What Frugal Skills Do you Want to Learn?

[Kaos Kitty]

I was thinking about all the things I want to know how to do. This year I would like to:

1) Take a hair cutting course to be able to cut everyone's hair.

2) Take a sewing class - currently trying to figure out how to thread the sewing machine results in impossibly tangled threads and tears. I really want to be able to sew a jean quilt. (I have about 10 pairs of jeans saved). And I want to make a braided rug!

3) Learn to crochet or knit. I've can manage the single "snake" but I need to sit down with some patient person to go from there. I have dreams of scarves and afghans.

5) Use my dehydrator more to make fruit leather and beef jerky.

6) Make my own cheese and yogurt.

7) Can in season fruit/vegetables (tomato sauce, jams ect).


What Frugal skills do you want to learn this year?

[TigerGirl1226]

I'd like to learn to can. Not on a gigantic scale, but tomato sauce would be awesome. Maybe some figs too.

[rudypoo98]

I'd like to learn to knit but doubt it will happen.
TigerGirl1226 Canning tomatoes is really easy.

[Grainlady]

It's apparant I must have grown-up in a different era. What our mother's didn't teach us, we learned in Home Economics Class and in our local 4-H Club. Everything Kaos Kitty mentioned, other than making yogurt, I learned at home/school/4-H. If you check your local library, you'll also find resources that cover these topics.

I bought a yogurt maker 30-years ago and made it for over 20-years. Now I make kefir, from real kefir grains, instead of yogurt. Easier to make, and better for you, than yogurt. I use kefir as a substitute for buttermilk, sourcream and cream cheese. All it takes is a quart jar and real kefir grains (not the powdered stuff) - and 12-24 hours at room temperature and you've got kefir. No special machine, heating the milk, and watching temperatures...

http://users.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html

Check your County Extension Office for classes. I've taught home canning, bread making - by hand and bread machine, crochet and knitting, and dehydrating all through the Extension Office. They also have sewing classes.

[joyofsix]

I'd like to better my gardening skills. there's always a way to improve things, right!
I wish I had carpentry skill. I learned things from my grandma, mom, 4-H, etc as Grainlady said, but nobody taught me how to build furniture.
I'd like to be better at car mechanics.

[lotsadebt]

I'd like to find a bread machine at a yard sale or thrift store and give it a try.

[IntlMom]

I can;t make bread...believe me, I;ve tried - LOTS

I'd like to learn to can, sew,........all that domestic stuff

My mom didn't teach me any of it, cause she didin;t learn it, either.

I have taught myself to garden, though I'd love someone to actully "teach" me some official things.......

[bast]

Sewing - I know some bare-bones basics, but I have a lot to learn.
Basic car repairs and maintenance
Knitting and crocheting - the best I can do is a long line of crochet, and I can't knit at all.
Hair cutting

[homesteadmamma]

I'd like to learn:

-rag rug making (I tried this a number of years go and it just didn't go as planned)
-to make yogurt
-to knit socks
-to use a pressure canner (I can lots with the water bath method, now I want to learn to use a pressure canner)
-to learn how to knit with 4 needles

[thefrug]

1) learn to can ( pressure canner)
2) knit , I can crochet, nothing fancy but I can single, double, triple crochet
3) learn to raise chickens ( or as our Aussie friends say Chooks LOL)

I have instructions on different cheese making from my Mother Earth magazine
also, I read in some magazine years ago that if you take strips of rags, sew the short ends together to make a huge skein of "yarn", you can crochet a rag rug. I've never tried it, but it sounds easier than a braided rug imo

[Momto2Boyz]

It's apparant I must have grown-up in a different era. What our mother's didn't teach us, we learned in Home Economics Class and in our local 4-H Club.

I don't think it is necessarily a generational thing. I am only 30, and I have most of those skills, and I picked them up in school. And I only took one Home Ec class!

I guess, it might also be a "regional" thing. If you grow up in an urban environment, you may not see alot of it on a regular basis. I grew up on a farm, so I think that had alot to do with it!

Things I'd like to work on:

*making yogurt (I eat a ton of it, and I just found a recipe using the crockpot)
*Make cottage cheese. I tried it once and it turned out really salty, so I plan on trying it again...however, it is not any cheaper to make at home then buying it when I shop at Aldi's, so not so much a frugal thing, but a fun thing to learn!
*Drywall repair. Needs to be done in our bedroom and I don't want to pay anyone! I'll be tackling this, this summer. Done it before, with my dad, just never on my own!

I think that is about it. We are pretty bare bones frugal around here. We garden, we can, I sew, I craft, I cut everyone's hair, walk just about everywhere when weather permits! But I know if I keep reading FV, I'm sure I'll find more frugal skills I need to learn!

[joyofsix]

I don't think it is necessarily a generational thing.
I guess, it might also be a "regional" thing.

Hey I'm all for it being a region thing and not an age thing!

[Grainlady]

I had Home Ec. from grade 8, when we learned to make an apron and darn a sock (which I still do) and do simple cooking, all the way through 4-years of high school.

As a Freshman we learned to knit, but since I'd been knitting for years (crocheting too), and knitted better than the teacher, I ended up teaching and finished my project the first day, instead of a week.

As a Soph. I made a lined wool plaid jacket and skirt (matching the plaids and hand-making the button holes), and a blouse, complete with a collar, cuffs, and buttonholes.

Jr. and Sr. year I made my prom dresses in Home Ec. I won the prize for my Sr. year prom dress at the fashion show. Back then, most girls got a sewing machines for high school graduation and made most of their clothing. Years later I cut up the prom dresses and made dresses for my daughter.

I made diapers for our two children (1971 & 1977), and never used disposable diapers.

Through the Extension Office I learned how to taylor clothing patterns to fit my body. We made a cloth pattern out of muslin for slacks that actually FIT! Proper-fitting slacks are a challenge.

These were skills I used through the 1990's. I made most of my clothing for those many years, as well as my kids. I was still making my daughter dresses and skirts all the way through high school.

I used to purchase men's suits from thrift stores and re-make them into a skirt and jacket for myself - this was back in the 80's. Back when I needed "professional" clothing - without the cost!

Then it was all the home decorating sewing that kept me busy.

Now, with cloth, patterns, and thread so expensive, I can fill my wardrobe cheaper through the many thrift stores in town or bargain hunting, and alter things when necessary.

[peanut]

I'm impressed Grainlady. I went looking for sewing classes for my daughter (23) about a year or so ago and could only find ones offered through quilting stores in town. Needless to say they weren't teaching garment sewing. In the end I just decided to teach her myself if she wanted to know. I offered her some instructional DVDs I purchased over the Internet too. The Internet truly is the new classroom.

As for me...I'd like to learn to...

• Change the oil in the car
• Change a tire on the car
• make pasta
• make soap
• use a pressure canner.
• Make environmentally friendly cleansers
• make flavoured vinegars
• grind my own grain.

Jean

[mombottoo]

I would like to learn how to knit. I learned how to crochet years ago, but never got around learning how to knit.