Thursday, February 26, 2009 by Hodding.

Today I was planning to wax homeric about a winter treat found only here in coastal Maine, but first I must celebrate our current whiteout. Throughout Sunday and the following night, a heavy, sticky snow smothered most of our state, leaving many without power, including us. All good Mainers—whether “real” ones, meaning your family has been here for three generations or more and you have at least one broken car, riding lawn-mower, and boat in your yard year-round, or those of us “from away,” meaning thin-blooded interlopers who will never fit in no matter how well they say “ay-yuh” and how many of the aforementioned yard accoutrements they might possess—have a generator and a wood stove for such situations. And although we’ve now been without power-company electricity for 36 hours, this is still only a situation, not an emergency. The reason I like our situation, which includes melting snow to flush toilets, stumbling over an octopus of extension cords originating from the basement generator, as well as hours of backbreaking shoveling, is because we’re spending less than we normally do.

“Huh?” you might wonder.

Well, even after unplugging the dryer, becoming hyper-vigilant about turning off lights, wrapping the hot-water tank with a fiberglass blanket and disconnecting unused appliances, we’ve been spending $6 to $8 a day on electricity and slightly more per day on heating oil, all because we live in a “splanch” style home, designed (and I use that term loosely) for the South. Our basic utilities run a grand total of roughly $18 per day. However, during our current situation I can’t turn on the oil furnace for a couple of hours to supplement the wood-stove heat and, of course, we’re not using any electricity from the power company. As a result of Mother Nature’s whimsy, we’re saving roughly $8 every 24 hours. (It’s not the entire $18 because running the gas-powered generator costs about $10 a day.)

Speaking of the good Mother—and returning to my original topic—she provides one wondrous gift beyond money-saving opportunities during the dead of winter: Pandalus borealis, or the less-magnificent-sounding Maine shrimp. For those of you not in the know, these cold-water crustaceans are a firm, tasty treat that migrate inshore every winter to spawn and get caught by local fishermen.

While most of the shrimp make their way to Maine supermarkets, well-connected fishmongers around the country, and the larders of sushi chefs everywhere to be served up as ama ebi (sweet shrimp), the rest find themselves alongside Maine’s highways and byways, selling for as little as $1 a pound—the current rate out of our saleslady’s hatchback. They’re about half shell, half meat, and after spending an hour peeling three to four pounds, you end up with some delicious, inexpensive protein. While I generally prefer shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, Pandalus borealis excel as popcorn shrimp and in ceviche. Because we couldn’t fly off somewhere warm this past week for winter break, we decided to bring the Caribbean to us. We cranked up the heat on the wood stove. Squeezed half a dozen limes from our grocery’s reduced-price produce rack. Tossed the shrimp with some chopped cilantro, garlic, and onions and shook our hips to a little La Bamba. A few hours later, noshing on marinated shrimp from a large bowl, admittedly we had not transported ourselves back to a 2007 Thanksgiving vacation on the remote island of Holbox, off the Yucatán Peninsula, but almost. We did, however, eat something delicious while getting a heavy dose of vitamin D. Shrimp are bloated with this bone-building substance, providing 129 IUs (International Units) per ounce, out of a suggested daily 200. The earth may turn her back on the sun, robbing us of this vital nutrient during the winter months, but she then delivers it via the alternative form of Pandalus borealis.

It’s all just one big Give-and-Take. No power, more money. Bye-bye sun, hello shrimp. Arriba, arriba!

Cords of free wood burned this winter: 4 1/2

Gallons of heating oil used this winter: 260

Gallons of heating oil used last year: 1800

Total eggs provided by 19* 20-week-old hens: 10

Cost of said eggs (thus far): $227**

*There were originally 27 chicks. Two were smothered by their mates. Two are roosters. And we just sold 4 for $20 to some friends whose hens stopped laying.

**The chicks originally cost $48. We’ve shelled out $108 on feed, $34 on a waterer, $17 on hay and wood shavings, and about $20 on electricity for the heat lamp we had in the hen house until it burned out—for a grand total of $227 laid out by us. Since selling 4 hens for $20, we’re starting to peck away at the total and are now only out $207. They’ll all be laying within a few weeks and will have paid for themselves (by the kids selling the eggs) come summer. The best-laid plans….

Photograph by Lisa Lattes

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Thursday, February 19, 2009 by Hodding.

I feel a consensus among a certain set out there that this series should not have been called “Extreme Frugality.” Some comments here and on other sites have made it clear that what my family is doing is not “extreme.” And they’re right—sort of. Our attempts are insignificant when compared to the efforts of a friend who lives far from society and buys nothing at all except the occasional citrus fruit or haunch of protein. And the things we’ve taken to—heating (mostly) with our own or bartered wood, shopping at a liquidation grocery, only eating in, drying clothes on the line instead of in the dryer, attempting to produce our own food, etc.—are nothing more than adopting traditional ways. Yet juxtaposed against our former selves—as well as typical American behavior over the past 15 years or so—we’re talking about a fairly extreme shift. But even that isn’t the full picture. Extreme frugality is what we all make of it: my family; you, the reader; and those with whom we come in contact. It’s a goal, a thought, a mantra to be repeated and tossed back and forth so we can figure out the best way to live.

For decades, we’ve been encouraged to spend our way to happiness, and look where it’s gotten us. Actually, look back at those free-spending days and ask yourself if you were any happier then than you are right now. I realize I wasn’t any happier then, although I admit I did enjoy one or two of the top-shelf delicacies that I can no longer afford. It’s clearly time for extreme changes for all of us. To sit around and pick apart what is frugal and who is extreme enough has its place, but that’s a distraction.

The point is to move forward and create an entirely new existence—not just for me, or for you, but for our entire country. What kind of economy is dependent on its citizens spending more and more? That is certainly not who we used to be or how we measured ourselves. It’s laughable to imagine FDR exhorting people simply to go out and spend to save the country. If that’s the only thing that will work, then maybe it’s best if we don’t “recover,” “regroup,” or “rebound.”

Instead of doing anything that begins with “re,” maybe it’s time to implement some “a” words, like “afresh.” I’m not jump-starting my personal spending. I don’t want to inject it with a stimulus package. I would rather make an about face. Start from something solid and then grow (up) from there. In my world, this means heading outside right now to clean up all the chicken guano from the laying boxes because, even though it’s not yet spring, when life begins anew, we just got our first egg.

Favorite new coffee: Maxwell House Dark Roast in the 2-lb tub: $6.99

Date last new razor purchased: 12/1/08

Most recent bottle-return earnings: $14.50

Carter family eggs eaten: 1

Photograph by Lisa Lattes

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Thursday, February 12, 2009 by Hodding.

Dad, what’s wrong? What are you doing?!” my daughter Anabel screamed as I flew out the door of the dusty mini-van. I’d slammed on the brakes so hard that my six-year-old son, Angus, had bonked his head on the seat in front of him. But you can’t control the timing of these things. “Shush. Shush,” I stage-whispered. A brown-and-white-speckled ruffed grouse had darted under an Austrian pine just a few feet ahead. I’d always thought a ruffed-grouse meal would come at the pinnacle of my life rather than the nadir of my financial existence, but no matter. Wild game is wild game, and this was the kind of price I can afford. Free! I grabbed the nearest rock and hurled it. Fawoomp! Although it landed just inches from our winged dinner, the bird barely deigned to respond. Seconds passed before it casually glanced my way with just a quick flick of the neck. I grabbed a hefty stick and flung it with all my might. It was going to be a direct hit (I swear!), but at the last second, the creature took to the air, flying 100 feet to safety in a stand of piney woods.

Over the following weeks, this scenario repeated itself quite a few more times, and my thirst for feathered game grew stronger and stronger with every near miss. Each time there was a different child in the car with me, and each time they assumed I had gone raving mad. At first, the gorgeously speckled female was accompanied by her browner mate, who was harder to spot in the winter-darkened fallen leaves, but the last time I missed hitting her, with a clump of handy concrete from an old foundation, she was alone.

And then, nothing. Weeks went by without a single sighting. It was as if I’d conjured the whole thing. Or perhaps she had been eaten by the old red fox that patrols the houses in our area.

Finally, a few days before the season’s first snowstorm, I was out by our pine-sided 12- by 8-foot chicken house, scooping up chicken feed, when I heard some rustling in the leaves behind me. Startled, I whirled around as fast as I could, but instead of some man-eating monster, there was my grouse. I seized a nearby paddle (what was it doing by the chicken house in the middle of the winter?) and cocked my arm to take a full swing when suddenly she hopped a few inches toward me. Stunned, I didn’t move. Then she hopped even closer. Mesmerized, I gently set down the paddle and held out my hand. She came within two feet of me and did what I can only imagine was a dance of love. She hopped up and down, softly fluttering her wings, again and again. I reached out to let her smell and see her chosen one, and she pecked at my hand.

We’ve been buddies ever since.

And while I never got that grouse dinner, we did dine on a free-range chicken just two days ago. A friend of mine named Adam Scott couldn’t get up the nerve to eviscerate and prepare one of his chickens, which had apparently committed suicide by banging her head into a plastic crate. I arrived home to find his dead chicken hanging by its feet next to the front door. Having recently (thanks to Lisa) become enchanted with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his earthy cookbooks, I did the necessary dirty work. Inspired by a recipe found in The River Cottage Cookbook, I cut up the bird; smeared it with chopped garlic, olives, and anchovies; covered it with potatoes; bathed it in chicken stock; and baked it in the oven. Lisa and the kids, having watched the bird hang by the front door for a day while I procrastinated, were a bit hesitant to dig in, but the potatoes won them over and they all ate at least a little bit of the free free-range chicken.

Successes To Date:

It’s been 52 days and we haven’t eaten out or bought a single loaf of bread. And, we haven’t paid for any heating oil or firewood—in Maine!—although Lisa did barter some legal work for wood for our stove.

Failures To Date:

We spent $400 on birthday parties for Anabel, Eliza, and Angus, but now we’re in the clear. No more birthdays until August, and we’re only doing homemade presents to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day.

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Thursday, February 5, 2009 by Hodding.

A few months back, just before Iceland alerted the world to our global economic woes, I took a hard look at my Social Security Statement—that unflinching “newsletter” stating not only your expected Social Security pay-out but also your yearly income since that very first tax return. In the past, I’d always loved S.S.S.D. (Social Security Statement Day) because I would immediately glance back to 1996, my earning heyday where I raked in a massive $76,000, and let myself believe I was making that much every year. Well, for some uncontrollable reason, this time I happened to look at my income for the ten or so years since then, and I immediately spit out my $3.75 Odwalla Mango Mama. And not because it had suddenly turned sour. I ran to the study, knocking one of my four kids out of the way en route, and ripped open my wife Lisa’s statement. “Oh, my God!” I screamed. “She’s right!”

For years, Lisa had been telling me we were living beyond our means. “Please, please, Hodding, don’t buy that hand-carved black walnut countertop!” she’d implore. In fact, once she even kicked me out of the house for nine months in hopes that I’d wake up. But like that alcoholic who downs yet another Two-Buck-Chuck, I wasn’t ready. I knew that my next book was going to be an international bestseller and I felt entitled to live as did my father (although he was 25 years older than I) and all those successful, happy people in ads and on TV. Here I was, though, finally seeing the raw truth. Our average combined income—drum roll, please—for the past decade had been … $41,000. Thanks to those heady days of refinancing, deft shuffling of credit-card debt, deceased grandparents, and a lucrative house sale, however, we had lived, year after year, as if we were making $120,000. Like 70 percent of our fellow Americans, we were living off our VISA cards with no means of paying them off any time soon. As a result, we had $75,000 in credit-card debt and owed $245,000 on a $289,000 house. What had I been thinking?

Never mind. I’ll sort out the “why” on my therapist’s couch. Right now, it’s time to do the unthinkable. It’s time for us to be more like our grandparents and less like our neighbors. (Ninety percent of us buy something we don’t need every month, and Americans in all walks of life—except the very rich—carry $961 billion of credit-card debt at any given moment, paying $1.22 for every $1 they spend.) For the first time ever, my family is going to do the unthinkable. We’re going to live within our means. No matter what we actually make, we’re only going to spend $41,000 for the entire year. In other words, after paying our mortgage, taxes, insurance, and the $500 to service our credit-card debt, our family of six is going to live on $550 a month.

How hard can that be? It’s 150 percent above the federal poverty level for a six-person family. Yet, for the last few months we’ve been getting ourselves prepared. Although we live in coastal Maine, we turned off our oil furnace and installed an unused wood stove of my dad’s. Lisa, an attorney, bartered legal work for firewood. We bought 25-day-old chicks so we can have free eggs and our four children can sell the eggs for spending money—after paying us back for the chickens’ food. We’ve stopped eating out—period. And we’ve started shopping at a liquidation grocery store and making many items we used to buy. This is not going to be a quiet ride made up of baby steps toward a more thrifty life, but instead a take-no-prisoners battle loaded with measures of extreme frugality that will change our lives forever.

So, follow along and see how we do it. Take part in our ups and downs and maybe learn a thing or two along the way—like never, ever turn off the upstairs heat off before checking to see if you might have an uninsulated six-foot section of copper pipe exposed to below-freezing conditions.

Luckily, I have a great manual on how to sweat a pipe.

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