Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

I need to try the rainwater thing. My duplex only has one downspout and it's right in the way of the path to the backyard so I'm not too sure where to put the barrel (our town offers barrels at deep discounts). My parents have 2 and it comes in handy during water restrictions. I'd probably use mine for the garden though. I don't know how you did it without running water - wow. Even my grandmother had an indoor hand pump to the well What did you do if it didn't rain?

I'm impressed with your lack of waste. Reminds me of my grandparents. Whatever wasn't eaten went to the dogs or pigs. whatever could be reused (bags, containers, boxes) was reused. The rest was thrown in the wood stove (which was a very small amount of stuff, burned once a week in the summer, more often in the winter). They had less garbage in 3 months than I have in a week. Speaking of which - one of my goals has been to reduce my garbage load. It's hard, with all the packaging everything comes in now, even buying school supplies for kids leaves me a grocery bag full of garbage. Our area doesn't recycle those 'clamshell' containers, so it's such a huge waste.

I'm impressed you are able to eat everything. Luckily we have a municipal composting program, because with 4 kids, there is a lot of food waste...even things like melon rinds, banana peels, etc sure fill up the garbage fast. Now I don't worry about it at all. My yard is too small for a composter (especially for the size I'd need), so I'm thankful for our municipal composting program.

Thanks for the reply! So interesting to read about other DUer's experiences.