Its not until we have visitors, or we stay away from home, that we realise how weird some of our habits might seem to other people. If you are trying to live a simple, frugal, self-reliant or sustainable life, you probably have some weird habits too. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours....
1. We eat what we grow
Sometimes people bring us food. Honestly we don't need any food, if anything we have too much food. We have all the meat, vegetables, eggs and milk we can eat at the moment. I actually got a little stressed out recently by exactly how much food we HAVE at the moment. Please don't buy food for us, but we would love to share what you grow yourself. When I want to take something to share with someone else, I usually want to grab something out of the garden, is it weird to turn up with a kg of tomatoes, or a carton of eggs? We occasionally stop at the bakery and pick up a sugary bun just in case our home produce is not welcome, and then I don't want to eat the bun because of the sugar....
2. We don't make much "rubbish"
Firstly, we line our rubbish bin with newspaper, rather than using a bin bag. Second all our vege scraps go into the worm farm(s) - we have two worm farms! We try not to buy things with packaging and always take green bags, so we probably only need to put out the wheelie bin once a month if it didn't get too stinky. I also hoard things that might be useful, like envelopes, scraps of plain paper, rubber bands, paper bags, glass jars and bottles, and buttons.... we don't have recycling here in the South Burnett anymore, so reusing is our only option.
3. We conserve water
We collect rainwater in three tanks, and that's all we have for drinking, cooking, washing up, showering, laundry and for the chickens. We don't waste water. And I mean we really don't, not like when you have town water and you kind of try not to use it much. This is our only water supply. If we run out of water, we have to buy town water, and the town water around here is pretty awful, we really don't want to have to buy it, so we don't have to wait to be put on water restrictions! We take a bath (one between two) or a very quick shower. I only wash clothes when they are dirty (sometimes I wear them again several times). For the toilet we follow the mantra "if its yellow, let it mellow", if we have visitors I have to remember to flush. We put all the grey water (shower and laundry) on the vege garden.
4. Our bathroom shelves are empty
We don't have any hair products (not even shampoo), make up or other clutter in our bathroom. I only realise how weird this looks when I seem other people's bathrooms full of products! We only have soap, a few jars of salve and some essential oils. One visitor asked if I had any cream for toe fungus. No, I just use neem oil for that. If you forget to bring your cosmetics, good luck, because I probably won't have what you want, but I can offer a crunchy alternative!
5. We don't give presents
We do give gifts sometimes, if we see something that someone might like, but we don't do Christmas or Birthday presents at all. Our family and friends know this and know not to expect anything. It really does reduce the stress of buying STUFF at Christmas. If anything, I prefer to give homemade or homegrown gifts when they are available, but not to a schedule.
6. We buy local even if it costs a little more
We make a big effort to support the shops in our local town, and our monthly farmers market. We always use the local supermarket and hardware store, even though there are larger options in the next town over. I don't mind paying a little more for the convenience of having a shop closer to us, and supporting our community. We recently changed our bank to a local building society branch too.
7. We don't have a dishwasher or a clothes drier
But we do have a mincer and dehydrator.... I am not sure about a dishwasher, we haven't had one for such a long time, we don't really miss it. And the clothes drier has sat in the back of the shed for 5 years now, never used. We seem to manage without them.
8. We use our electric oven to store oven trays (not for cooking)
In winter we cook everything on our woodstove, and in summer, its so hot, we prefer to use the gas BBQ or the slow cooker, so our electric oven has not been turned on for several years now.
I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of right now! So its your turn now, what weird habits do you have that you only notice when other people are around?
1. We eat what we grow
Sometimes people bring us food. Honestly we don't need any food, if anything we have too much food. We have all the meat, vegetables, eggs and milk we can eat at the moment. I actually got a little stressed out recently by exactly how much food we HAVE at the moment. Please don't buy food for us, but we would love to share what you grow yourself. When I want to take something to share with someone else, I usually want to grab something out of the garden, is it weird to turn up with a kg of tomatoes, or a carton of eggs? We occasionally stop at the bakery and pick up a sugary bun just in case our home produce is not welcome, and then I don't want to eat the bun because of the sugar....
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| veges from our garden |
2. We don't make much "rubbish"
Firstly, we line our rubbish bin with newspaper, rather than using a bin bag. Second all our vege scraps go into the worm farm(s) - we have two worm farms! We try not to buy things with packaging and always take green bags, so we probably only need to put out the wheelie bin once a month if it didn't get too stinky. I also hoard things that might be useful, like envelopes, scraps of plain paper, rubber bands, paper bags, glass jars and bottles, and buttons.... we don't have recycling here in the South Burnett anymore, so reusing is our only option.
 |
| my button collection |
3. We conserve water
We collect rainwater in three tanks, and that's all we have for drinking, cooking, washing up, showering, laundry and for the chickens. We don't waste water. And I mean we really don't, not like when you have town water and you kind of try not to use it much. This is our only water supply. If we run out of water, we have to buy town water, and the town water around here is pretty awful, we really don't want to have to buy it, so we don't have to wait to be put on water restrictions! We take a bath (one between two) or a very quick shower. I only wash clothes when they are dirty (sometimes I wear them again several times). For the toilet we follow the mantra "if its yellow, let it mellow", if we have visitors I have to remember to flush. We put all the grey water (shower and laundry) on the vege garden.
 |
| a large green frog (and our toilet) |
4. Our bathroom shelves are empty
We don't have any hair products (not even shampoo), make up or other clutter in our bathroom. I only realise how weird this looks when I seem other people's bathrooms full of products! We only have soap, a few jars of salve and some essential oils. One visitor asked if I had any cream for toe fungus. No, I just use neem oil for that. If you forget to bring your cosmetics, good luck, because I probably won't have what you want, but I can offer a crunchy alternative!
 |
| homemade herbal skin salve |
5. We don't give presents
We do give gifts sometimes, if we see something that someone might like, but we don't do Christmas or Birthday presents at all. Our family and friends know this and know not to expect anything. It really does reduce the stress of buying STUFF at Christmas. If anything, I prefer to give homemade or homegrown gifts when they are available, but not to a schedule.
6. We buy local even if it costs a little more
We make a big effort to support the shops in our local town, and our monthly farmers market. We always use the local supermarket and hardware store, even though there are larger options in the next town over. I don't mind paying a little more for the convenience of having a shop closer to us, and supporting our community. We recently changed our bank to a local building society branch too.
 |
| shopping at our local farmers market |
7. We don't have a dishwasher or a clothes drier
But we do have a mincer and dehydrator.... I am not sure about a dishwasher, we haven't had one for such a long time, we don't really miss it. And the clothes drier has sat in the back of the shed for 5 years now, never used. We seem to manage without them.
 |
| we use a solar clothes drier (and there's our rainwater tanks too) |
8. We use our electric oven to store oven trays (not for cooking)
In winter we cook everything on our woodstove, and in summer, its so hot, we prefer to use the gas BBQ or the slow cooker, so our electric oven has not been turned on for several years now.
 |
| our woodstove |
I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of right now! So its your turn now, what weird habits do you have that you only notice when other people are around?
they are great habits!
ReplyDeletemy one weird habit now would have to be a small bottle of olive oil where the toothpaste should be, i oil swish, every night, i still brush as i tried to go without but couldn't handle the fur growth (yuk) but don't use toothpaste. mouth tastes so much better.
i don't do xmas, easter, or any other, too expensive & it's lost it's it's meaning but family have holidays at xmas so we still get together then.
it's so much simpler when you're frugal :))
thanx for sharing
Oh interesting, I have read about oil pulling.... its nice to get the family together without the present stress! Yes frugal is simple (sometimes!).
Delete"Our bathroom shelves are empty" - and when visitors come and bring their 'stuff' I get all anxious about the health of my septic tank!
ReplyDeleteI do have a dryer - I bought it in 1983 when I was pregnant with my second son. It still goes but it's for emergency only use now, which generally means it's used by people with children who visit ill-prepared to play in our bush / stream and need dry clothes to wear home.
Yep, the septic tank is a worry! and a good excuse for not using bleach and harsh chemicals too. They don't make appliances like they used to!
DeleteThe compost scrap bowl on the bench is the one that gets weird looks. It has to be out of the toddler's reach but still obvious, so that the older kids and my husband can drop their apple/pear cores, strawberry tops, carrot peelings, etc when they're done instead of forlornly asking me where its hiding this time.
ReplyDeleteI was given a compost bin when I left my last workplace, best gift EVER. Its a large red metal tin with a lid, you can't miss it, and it doesn't look untidy pride of place on the bench top :) I find myself looking for the compost bin at work... it feels weird to put an apple core in the rubbish now!
DeleteI can't remember who it was now, but some visiting relatives thought it was weird we ate the eggs of our chickens, thinking it dirty because I happened to have collected a warm one I wanted to show them. They couldn't get the image out of their head, that it came fresh from a chickens bum, lol. I remember telling them, the ones from the shops exit in the same way, but their reply was, at least they were cold and they didn't have to think about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's not something that ever occurred to me as being gross, until it was pointed out. I still think its just a natural process.
We turn all our appliances off at the wall, kettle, toaster, microwave, tv everything and people find this a bit weird but we are always surprised about how many lights and appliances we see on in other homes even when no one is there. We try not to waste food for example the other day I asked someone to get the me the broccoli stalks out of the fridge. I had used the head already but saved the stalks to add to another meal. Trust me they thought it was very strange. Hubby often jokes with me say "oh you better just throw that out" when he sees me using something he knows most people would not.
ReplyDeleteWe have 2 bins on the bench one for the worms and one for the compost and then there is often a bowl for the chickens which we give them every day.
We don't give gifts either!
ReplyDeleteGood Post! I'm with you on a few of them. One of my more common ones would be saving eggs shells. I feed them back to my hens and after cracking an egg I rinse it and throw it in a little bucket I keep near the sink. If someone pops by after I've been baking there can be quite the pile there waiting to go out to the chickens. I get funny looks for that one.
ReplyDelete