Times are tough. You have no income at the time. You have lost some critical utilities and are having to cut back on certain items. It’s also the weekend, you’ve had a rough week and want to do something fun with your family or your friends.
***IMPORTANT NOTE FOR SUNDAY’S CHALLENGE: We want you to get the full effect of Sunday’s challenge so make sure to check your email Saturday night after 8 pm MST***
For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
Your water got shut off because you couldn’t pay your bill last month (remember toilets use 1 1/2-3 gallons of your stored water PER FLUSH)
You no longer have cable, internet (except for the challenge), or cell phones due to lack of money
You ran out of bread, need some, and can’t afford store bought -YES today is the day you have to actually try making bread
You can’t participate in activities that are paid for
Do a fun activity with your family, or with your friends that costs no money outside of the home)
ADVANCED “FOLKS” (for anyone who feels up to it)
You can’t afford gas for your car, and you’re on empty
Your power gets shut off too!
REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S LIMITATIONS AND TASKS WILL BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. How long would you have lasted under these conditions?
Facebook Notes:
This has been an emotionally draining on me. I didnt think it would take a toll this way, but it could just be because I am already emotional because of my hormones. Here is how we have worked out our day. We woke and checked the site. We turned off all the water in the house (except for our new students bathroom because we cant just throw this on them and they are gone for most of the day anyway), and are solely relying on our water storage. We had LOTS of dishes left over from last nights big dinner (and we even got part of them done, but with so many people here, and new students, we werent able to get them all completed). We opened up one barrel and started to get water out of it. We are keeping watering cans in the bathrooms and by sinks full so we can wash our hands. We have a tracker in the bathroom and after every 5 people using the bathroom, we will go in and fill the tank, and flush, and start over. We brought water up to put in the fridge for cold water as well. We filled a pot with water and boiled it to do dishes with... one sink with soapy water, and one with rinsing water.
We turned off our cell phones, and I started making bread for tonights dinner. I already made bread a few days ago, however, we had something planned for tonight that wouldnt cost any money that we are doing outside of the home. We are having a block party! haha Someone else is providing the grill, and we were going to take steak for just our family, but decided on hot dogs instead because if we were in a tight situation, we wouldnt use steak (it might already be gone anyway), and we have a surplus of hot dogs in the freezer. So, the bread I am making is hot dog buns!
It has been a busy day too, because we have been making lists in order to get more organized here in the house, and working on some of those things as well, letting the kids play with friends, and taking a nap. ;)
As far as cable, we dont have that anyway, and havent had it for 6 years... hubby lost his job, and we had to cut things out, and that was one of them. I never went back to it, because honestly, as much as I would love to watch The Food Network, or let my kids watch The Disney Channel, we got along without them, and I didnt want the temptation back.
I will let you know how the rest of the day goes. :)
Ok, so we ended up doing a sponge bath... not as bad as I thought, and I feel clean! That is a plus, however, we didnt have our cell phones on, and we forgot to pick our students up tonight, and no one could get a hold of us!!!!!!! OOOOPS!
The hot dog buns were fantastic, and I think that the recipe would be great for bread too, however, it was white bread... so, I need to mess with it to make wheat hot dog buns with it! ;)
We used the water from our reserves to flush, but I like the idea that someone mentioned about storing water in milk containers somewhere to use for flushing. GREAT idea since I dont know where I would store another water barrel... I am looking into solar ovens and generators... I know I need those, but have been worried about the cost... I think the benefit might outweigh the cost after the last couple of days.
As a Side Note:
Make sure you have water stored in barrels. You want to make sure that it isnt in a place where it can freeze, and also if you are storing on cement, make sure you have 2x4's of wood underneath them as a barrier. Over time, the chemicals in the cement can get into the water supply, and you dont want that.
Having a portable camping toilet with a storage of plastic bags, baby wipes, Lysol, and TP are nice to have. But, this is where the flushing toilets with the stored water in the old milk conatiners can come in too. Kinda gross to talk about, but if you are using this way, once you have wiped, DO NOT PUT THE USED TP INTO THE TOILET!!! Throw it away in the garbage. Same with tampons. Those will only make it harder for the toilet to flush, and believe me, the stench will become repulsing that comes from the toilet if you do. I would just make sure you have a good sealing garbage can to use for this reason. ;) We also just decided that there were going to be potty times. EVERYONE went potty at the same time (well, one after the other) so that we only had to flush once, saving us on the water used to flush. Believe me, it wasnt the prettiest thing, BUT it truly helped. You need to know the technique of flushing with a bucket. You have to poor the water in all at once and quickly or it just drains, doesn't flush, an alternative is to pour it into the tank, then flush normally with the handle.
We also filled up a watering can to use to wash our hands. One person slowly poured the water over our hands to help us wash... only to initially get our hands wet, and then a little more to help get the suds going, and then to rinse off the soap after we sang the ABC's all the way through. That helped save on the water as well.
Library has free internet, and you can rent books, movies, and music from there. (And they have a bathroom you can use for FREE! haha)
Kerosene lamps would be amazing, however with little ones a little scary. I decided that I would hook in the screws that go into ceilings for plants and use them to hold the lamps. It may not be pretty, but if it came down to it, it isnt a bad idea.
Farmer's Markets can be relatively inexpensive. So, check out your local one for fresh produce.
You can bake anything on a gas grill! (Even bread!!!)
Something to check out is Solar Oven Bakers. They are so interesting, but most require a bit more work to get it to cook properly, not to mention that it is even harder on cloudy and stormy days.
A Generator would be quite nice too! haha
Games are always a fun thing to do when there is no electricity. ;)
Red Wheat and White Wheat are VERY different. Red Wheat does NOT make good bread!
Learning how to limit TV use has come in handy for us. That was an easy thing for us.
I need to learn to read more books, because that might be all I can do. hahaha
If you need to have some water for flushing your toilet and there is rain, hail, or snow, put out several buckets to catch the water as it falls. You could put it under a rain gutter drain, or just in the middle of an open area. You could also get snow and melt it over heat to create more water if needed.
When storing water, dont forget about your pets either! They need to drink too.
Another great way to cut back on using water, instead of washing dishes, use paper plates!!
Check out this PDF on Emergency Breads! I printed off a copy! ;)
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