go from floor to ceiling without gaps.

For layers - remember it is not the weight of clothes that insulates you, it's the trapped air.

So one pair of fluffy socks that are a bit too big is going to be far warmer than 6 pairs of socks you need to stretch to get on. Same goes for pants, sweaters, jackets, and even boots.

 For bedding - put your heavy layers like an old wool blanket on the bottom, light layers (like a duvet or comforter) at the top of the pile. It does help to cover a fluffy layer like a fuzzy blanket, if it's at the top, with a sheet to trap more air. I grew up with a bedroom that was often below freezing in winter. I learned to wrap a fluffy blanket around my head and neck for insulation.

Do not allow yourself to sweat, if you do not have heat - it's very difficult to rewarm if you are damp, and get chilled. Take off whatever layers you need to, and work at whatever pace you have to in order not to sweat. Similarly, if you are cold - make yourself get up and move, you will rewarm quicker when you are moving.

Do you have a natural gas hot water heater? If you do, it may keep running in an outage. My mom is able to repeatedly fill her tub and kitchen sinks with hot water (town water, so she has pressure) and add a little heat back to the house during an outage that way.

At least in Canada, you can still buy Halogen bulbs, which are a type of incandescent with slightly better efficiency and longevity due to invading the filament in halogen.

They still have a full spectrum of light, although are not as useful as a heat lamp.

At a certain point, what you are really asking is- "given body reserves of so much fat, and so much protein, how little can I eat so that those reserves will last me 1-2 years".

Again, POWs, prisoners, and people in concentration camps fed starvation diets had high mortality rates and often long term damage to their health, despite some people surviving.

For example, a relative was apparently in a Siberian work camp for 7 or 8 years, and died within a year of going home. Lots of people never made it out of the gulags.

I grew up not washing rice, but do now after a CBC Marketplace investigation tested the arsenic levels of rice and rice based products in grocery store. I eat a ton of rice and rice products because I am celiac.

Repeated studies have shown rice is high in arsenic due to the soil it is grown in and washing the rice has been shown to dramatically reduce the arsenic content. if I recall, brown rice often has even higher levels.

I suspect there's a reason that cultures that traditionally eat a lot of rice insist on washing their rice. I have to admit I've grown to like the less sticky texture of washed rice, too.

I buy 100% cotton rugs from IKEA. Sadly they are often boring patterned.  They often claim they can't be washed, but mine only shrank a little when I put them through my washed and dryer. They also have wool rugs, I'm not sure if they are 100% wool, and jute rugs.

I bought a cotton rug on Wayfair and the quality was horrible - the rug shifts and skews and stretches as you walk on it. Not worth the money even if it is prettier.

I do find I need either a rug pad, or carpet tape to hold my cotton rugs down in high traffic areas so still not 100% natural. But I like that they are washable and not creating microplastic dust.

Weight loss studies are interesting for this

This has a good review of different studies, but 0.4 g protein/day/lb of body weight was associated with very little muscle loss while losing weight.  So for a 150 lb person, that would be 60g of protein/day.  Significantly higher than your 20g, but an interesting number.

https://legionathletics.com/minimum-protein-per-day/?srsltid=AfmBOor9fL_d0w756Yo0oVhKibDhv3Kn0QMLOuPEzvchvAKfLvBDrT8A

I saw a claim, with no good reference, for 0.25 g/day/lb of body weight for fat, as the minimum. That translates to 37.5 g for a 150 lb person.

This source defines a 'very low fat diet' as 33 g of fat per day in 2000 calories. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.CIR.98.9.935

Furthermore, they say ' The importance of the issue is not clear in the absence of established requirements for essential fatty acid intakes at any age. Estimated requirements range from 3% to 5% of caloric intake.75 76 This requirement translates to ≈7 to 11 g for a 2000-calorie diet and is usually met by the inclusion of polyunsaturated fats as a source of linolenic acid.'  I can see how doubling that, because you don't JUST get essential fatty acids leading to 20g as an average figure for total fat required.

So a 'safe' healthy minimum would likely be 30 g of fat, and 60 g of protein for 150 lb person. For survival, likely less,  maybe 20g of fat, no good data on protein, but keep in mind there was significant disease related mortality in POWs being fed these super low fat/protein diets.

This is low enough that it should almost be possible to reach just with things like whole grains and legumes.

I use dog grooming shears to cut human hair .. mine are low end Kenchii but have more than doubled in price since I bought them 5 or 6 years ago. Now cost about $85. Mine get much heavier use on the dog than on me, but have held up very well.

Can I suggest going into a beauty supply store and trying some out? Sally's is the chain I see here.

I chose mine in a local pet store that has a bunch out, and figuring out the right blade length and fit for your hands makes a big difference. My mom has a pair that were about the same price as mine that were ordered online, and they are about twice the weight and I hate them! Paying an extra few $ for less hand fatigue is worth it to me.

I have had cabbage naturally overwinter in Zone 4, for what it's worth.

It may have been somewhat mulched with leaves, and certainly was snow covered.

My last Christmas gifts of the season will be delivered tomorrow, weather gods willing (right now they look pretty unwilling!)

Did I succeed in a Zero Dollar Christmas?  Not quite, but close enough I am happy.

In addition to previous purchases, I spent another $3 to buy a Christmas tin for a food-gift when I ran out of containers.  I suppose I also went over budget on food supplies, though those are hard to count, since I had them on hand, and just handwavingly used reward points at the grocery store to 'pay' myself back for them, and besides, how do you value 2L of homemade maple syrup?- but I had atrocious luck with candy this year, for a long list of reasons.

I suppose theoretically I could count the gas I spent to drive to visit for Christmas, but I visit about once a month anyways, so I'm not counting it!

All in all about $38 of real money spent on "Christmas", $35 of which I would have spent even without the holiday, (and about $80-100 spent of reward points, which I normally hoard and never use), with Christmas still being it's usual busy self, with token gifts for about a dozen people, and "good" gifts for 3. Could I have given fewer token gifts? Probably, but Christmas gifts are culturally/socially expected, and fairly important for relationship maintenance, so I am happy I managed to still do it. Plus, I enjoy it! I'd have felt awful NOT having return gifts for people who gave me small gifts.

I ended up going to a buy nothing event, where I got rid of some things I no longer needed, and found myself some sparkly gold glass Christmas tree ornaments and a few other things I needed.  I was also given a strand of Christmas lights for my indoor houseplant Christmas tree, which I admit made the tree much more festive.

I ended Christmas still feeling like I got to enjoy all my favourite parts of the season after a very difficult year and despite a very tight budget, and I didn't end up feeling like I was being 'cheap'.

I would have ended up spending far less in total than my usual month, and did, in most categories , from groceries, up to and including my hydro bill, saving enough for the dishwasher AND the cabinet - except for 3 unforeseeable  major emergencies in December which thoroughly destroyed my budget for the foreseeable future.  Oh well. I'll get the hookup installed, and will keep my eyes open for cheap used dishwashers and used laminate countertops, and finish the project whenever time and money allows. Perhaps not what I had hoped to build, or quite as soon as I'd promised myself, but I will get it done. And find a used fridge, while I'm at it since mine is actively dying... In the spring, when I can get my trailer out. Sigh.