The Atlantic has an interview with James Bertini, founder of Denver Urban Homesteading:

If there are enough people who care about raising and growing their own food, it will inevitably encourage people to cook more and spend more time on food preparation. And consequently, people will lead healthier lives and have healthier bodies.

There are certainly people who don’t have the time and aren’t interested, and that’s fine. We’re not telling people that they ought to choose any particular lifestyle. We are providing the information about growing and raising your own food and getting in touch with the soil and with cooking.

Animals can be great for individuals, great for families, and even for a neighborhood. Many of the people who have chickens in Denver tell me that neighbors come from doors down, sometimes blocks down, to visit them just because they want to see the chickens or let their kids play with the chickens.

I’m the president of a home owners association that doesn’t allow livestock, and doesn’t allow xeriscaping. The rules were written twenty years ago. Times have changed. I’m trying to not have to enforce those restrictions, but there is regular pressure to do so. So far no one has complained about the family with the chickens, but I’ve received several complaints about the two xeriscapers. I need to have a talk with them about keeping it as neat and tidy as they can so people won’t have as many grounds for complaint.

But ultimately, it’s a different world today. Governments, cities, and neighborhoods have to change with the times. And people have to change too–and be as responsible as possible to make it easier for people to accept.

Lauren at Path Across has an article on four ways to save money and time. To summarize:

• Use smaller amounts of cleaning products
• Eat leftovers and use up less-than-crisp vegetables
• Cancel the cable TV
• Grow a few houseplants and feed then kitchen compost

Read the whole article for details. These are good ideas, though we already do most of these. In our case our kitchen scraps already go into some composting bins I made a few years back. We never have had cable TV, and I am the “Leftover King”. Quite frankly it boggles my mind that people could actually throw away perfectly good food just because it’s leftovers. Some food tastes better the next day and beyond.

So the only one that we aren’t already on top of is the first one. I’ll have to check with my wife, as she handles the laundry. I know I could probably go a little easier on the cleaning products in cleaning the bathrooms.

That’s one problem with being frugal–it’s hard to cut back any further. Yet somehow we managed. When I lost my job we cut our budget by a third, and not all of that was the money we no longer put into savings. On the whole our lifestyle has not been impacted that much. On the other hand, I do pray regularly that none of our major appliances decides to go out before we get a solid income stream going again. When I get my first paycheck I intend to not mention it anywhere near the kitchen!