My parents will probly be losing their jobs this upcoming December.

Not only that, by the next few months, thier salary will keep on declining.

We were hoping to move out to the country soon to live a simpler life but that isn't really working out so far......

Can anyone give me tips on how we can start saving money by living simpler now for the upcoming turmoil?
We've already thought about getting rid of our phones, cable, and internet.
What else could we do?

It seems all I do on this site is ask questions!

So many questions, so little time!

I promise to post more interesting things in the future!

(Now here comes the mountain of questions!)
But anyways, I was wondering if it's cheaper to make clothes yourself?
Is fabric cheap?
Is it hard to man a sewing machine?
Could I get a good sewing machine cheap at a thrift store?

That's all for now.
I've always wanted to make my own clothes, but I've known no one who could.
And I figure it would be easier (and hopefully cheaper) to make my own modest clothing to my exact shape and liking, instead of browsing around numerous, expensive stores trying to find a few articles of modest clothing, that probly won't even fit me correctly.
I'm pretty sure I can talk my parents into getting me a second-hand sewing machine!

I was wondering, does anyone use exclusively gas lights and/or candles?

I know you can buy (pretty expensive) gas lights fueled by natural gas or propane.
Do any of you use that?
What about the old fashioned way, using olive oil and beeswax and such?

Another question, does anyone exclusively use candles?
Or at least, just at night?
If so, what type do you use.....and how do you go about it?

Today, My parents, my nephew, and I went to a harvest farm, where they let you pick apples and other kinds of fruit.
It was great, we had a blast!

We picked Golden Delicious apples, Red Delicious apples and Empire apples.
We also picked Seascape Strawberries, raspberries, and a few blackberries.

It was nice because the guy said they didn't spray a lot of pesticides and all that junk on their fruit, so it's way way way healthier than storebought. In the actual store, they had freshly made jam (we got peach, blackberry, and blueberry), pies (got peach), honey, pickles, and other really great fresh healthy stuff.

When we got home, I immediately wanted to try the blueberry jam. I'm only used to really cheap store-bought grape jelly. Never even tried jam before.
As soon as I tasted the blueberry jam, I fell in love with it! The first thing that blurted out of my mouth was, "How can I eat store-bought jelly ever again after tasting THIS?!?!?!?!"
Something that was healthy AND tasted good.....I never thought there was such a thing!

As time moves by, the homestead idea gets more and more appealing to me!

On another note, my parents can no longer afford the house mortgage, so in about 7 months, the bank is going to foreclose on our house.
My family is looking at the positive side of this. We were thinking that maybe we could rent a house out in the country (like we were today at the harvest farm).
If you couldn't already tell, besides the fact that my parents love country music, we are very city-folk. My mother lived most of her life in Chicago, and I was born there and lived there a while too.
Even where we live in is a pretty big city, over 200,000 people.

And I must admit, going out to the harvest farm today, we kept pointing out the horses and cows and thought how weird it was that the little country towns didn't have atms at every corner or that there was only one subway and one resturaunt in the whole town!

I think I am making steps toward having my parents accept the idea that I want to live at a homestead.

I'm sweeping and dusting my room regularly now, which is a huge improvement for me.
I'm still not allowed anywhere near the washing machine. My older sister nearly destroyed ours when she and her family lived with us a few years ago, and my mother thinks I will be as careless.

I've convinced my mother to teach me how to make noodles slathered in butter.
She won't teach me on how to use an oven though, since I'm prone to burns.

Wow, it's been a while since I've last posted!
But I'm still here!
I'm 17 now!

While I usually don't like sharing my private life on the internet, I think you all should know where I'm coming from.

My dad is an atheist. My mom is a traditional christian.
They both work 7 days a week.

The extent of my culinary skills is anything that involves a can opener and a microwave.

I've never touched a bottle of laundry soap in my life, let alone washed anything with it. I don't even know how to operate a washing machine.

As a young child, I was never expected to clean up after myself. When my mother would even attempt to talk to me about cleaning a mess, my father would walk in with "Don't you DARE talk to MY only daughter like that! You don't actually expect her to CLEAN or do WORK, do you?!?!?!"
He would then wisk me off to watch a cowboy movie with him while he ordered my mother to clean any messes I may have made.
Well, that continued on until fairly recently. Nowadays, my dad actually lets my mother talk to me about it. The cleaning of my room still falls in her hands.
I have made progress of this, though. This past year, at 16 years old, I started to put away my own dishes after I ate a meal (though I still have no clue how to wash a dish). I also started to dust my room.

As a follow of the Creator of the Universe, a (hopefully) future wife and mother, future homemaker, and possible future homesteader, that is the extent of my homemaking skills.

As I've said before, my parents work 7 days a week, and my mother really doesn't have time to teach me these things. Or she says things like "hire a maid".
It has even become somewhat of an inside joke in our immediate family with me and cleaning. Such as "the day Maria cleans a dish is the day I win the lottery", and bursts of laughter than ensue.

I WANT to clean. and cook. Unlike most kids my age.
But, I have no one to teach me.

The few times I have mentioned being a homesteader, my mother brushes it off. She hates the idea.
When I talk about how I want to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, she, once again, bursts out laughing, saying that it's just not realistic nowadays and I shouldn't kid myself.

I know she means well, but I believe that my calling from God is to be, first and foremost, a wife and mother. Not a single career woman.

I'm not really sure what the main point of this post was, as I look back it seems I was just rambling, but I guess you can tell at least a bit of what I'm dealing with.

I have no clue how to cook. Clean. Organize.
But I know I have to learn.
So, by joining here, I have taken matters into my own hands, and I will try to teach myself.
I think I'm especially determined (and sort of scared) to do this since I recently turned 17 and it suddenly dawned on me that adulthood is quickly approaching.

I know it will be hard, I know people, friends, and family members will continue to scoff at me, but I have to do this.
I know that's what the Creator wants and I know that one day my future husband will be one person who actually appreciates that hard work I will be putting forth.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my entry about laundry. Everyone's helped! Thanks for the encouragement!

So maybe, the basics? I'm sorry, but I'm not a shopping person either. Where can you find, uh, washing buckets? And how hard is it to find wringers and such? Are the ingredients for laundry soap easy to find?

Seeing as God has recently shown me that I have way too many distractions in my life right now, this homesteading idea seems more and more appealing to me. May I ask, why did you get into homesteading?

Could someone tell me how to do wash laundry 'the old fashioned way'?
Or, at least links to sites that explain it?
It would be very helpful!

I am a christian, I know what my role is as a woman of God, and yet I don't understand why my mother won't help me. I am in one of the rare cases where I actually want to learn how to cook and clean and my mother doesn't want me to do anything and actively discourages me from learning any household skills. Is she expecting me to just instantly know what to do when I get married? And she gets the shivers whenever I mention this homestead thing. I know that if I tell people that I want a 'self-sufficent' life, they may think I'm really weird. I just didn't expect it from my own family.

I think I'll start a little garden in my backyard.
Hey! You have to start somewhere!

I have wanted to do this for a while now.
I don't east fast food meat because it disgusts me. I recently found out that Taco Bell uses MEALWORM in their meat! I used to find bits of bone in my McDonald's mcnuggets and also chewy unknown substances in their hamburgers. I only eat McDonald's fries and Taco Bell's crunchwraps without meat. I hope to one day ease myself off of them.
And I know most packaged food is bad for you.
Don't even get me started on energy drinks! I won't go near those things!
I guess you could say I'm a picky eater......but can you blame me?!

I guess I like 'basic' food. Fruit. Vegetables. Turkey. Tea. Beans. Rice. Bread.
That's what I could live off of.
Unfortunately, my parents love junk food.
Blah!
I'm really unhealthy because of all that stuff.

*sighs* One day!

Hi!

Well, I'm Meadow Rose, I'm 16 years old, and I'm becoming more and more intrigued with the entire idea of "homesteading" and have recently decided that I one day hope to fully dive into it.
As for now, considering I am only 16 and still live with my parents, I'm going to get into it very slowly.
I will post more about this later.

Yours in Christ,
Meadow Rose