Depression Era Frugality

[mysterygal]

My grandfather waters down just about everything..ketchup, spagetti sauce...ect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Watered down ketchup -- that reminds me of what my grandfather told me he used to do before he got married, and was really down and out. He'd walk into a lunch room or a drug store, and buy a cup of coffee for a nickel -- and after he finished the coffee, he'd ask for a cup of hot water for free. Then he'd take the bottle of ketchup on the counter and pour a glob of it into the cup, stir vigorously, and -- presto, tomato soup. Or, "Hoover Soup," as he called it.

 

[fortworthgal]

Modern-day retro frugality (or something):

Scraping the fabric lint from the clothes dryer vent and using it to stuff pillows. Line-drying fans need not apply


.

The best use for dryer lint is as a fire starter! Save it and stuff it into old paper towel or toilet paper rolls, then use it to start your campfire or fireplace. It catches instantly and is much less expensive than those fire-starting sticks.

 

[Raegan]

Let's not even talk food! The things my dad said he ate when he was a kid . Scrapple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple

The picture doesn't look too bad but don't think I could ever eat that. I could have gone my whole life without knowing what that was. I understand these things were necessity but yuck!

 

[Lincsong]

How about using an old door as a shelf?lol Or never replacing any flooring in the house until it wears down to the floorboards?

 

[mysterygal]

It still amazes me how people used everything! On my mother's side, my grandparents were farmers, very poor and had 13 kids Some of the stories I could have gone my whole life not hearing , but still very interesting. Just about every part of a cow they would eat..the brain my grandmother would cook to make 'head cheese' , they would eat cow tongue sandwhiches a lot and on and on it goes.

 

[Viola]

they would eat cow tongue sandwhiches a lot and on and on it goes.

I thought cow tongue is an expensive, premium cut? I love it but can't rationalize the price per pound!

 

[jdjs]

Shampoo?

My mother was a child in the thirties; she did (and does) many of the things listed. However, she was cured of one bad habit the hard way:

In the early eighties, when my brother and sister were still at home, both were of the habit of trying every new shampoo that came onto the market (this included the very popular henna varieties). Of course, no bottle was ever finished, nor thrown out.

I came home from university one day to find her in kitchen, crying her eyes out. When I asked what was wrong, she said her scalp was on fire since washing her hair. I went to look at her scalp, finding it bright red, blistered and her hair coming out in clumps.

Too stupid to ask what she had done, I rushed her over to the family doctor, who took her right away. After a couple of minutes, he came out, laughing his head off. Apparently she mixed all the shampoo remainders together and washed her hair with the result.

I went home and grabbed some pH paper to do a rough test - she created an acid reaction somewhere between 3 and 4 (of course, it was a really rough test, but the results supported the hypothesis; what else she mixed in there to get that result remains a mystery to this day).

Never had the problem of half empty shampoo bottles again!

 

[Lincsong]

Well if she told two freinds, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on and so on, no one will every mix all that shampoo again.lol

 

[raiderrescuer]

Depression Era

My Grandparents raised up my Dad & 2 Aunts & 4 Uncles during the Depression (and one more Uncle Post Depression)...they lived on a Farm and did ok.
Grandpa was also the Town Marshal & Grandma was the Fed's Weather Lady.

From what my Dad says there were a few less Deer during the Depression and amazingly enough there was enough vension to feed everyone.

My Grandmother canned a lot of things...even as a Teenager I could not identify some of the things she had canned.

Oh, and the old fashion Wringer Washer was still in her house when she passed away and looked brand new.

They also did the Midwife thing for all but one of the 8 kids...my youngest Uncle born in the 40's was delivered in a hospital.

They also did the Community Living thing...they would set up 9 plates & didn't care who ate at the house as long as the balance of the kids were at the Neighbors.

They also did communal chores for other people...more like Horse Trading. Someone would come in and plow fileds and in turn they would go help them plant etc.

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Here's a funny thing. We had a little summer cabin near Alderpoint up in northern California. Around 1973 or 1974, the washing machine konked out and we went to the local hardware store in nearby Garberville to find a new one.

They had a brand new wringer washer! Well, it looked new, anyway, who knows how long it had been in the store. I loved vintage style stuff even then, and it was cheap, quite a bit cheaper than the automatic ones, so Mom bought it.

We also had an old refrigerator which quit working one day. There was a relay box on the back, and I, at age 11 or 12, somehow determined that it had failed. I removed it and we went to a small hardware store in Eureka, showed it to the guy behind the counter, and he had a replacement in stock! We took it home, I installed it and the old fridge worked fine.

I was a weird kid. lol

 

[Roger]

What kind of nut doesn't replace the carpeting? That's not frugal, that's a mental disability.

 

[Etienne]

My father in law's family ate bowls of cut up bread with sugar and milk on it for dinner. He loved it! My own father saved EVERYTHING!!!! When he passed away and we were all cleaning out his gargage, we found small containers labeled "eighteen to thirty-six inch pieces of twine", and "old rubber washers", and "random lengths of copper wire". Thrifty to the end.

 

[dr greg]

you haven't lived

until you've had the poor man's sweet and sour: an onion, a tin of baked beans and a tin of pineapple all stewed up, or bush chutney, which is plum jam and Worcestershire sauce. The best depression story I know is that my mother used to buy boiled sweets from a shop, take them to school, put one in a cup of water, swill it around until the water tasted sugary, then sell mouthfuls to the other kids until the thing dissolved...it was known as 'LOLLY water' and the expression survives to this day for sweet drinks in this country.

 

[Undertow]

Thought I should bump this one as I've seen much talk in similar threads.

Personally, I reuse anything I can within sanitary means.

*edit: I bumped this PRIOR to seeing the "Saving Tip of the Day" thread started by Foofoogal. Sorry for cluttering things up!

 

[Story]

I've helped three or four buddies clean out their grandparents houses and laughed til I got tears in my eyes: every basement was stocked almost like the guys were following a plan.

Screws stored in glass jars, the lids nailed to the ceiling.
Old electric tools and lamps, in various stages of dismemberment
Scrap wood boxes, for - you know - whatever.
Bins and shelves of brass and copper parts hijacked from old appliances.

You haven't lived til you've helped rewire an old house and found a shim made from a Schlitz can.

 

[Naama]

Strange thing is, my grandmother doesn't do any of those things.... She's not one who throws anything away, but let's say, she handles things as most people do. While her brother goes a little bit too far with those things... From wearing clothes from his dead wife (not the dresses mind you lol ) to cutting away mold and eating the rest....... (you can tell him that he shouldn't do that, but you can't make him belive you.....) Maybe this is because he was in war prison?



Naama

 

[Miss Neecerie]

You haven't lived til you've helped rewire an old house and found a shim made from a Schlitz can.

well the light on my 1930's stove is kept tighter in place by the cunning use of a canning jar insert...I have not yet had the nerve to plug it in and try it...afraid that my vintage wiring might be unhappy.

 

[desi_de_lu_lu]

I was raised by my grandparents in the Virgin Islands. The island was self sustained until about the late 40's. They stockpiled everything they could and my grandfather made his own bullets.. and had a chicken coop on top of the house.

I often heard stories of everything being rationed, sugar, coffee, rice...everything.

To this day my mother doesn't drink coffee with sugar because she learned to do without when she was young.

 

[Paisley]

My dad used to make his own bullets, too. He also reloaded brass. When he was a kid, he overhead a conversation between his father and another man making a swap. The man said, "Don't tell your kids it's horse meat."