World markets continue to take dramatic hits and the Dow has fallen below 10,000 for the first time in four years. Seems a lot of banks and other players are unhappy with the trillion dollar bailout package passed last Friday because it limits their personal golden parachutes and stock option scams. Awwww. Should we call the waaaaambulance for these whiners? Nope. If they didn’t need our money they shouldn’t have begged for a handout in the first place. In the meantime, regular people are having a much harder time putting food on the table as prices rise dramatically and more and more find themselves out of work. This post is a beginner’s primer on how to get food if you can’t afford it.

Before I get to the list of good links readers may find helpful depending on their particular situations, readers should know that many states, such as the one where I live (NC) have budgetary caps on how much relief in the form of food stamps they are able to provide. This can mean that even as increasing numbers of people find themselves going hungry, fewer people will have access to the standard governmental relief. Thus more people must turn to other providers. A good overview of those providers supported by the USDA commodity program is provided at Amber Waves. If your family is in danger of ‘food insecurity’ be sure to familiarize yourself with emergency providers in your area. Cities generally have soup kitchens, places where you can go for a hot meal. Most smaller cities and many towns or counties also have food banks, check into what you will need to provide to qualify.

For those with few to no reasonable alternatives, or who may find themselves in a chronic situation (or are just stubbornly self-sufficient), here are some fine hints about foraging. Foraging the nearly lost art of getting your food from places other than the neighborhood supermarket or soup kitchen. Food prices are projected to continue rising and stay high for at least the next three years. Part of this is our newfound dependence on imported foods with huge ‘carbon footprints’ due to transportation and energy-intensive mechanistic agriculture. If you’re trying to keep your family alive and healthy, you honestly don’t need mangos in January or expensive processed foodstuffs at any time.

Of course, as with all matters of saving real money on food, you’ll have to learn (or remember) how to cook for yourself. Eating out and buying pre-prepared meals is the most expensive way to eat, not to mention the most unhealthy. Since health care is a growing desperate concern for everyone, staying healthy should be paramount in all our planning.

From the great DailyKos “Frugal Fridays” series, Foraging: Living Off the Fat of the Land we get several good ideas. Of course living close to water allows foragers with a little skill the luxury of catching crabs, crayfish, regular fish, baby clams, etc., and seaweed can be a fine addition to the pot to lend nutrients and salt (plus ample amounts of iodine). Living inland can offer lots of fine opportunities to forage for edible fungi, berries, tubers and pot herbs as well. it’s puff ball season in my neck of the woods, which are spendid stuffed with chopped acorns, cabbage, herbs and onions, baked in clarified butter in a covered dish. Hickory nuts are falling, and the wild sunflowers are blazing – these are otherwise known as Jerusalem artichokes, and eat like small potatoes.

Of course there’s Cossack Asparagus in marshlands almost everywhere. These are your basic cattails, and all parts of the plants are edible all times of year. The new green shoots are better than bamboo shoots (which also may be found here and there), but I best like the set-cob’s fuzz which can be ground into a very light, fine flour for baking and thickening broths. As things nutritional become rarer, families will likely have to learn how to like basic stew meals that can be made in large pots and eaten over a period of two or three days (refrigerated in between, of course).

If you don’t mind killing and cleaning, there’s a reason they call possom the “other other white meat.” People have traditionally made fine meals of squirrel, turkey, various ground birds, snakes and the standard larger game. Just be sure you’ve got whatever permit is required, both for hunting and fishing, in your area for the game you’re seeking. I’ve known families who could eat meat twice a week (all anybody needs) for an entire winter from a single deer. Best advice is to stay away from carnivores and scavengers (like ravens and buzzards, bears and racoons).

People in the country or with ample back yards could consider a fresh goat for milk and some few chickens (easily kept but noisy if you’ve a rooster) for eggs and occasional Sunday dinner. Check your local paper’s “livestock” want ads, chickens are very cheap and goats aren’t anywhere near as expensive to buy or feed as a cow. Or make friends with a farmer who has livestock. Around here I can get cheap (or for straight barter) milk, honey, free range eggs, grass-fed meat if I ate it, and all the composted fertilizer my garden can handle.

Of course learning how to garden will help a lot. Tomatoes and peppers and salad stuff can easily be grown in pots and flats on the patio or deck, herbs in the kitchen window, and many other things if you’ve the room, a shovel to turn ground and a metal rake to break it up. Know what grows in what seasons in your area – some crops like cabbage, collards, kale, lettuce, spinach, radishes, broccoli, brussles sprouts and cauliflower need cold weather to develop. Kale will keep on growing right through the snow! Others need lots of heat and sun. If you plant extras you can preserve for the future, or barter for trades with those who have foods you didn’t grow. Specializing can be better than trying to grow it all. Barter will become increasingly important as the food shortages and high prices continue.

Many wild flowers and weeds are edible, and some of those are more nutritious than anything you can buy in the store. Violets, dandelions (greens and flowers), day lilies, wood sorrel, purslane, etc. Don’t forget kudzu – its greens are very high in protein and its flowers make lovely jelly or colorful additions to salads.

Out in the woods there are acorns, elderberries, fox grapes, sloe plums, wild cherries, blueberries, hickory nuts, walnuts, ground nuts and other goodies in addition to the edible ferns and fungi. Be sure you know what you’re doing with those fungi – many local extension agencies offer print material and courses to let you know what’s edible and what’s not.

And don’t be shy – if you live in a farming/gardening region, keep track of who’s been harvesting, go ahead and ask permission to glean from those fields. Modern mechanical machinery leaves quite a lot of edible food behind, and farmers usually just plow it under. Many or most farmers in your area may be entirely willing to have you gather what you can of their already harvested crops.

Foraging is a lot like work, but more fun. Since millions will be out of work (and many of those one out of a two-income household), there should be time if you’ve got the energy and desire. Do check out some of the links in this article and below, get yourself psyched about the possibilities right now. In really hard times all we really have to do is survive, and learning to do for ourselves instead of waiting for a handout that may never come is very empowering. Kids love this stuff, so be sure to include them on your weekend foraging trips!

Links:

Emergency Providers Help Put Food On the Table
Foraging: Living Off the Fat of the Land
BHM: You can become a hardcore forager
Wild Food Foragers of America
Edible Wild Things: “Cossack Asparagus”
Wild Herbs/Foods Archive
Staples Archive
Harvesting Wild: The Mast Crop
Modern Forager

Posts to This Series:

Part 1: Roadblocks and Interference
Part 2: Food: Eating What You Can Get

A good friend read my post It’s Better than Cheap… It’s Free! and mentioned Craigslist as another very useful resource for the sale and exchange of items, along the lines of the Freecycle Network. I had never made use of Craigslist and wasn’t very familiar with how it works, so in this post let’s look at what it actually has to offer those of us trying to live well on limited budgets.

Craigslist is a lot broader in scope than the Freecycle Network, which maintains local sites devoted exclusively to the exchange of ‘stuff’ for free – you advertise what you have to give away or want someone to give to you, and responses are routed through the administrators (sans personal information) to facilitate the exchange. In contrast, Craigslist advertises community news, businesses and services, housing, personals, for sale items and job openings (or wanteds), just like your local newspaper’s want ads – but much, much moreso!

There are local lists serving most cities and a lot of countries, just like for Freecycle Network. If your needs are fairly general, Craigslist might be more useful for some things than simple freecycling, given that it also has a section that basically IS freecycling. The list also offers a section for bartering, where you can exchange something you have or can do for something you want or need. Bartering is part of the notorious “underground economy” the IRS is constantly frustrated in trying to tax, but let’s face it – the government would be better advised to try and get its money from people who actually have money, rather than from people who have little to none.

Craigslist was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark in the San Francisco Bay area. He incorporated in 1999, and now operates with a staff of 24 people. It does charge fees to place ads unless the exchange involves no money. In 2004 eBay purchased a 25% stake in the company, but so far that hasn’t changed its nature. The company projects an annual revenue for 2007 in the $150 million range – this is not a non-profit enterprise.

It hasn’t been without its controversies, either. in 2006 Craigs List was sued by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for allegedly allowing users to post discriminatory housing ads in Chicago that violate the Fair Housing Act. That suit was dismissed as more stringent rules were applied. The list also got in a bit of trouble in 2006 for publishing email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, photos, etc. in its ‘personals’ sections, something the Freecycle Network guards studiously against with its admin firewall on direct communications. In September of 2007 a woman pled guilty to running an underage prostitution ring through the list, and in October a young woman was found murdered after replying to a list ad for a babysitting job. These are the very type of things responsible social site managers should take real precautions against, no matter how much money they’re making.

Craigslist has been criticized for being a lot like Wal-Mart in local communities, where it challenges local small businesses like the retail giant does. Yet for those of us who honestly cannot afford to spend money we don’t have on some overpriced item from Mom&Pop – or who just refuse to do it – who’s complaining?

But as long as you’re careful – and that advice is good no matter what resources you’re using to help stretch your budget – Craigslist does look to be a useful resource for exchange, barter, selling used items (when you don’t want to give them away), finding ‘gigs’, part or full time jobs, and the community forums might put you in touch with people who share your interests. It can be a good way to advertise a home business or art/craft items you make and wish to sell, and it does offer free ads for free items/services and local volunteer efforts of all varieties.

If you’re interested in checking out Craigslist generally or locally, the links below will get you started. Any reports from readers about their experiences with the list will be helpful too, so don’t hesitate to comment!

Links:

Craigslist Sites

Craig’s list Overview

Great tips about using Craigslist

How to stay away from Craigslist Scams and frauds

Wikipedia: Craigslist

Some people get into the economics of living on less because they don’t have much of a choice. Others get into alternatives because they believe our living-beyond-our-means lifestyles are harmful both to ourselves and to the environment. Either way, it’s good to know that there are alternatives, and plenty of room for people to invent their own levels of participation.

The ‘Money Economy’ is the one most people live in here in the modern world. It causes us to trade our lives – our time, our talents, our energy – for a certain valuation calculated in cash, and in that economy different people have different value placed on their lives. Women are still worth less than men, even in the same jobs with the same responsibilities. Women also tend to have to work more hours than men do, despite also being saddled with most of the housekeeping, child-rearing and food preparation jobs.

Minority workers are also valued poorly, as are teen workers and entry-level jobs in all sectors are notorious for paying less than it takes to live, eat, and repay student loans for that semi-worthless college degree.

Many people living on little in cities have figured out that getting a part-time second or third job waiting tables in a restaurant or tending bar offers a system work-around providing daily cash income (useful for daily cash expenditures) as well as a way to avoid tax “bracket creep” that hits so many these days when April comes around and they find the raise they got last year not only didn’t pay for the increase in health care insurance, but also got eaten up entirely by new income taxes. Very frustrating.

Many others who live in smaller towns or in rural environments by choice have learned to master some ways of working whole new ‘systems’ of trade for goods and services, effectively dropping out of the ‘Money Economy’ almost completely.

I’ve talked a little about Thrifting for clothing, household goods, materials for ‘making your own’ gifts and crafts for sale or trade. Also discussed was using the renovation and recycling industry for durable consumer goods and major appliances, which avoids hefty credit charges and the most frustrating aspect of such purchases – the fact that about half of them will break down or wear out before you’ve paid for them.

Words of advice for living on less include:

Localize:
Buy locally whenever you can. Your friends and neighbors offer many of the food items, recycled appliances and furniture, etc. that your family may need. You’ll get to know them, they’ll get to know you, and you’ll find that often your neighbors are more than willing to engage in barter with you for what you have to offer. Even better, as your circle grows you’ll find that much of value comes around free, when they’d just as soon give you the item than have to haul it somewhere to sell for a few bucks.

Reduce & Reuse:
Reduce the sheer amount of junk you accumulate, and think up ways to reuse things when they do become junk – these can be valuable barter items for you. An old treadle sewing machine cabinet can be refinished into an very nice homework desk, houseplant stand, or even cabinet for a brand new (portable) sewing machine. Salvage the good wood from old furniture and cabinets, to recycle into new shelving. And whatever you do, don’t forget that aluminum cans, old copper wiring and tubing, old metal roofing, etc. brings cash (and gets out of your way) if you simply take it to a scrap metal yard to sell.

Make Stuff:
Whatever you can make for yourself is something you don’t have to buy. Of course this is important for meals, putting up garden harvests, clothes (learn how to sew!), etc. It also works for art and craft projects, that can either be sold or bartered. These can be as simple as painting rocks as animals or flowers (great garden accents), producing clocks with sports team motifs, pressing and decoupaging herb and wildflowers for wall hangings, etc. Someone out there will want what you make, and be happy to trade for it.

Stay out of Debt:
This is a hard one, but by keeping your eyes open and spending a little time tracking things down, it’s really not that hard to avoid debt for most things. Housing and utilities are always a chunk out of an income, whether you work outside the home or not, whether you rent or own. Avoid cable television (what good is it?), first-run movies, eating out, and the desire to wander aimlessly around the electronics store at the mall building up desire for huge flat-screen televisions, monster stereo systems and other such expensive consumer ‘stuff’. If you’ve lived this long without it, you probably don’t need it. Keep reminding yourself of that.

Check out your local and regional weekend flea markets, second hand stores, and farmers’ markets. Attend some of your area’s local artisan festivals, get to know folks and what they do. If you drive an older vehicle, find out who the area’s most reliable shade-tree mechanic is, and show him some respect. You’ll need him on a semi-regular basis, it’s always good to be on his friend-list.

When you trade the ‘Money Economy’ for your own freedom, you’ll have a lot more time to do with as YOU please. Just bear in mind that you’ll still have to use a big chunk of that time – and as many of your talents as you can put to work – obtaining the things you need to live. It can be an immensely rewarding and enriching experience even if you only end up spending a few years of your life learning how “the other half” lives.

Links:

Voluntary simplicity versus poverty

Penny Pincher’s Almanac