Frugal living made better (and greener!) with Traditional Skills, but where can you learn them?

Among the ways to live a greener and more frugal lifestyle are growing food to eat and making things for the home.  The home garden can cost a lot less than organic produce from the store. Homemade or repaired items for the home can also save over buying new.  Recycling unwanted or broken items into new is green, too!  One problem that many people nowadays have with this concept is that they lack what were once common skills necessary to grow or make things for themselves.

How many of the following things can you do?

*grow vegetables
*canning/preserving
*cook
*make perfumes/essential oils from plants
*compost yard waste
*sew simple household items (curtains, napkins, pillows)
*sew, or at least alter, clothes (can you hem pants?)
*knitting, quilting, embroidery, crochet
*shine shoes
*build furniture or basic woodworking
*metalworking, including forging, welding, soldering
*basic plumbing
*car maintenance and repair

Many of these skills, if not learned in the home, used to be learned at school.  Middle and high schools used to have home ec, wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, and crafts class.  In my area and I'm guessing nationwide, many of these programs have been eliminated due to budget cuts and new requirements to teach technology and Leave No Child Behind.  Even where they exist kids are often pressured to skip shop in favor of classes that are better for getting into college.  I sure was.

Now that I want to use them, where do I learn these skills?  There are many places!  I now know where to learn most of these skills in my area, where did I find them?

1)  Local adult education programs teach a wide variety of skills.  I've taken classes in stained glass, calligraphy, manuscript illumination, flower arranging, altering clothes at home, picture framing, woodworking and metal shop.  I live in a large metropolitan area that contains many smaller cities and towns, all with unique offerings.  I just Googled for adult ed in every single town in my area.  They are also usually pretty low cost.

2)  Libraries often host workshops or have a bulletin board with advertisements for local offerings.  My nearby library hosts a FREE weekly knitting class and a rug making group.  They have advertisements for other classes such as gardening.

3)  Community centers often have classes.  I can learn pottery, guitar, and Tagalog at mine.

4)  Newspapers, especially neighborhood papers, often have listings for activities.  Gardening and cooking classes are common.

5)  Local nurseries often offer free or low cost workshops on such topics as pruning roses and trees, composting, growing native plants, the water wise garden, and more.

6)  If you have an interest, look on the internet.  Either Google it or look for a society or organization that focuses on your interest.  Pottery, calligraphy, art societies and others often have a link to places you can learn locally.  That's how I found out I could learn blacksmithing in my area.  I also found a drop-in workshop for learning to paint traditional icons using hand made paint just like the Old Masters did.  I sure couldn't learn that from art class in college.  There's even a group that builds robots and another focused on building things powered by steam!  Who knew?!

7)  Craft stores usually have workshops.  My local yarn store will teach you how to knit using hair from your pet.  That would be extremely green!  Michael's and other chain craft stores have classes in picture framing and cake decorating.  I refined the quilting skills learned from my grandmother at a fabric store.  My mom took cake decorating when we kids were little and as a result she was able to make the most amazing cakes for our birthdays for very little money.

8)  Many community colleges offer short courses, or even semester length courses, in basic skills such as basic home repair and auto repair.

9)  Churches will sometimes host classes.  An Episcopalian church near me hosts monthly art and language classes.  I study icon painting at an Orthodox church.  You don't have to stick to your own faith when it comes to attending life skills classes unless you find that morally intolerable.

10)  The internet is a resource for learning skills.  I personally find it hard to learn that way but if you are so remote there is no other option, there is that at least.  Check out YouTube.  Many videos are posted with demonstrations of skills; that's a bit better than following written directions or drawings.

Now before you complain that you live in a small town and only big cities have that much variety, I will admit that is true.  Yet many smaller areas still have a good selection of classes.  Several of the classes I mentioned above I took when I lived in a city of less than 100,000 in the South.  A couple were offered where I lived in Wyoming (and that is pretty isolated!).

These skills can also be used to benefit others and create a stronger connection to society.  As an example I once solicited donated money to buy materials that I used my sewing skills to turn into a basic layette set for every baby that was born at the hospital where I was working for an entire year (it was a small hospital, with many low income patients, but I still had to sew over 300 sets!).  There are also groups that make quilts for child victims of natural disasters.  Or how about donating your produce to a food bank? My neighborhood hosts produce exchanges in harvest season.  I trade things from my garden for things I don't grow.  People who don't garden can buy produce with proceeds going to a particular neighborhood beautification project, and everything left at the end of the day goes to the food bank.  The options are limitless.

Making things yourself is often cheaper than buying new, and when it isn't cheaper it is still good to know you are not using something made in deplorable working conditions with questionable materials in some foreign country. There is also a strong sense of satisfaction that comes from having skills and using them to make your life better.

POSTED BY K-MONEY AT 10:00 AM

COMMENTS:

Miss M said...
My old work had a bullpen style office (almost no walls/cubes) and all the guys around me were Filipino. If I stayed around much longer I would have absorbed Tagalog, they chattered away all day long. It was like the Far Side cartoon what dogs hear, blah blah blah sit blah blah...only it was blah blah blah Washington Redskins blah blah blah! They'd usually be talking sports, or at least that was my guess. I wish I were stronger with foreign languages.

Nice list, I can do a few of those things but I'm leaving the welding to Mr M!

JANUARY 17, 2009 3:23 PM