Selfsufficientish.com

my cat is 16 and can't find the food on her plate most of the time, but I have definitely used that one in the past LOL!

Thanks for the advice.

Thanks Green Aura - I hadn't thought about reducing it; what a fab idea!

My next question was how long can I keep fresh chicken stock and fat in the fridge.
Now I know I can freeze reduced stock too, there shouldn't be any food waste, which is great!

Gosh, those energy monitors look like a lot of money. I'm sure mine was about ten pounds.......... Still waiting for the batteries, but I'm really looking forward to setting it up - sad eh?! Alan, I shall have a shop around again to make sure I am getting the best deal and take the daily standing ch...

Oh wow - there are some fantastic ideas here; my thinking (and hopefully my cooking) has been revolutionised - thank you all so much.
I will do a few experiments this week and see how I get on.

Feeling all self sufficient............

GOod to know Mike; thanks. I might as well get on and use it up then - I was thinking we could save it a couple more years, but I'd rather have the space!

We've had the cat on fire twice infront of the woodburner too - funny how they just lie their oblivious to what is going on and then get huffy with you when you wake them to put them out ! I'm so annoyed. Last weekend we ended up with two spark holes in our sofa due to chestnut wood spitting. I'm gu...

It's ok to laugh at this one :D I've just gone all Margueritte Patten on myself and made some chicken stock from the leftover carcass. I also poured off the chicken fat after cooking the bird and have about 1/4-1/2 pint of chicken juices in a jug. So now I have the fat and the stock I don't know wha...

Thank you AnnPan and Ellie, When I've got some readings from the gadgety thing I'll post them up. I've just checked my account this morning and I'm paying 9.58p per unit plus 12.74p per day standing charge. I went upstairs last night (we were all downstairs) and found 4 lights on :angryfire: this mo...

Hi ellie, I've just bought some new batteries for one of the gadgets you're talking about. I bought mine from Lidls years ago and I'm going to set it up and use it. My laptop cost next to nothing when I tried it last, but I'm going to take some weekly readings on all sorts of appliances and really t...

Will she eat garlic? If so, add this to her cooked meals. In addition, a spoonful of very non-frugal manuka honey per day can work wonders. Other herbs to help her immune system are thyme, sage and oregano - use them liberally in meals. herbal teas are a good way to help her too - get something like...

I'd love to join in please - in fact I've *just* held a family conference because our electricity is scarily high. We don't have gas and there are three of us at home all day long, so our usage is expected to be higher than those out at school / work. Still, I think it is far too high and I'm really...

We tried the fabric conditioner this week (our water is really hard) and I couldn't stand the smell of it. In fact I had to rewash everything with vinegar afterwards and it STILL smells

Very disappointed that most things seem to come with such powerful fragrances........

that was really interesting, Tony. yes, we're in the UK and it's a postcode lottery over here that determines how good the recycling facilities are. It seems you have the toothpaste thing down to a fine zero waste art! The idea of the plastic bag tax has been really successful; I think it would be g...

Hey Tony! You may well be a weirdo, but I'm certain you have a lot to teach people about a more gentle lifestyle. I think it's wonderful that you haven't sent anything to landfill - what an inspiration you are. Our only challenge now is non recyclable plastic packaging. That is all down to a minimum...

Hi all, We're running a competition on our website next week (it's a family run, non profit website, so I hope it's ok to mention it here). We have 22 prizes up for grabs - all recycled or ones that will help you reduce / recycle more. All you have to do is sign up to pledge to reduce your waste htt...