Needs and wants and being frugal

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Very often wants are mistaken for needs and on other levels a want culture is being and has already been created where even the smallest child screams that he wants that because he needs it.

Parents must start here by putting a stop to such demands but instead of doing that they just give in to each and every demand of the child believing that the child would be disadvantaged if he does not get what he wants. By allowing this to happen they are responsible, and this has been going on for some decades already, of creating, and having created, the entitlement culture that we have today.

Also to blame are, obviously, but to some extent only for the power lies elsewhere, the advertisers whose commercials create in the viewer, child and adult alike, depending who it is target towards, the belief that they need this things shown to be happy or more fulfilled, or whatever. That it costs them dearly more than likely on more than one level the person in whom this desire is aroused rarely recognizes.

The true difference between needs and wants are that needs are, to an extent, but a few, wants, on the other hand, can be and are legion.

The child wants this or that, be it a toy, or whatever, the parent gives in and gets it for him and then, how long does the interest in whatever it was last? If it is a bicycle then, maybe, almost for ever, but when it comes to toys and such, often no more than a couple of days after which he gets “bored” with it and demands yet another one.

Oh, I was a child myself (obviously) and, although the “I want” better was not something that was said in a demanding voice or reinforced with a tantrum, and “I want” actually was better not said at all; more a “I'd like that?” or “Can I have one of those?” and it might happen. Though most of the time it didn't and I would be told to go and do some jobs and earn the money to get it. We didn't have much in the way of money coming in when I was a kid and I learned to appreciate the value of things.

I did just that in the case of roller-skates. Every kid on the block, almost, had a pair and I just needed to have a pair too. Oh yes, I needed a pair though a need it definitely was not but. Found some jobs to do for people against payment and I managed to get the money together and bought a pair. That was a bad move. Why? Because I just could not get on with them at all and after a few tries gave up, put them away, and they were never even looked at again. That also taught me a great lesson.

Over time I learned that what I really needed was different to that what I wanted and soon learned that the fancy stuff that everyone wanted to have I actually did not need – and also could not afford to have and want. That does not mean that over time I have not bought some (more) white elephants. Some of my kitchen gadgets speak for it, such as the deep fat fryer (used probably four or five times), the juicer (oh what a rigmarole cleaning it), and one or two others.

But there were those toys that I made for myself like my catapult, or that wooden tractor that an “uncle” had made for me and that got repaired so many times. How I loved that tractor and to this day I wish I had kept, just for the sake of it. Those really got used. Same as tin can stilt, wooden stilts, and so on. Well, and not to speak of the bicycle that I was given. It may have been a secondhand one but to me it might as well have been the most expensive one in the world. Those things I used day in and day out.

The catapult (slingshot) for instance was with me every day and I practiced with it every spare minute and hunted with it for the pot. We also made our own toys out of bits of wood, things from the forest and things found in the trash and we played more with those things than we ever did with store-bought toys. And I think we also looked after the things we made for ourselves or which someone had made for us much better than after those gotten from a store – with the few exception of expensive things that we bought ourselves from hard-earned money.

The same goes for fashion, aka clothing, whether the Nike (or whatever brand may be in fashion at the very moment) baseball cap. The gimme-hat from the country show, that often are given out for free, are just as good only that you are advertising a brand of tractor or something of that nature. OK, it might not have the right “street cred” but so what. It meets your need for a hat and that's what counts.

Saving money is the main part of being frugal and if you can’t make something yourself then look at getting it second-hand/used and this is the same with clothes as with other things such as a bicycle or whatever.

When I was a kid we all wore hand-me-downs that came from other peoples’ children and also many of our toys came that way too if we did not make them ourselves or got them made for us. There is absolutely nothing wrong with good second-hand clothes or other goods.

While clothes from the charity shop may not be the latest fashion they more often than not are good quality and that at a small fraction of the cost. With the exception of certain clothes, such as socks and undergarments, all my stuff comes from charity shops and my wardrobe is well stocked; overstocked in fact.

I take the greatest pleasure on the frugality front though in making things I need and want from things that otherwise might be thrown away or which have been thrown away and I do take that, probably, to the extreme. But so be it, as far as I am concerned.

Anything and everything that can be reused, reworked and upcycled is on that list. Reuse here applies to reusing an item of waste that can be used for this or that purpose, which would be more repurposing than reuse, as much as something that someone has thrown away and which still works well, such as in the case of a multi-tool that came into my possession in that way.

Reworking and upcycling is a somewhat different kettle of fish to reuse and it all depends of what comes my way here, be that items of waste at home or stuff found, but I look at everything with an eye for doing just that and see what I can make from it and out of it for my own use or even, hopefully, for sale.

So much of what the general population sees as “waste” is transformable into something useful or into art. Personally I prefer the useful side rather than that of artworks but, if all else fails, then artworks are still better than landfill, especially if it is something decorative that one might actually want to have in the home or office.

© 2017

#GreenLiving #greenlivingtips #needs #wants #frugality #makingdo #children #lifelessons

Burlap sacks are to fabric as what pallets are to wood

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Burlap sacks, also called Hessian sacks, are to fabric as what pallets are to wood. Projects abound to the creative mind. Homesteaders are filled with creative ways to recycle things and our ancestors, whether on the homestead or even town know how to make use of all of those kind of resources, including tin cans, wire, glass jars, etc.

Small rucksack made from burlap sack and some waste rope

The Internet abounds with ideas of how to reuse, recycle and upcycle pallet wood and there are also instructions to be found on the use and reuse and the recycling and upcycling of burlap (Hessian) sacks. In addition to that books with the old skills of the homesteaders and the Australian Bushmen also have ideas and instructions for reworking such material in them.

The first mountaineer rucksacks of the Alps were nothing but sacks, more often than not potato sacks, that were “fitted” with some rope for straps. Both ends are tied to the bottom corner of the sack and the too pf the sack is closed by forming a “cow hitch” with the rope, which is them put over the top of the sack gathered together and pulled tight and – voila – one old-timer rucksack. Even during World War Two many Soviet soldiers used rucksacks like this, simply made from a sack and rope. (see picture)

Floor covering and throw rugs were made from burlap sacks on the homestead, as were even bed coverings and burlap and other sacking in those old days was even used to make clothes.

Flour came in nice material which, in fact was canvas rather than burlap, and many a child had bib overalls or dresses that Mom made from flour sacks.

Of course now flour comes in a paper sack, and that even from the mill to the baker, and farm feed comes in plastic lined paper sacks, if it does not come in plastic sacks altogether. That's progress for you.

Where, in those days of old, which are not all that long past since, most packaging, bar glass containers, was made from natural materials, and much came in sacks, from flour, over potatoes, to nuts, pulses and rice, and much else besides, today this is all being packaged, in the main, in man-made materials, predominately plastic bags, the latter which may not actually be all that good for us either.

As said, I do not think that we have progressed much at all. In fact it would appear that we have gone mad.

© 2014

Independence comes through making things

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Independence, true independence, comes about through making things, growing things and doing things for ourselves (and our community).

This is more than simple self-reliance and self-sufficiency. It is total self-empowerment and brings about independence.

The Mahatma said something along those self-same lines when he was leading his beloved India to home rule.

However, modern India has lost the course and is now making goods – as slaves almost – for the West rather than the way it should be, for its own people and is, once again, importing some consumer goods from elsewhere. But I digressed.

None of us are truly free and independent, as individuals and as people, if we do not have the chances and possibilities to make things, to grow things and to do things for ourselves (our community). We are but wage slaves and slaves to the system and to governments which lord it over us.

Often those that lord it over us are not even our own governments but unelected entities in foreign lands, as in the case of the European Union, the rising fascist European superstate, where unelected bureaucrats, who are accountable to no one, decide what we may or may not do, what crops we may or may not plant, etc.

Not that the USA and its people are any better off than those in Britain or elsewhere in the European Union when it comes to government meddling in what people are permitted to do for themselves.

The people can never be free and independent unless they can produce and grow what they want and to do things for themselves and able to, thus, participate in the market and run their own lives. Production must be local and primarily for the local community first and foremost and carried out by local people.

Even, or especially, in the majority the so-called free and democratic countries, and especially in Britain and the EU and in the USA, countries that claim to be the bulwark of freedom and democracy, people are not permitted to be free and independent as they need to be and should be.

While you may be able to make and produce a variety of things when it comes to selling craftspeople, etc., find restrictions and the need for government permits and licenses (and they cost money) and this even more so for smallholders and other growers. In addition to the the latter, now, since EU regulations put in place in late Spring 2013, can also no longer grow, and that even applies to home growers who only grow produce for home consumption, what they want and must use ONLY EU approved seeds and plant materials. Old varieties are are illegal to use and possess and the saving of seeds and the exchange between friends even also falls foul of those regulations. Tell me again how free we are!?!

this means that, to all intents and purposes, government controls what we may do, make and produce, grow and sell and even eat, and as regards to doing things for ourselves.

It is basically, in most EU countries at least, illegal to even consider using force to protect yourself, your family and your property and especially if you consider using any kind of weapon for this purpose. If you, for instance, are threatened by an assailant with a knife and you beat him with a stick (which you may have carried for defensive purposes) it will be you who ends up in court charged with a crime and not the punk you attacked you.

But, relying, as you are told to do, on the police to come to your aid – after he knifed you – is also not going to work as it is no longer officially, though the people were not told, the task of the police to protect (and serve) the public but to enforce the laws laid down (by the powers-that-be). Sorry, but would you ming mentioning again how free we are?

We need to change the system, not the government (in fact, the latter needs to be abolished) if we ever, as people, want to be free and independent and not slaves.

© 2013