THROWBACK THURSDAY: Being Frugal in Preparedness w. The Next Generation

You've just joined the Prepper Broadcasting Network, where we promote self reliance and independence. The views and opinions expressed are strictly those of the host or their guests visited us in the interactive chat room at prepper broadcasting dot com. Hello everybody, and welcome to the next Generation, where we delve deeper into the little things in life. Here we explore the lost start of fatherhood, parenthood, and fundamental preparedness for the world. Today. I'm your host, Ryan Buford, along with my co host Colin Say hello, call. It yo yo yo, fellow. Listeners, broadcasting from the heart of the Pacific Northwest, and we thank you for joining us. There's not a moment to waste, so let's dig right in. Uh. First off, for those of you listening on blog talk radio, we asked that you switch over to Prepperbroadcasting dot Com, where you will find the best audio and an amazing chatroom experience. I'm in there and I encourage you to join us along with several like minded listeners. Uh. Don't forget. You can also call in and listen to the live show at three four seven two zero two zero two two eight, then press one if you'd like to speak with us live on air. Please remember that this is a family show, and you know, speaking of that, we do have a couple special guests here in the studio. I've got my parents, my mom, Kathleen, my dad John Say, Hi, guys, do you have one other special announcement? Have you heard? Have you heard about this one hundred and fifty dollars Alien Gear giveaway? If you don't know, Alien Gear is an awesome Kai Tex holster manufacturer here in the US, and even better, it's right here in the Pacific Northwest. That's right. If you haven't yet, be sure to check out the IM Liberty Show on Wednesday night at six o'clock Eastern time and check out the contest details. It's an amazing giveaway and you won't want to miss out on it, so be sure to check out the IM Liberty Show page or send James Walton an email at Imliberty Show at gmail dot com to enter for details and on your chance to win. I'm gonna go ahead and drop a link into the chat room for those of you listening live to us tonight. Looks like am I Gray and Jayfergi are in there. Welcome guys, and you know we'd like to hear your feedback too, So if any of you would like to reach out to us directly, whether it's to give us some show ideas, comments, or if you just like to reach out. Some of you might be on the road listening to the podcast, some of you might be overseas listening from AFAR, and your voice matters, it makes a difference. You can reach us at Prepper Broadcasting on the Next Generation show page on the social media links there, or you can always send me an email at Prepperdad at mail dot com. I'll drop my contact information into the chatroom right now for those of you in there, and we'll get into the showop. Hold on a sec, my mouse. It is going crazy. So today's short Today's topic is the power of frugality and preparedness. And to get started with this, I have a story that I'd like to share with you. It was happened a couple of years ago, and actually I it. Was about my old boss. He had gone out and wound up finding an ad on Craigslist. It was someone who was selling his old guns, and he went to check it out and he started talking to the guy and started realizing what you know that The guy really just wanted to make sure that his weapons went to a responsible owner, someone who understood the value of history and the value of a gun in its place as a historical relic. So he paid this guy for you know, the guns, and he wound up just buying the whole case of guns was probably twelve or so, a couple of rifles, a couple of hunting rifles, and a couple of pistols. And he comes into the office the next day and he pulls me aside and says, hey, come take a look at this, and he hands me this little pamphlet. And at first I didn't realize what it was, But as I started flipping through the pages, I realized that what it was was a ration stamp book from World War Two. And I flipped through the pages and I realized that here they are not what sixty years ago. And some of the pages still had a few stamps left in him. Some had more than others. You could tell that the person who owned this before lived in that area and save this item to try and remember what it was like during those times. Some pages were listed. If you've ever seen one, they're about the size of a three by five postcard and they're filled with stamps essentially. And the way it worked was when you needed fuel, you were given well, you were given a book every month if I remember correctly, and for each stamp you take one out for the opportunity to go in and pay for fuel per gallon or whatever it might have been, say you needed a bushel of wheat or milk or cheese. Every item that was a main staple and something that was needed overseas to fuel our forces was something that we had rationed at home to make sure that they had enough to do their jobs. To be able to hold onto this book and realize what the people before us had gone through and what they had done in order to hold back and be frugal themselves and make do with what they had was real eye opening to me, and hopefully this episode today will be eye opening to you in the ways that you can be frugal with some of the things that you do, and the importance of extending this particular skill set to your own children. And I try and take this to the next level in my own life by making sure that we take advantage of every opportunity to be frugal as possible. So here we are, you know, twenty eighteen, and I was talking with g Man before the show and I look at Colin's hands now here in the studio, and they're almost black because he spent the last four hours, two to four hours pitting cherries. I got a line on some cherries from one of the gals from work, and it's one thing that we'll get into later. But the intention was that we would go out and pick a few cherries to have some four preserves. Well, we wound up with about one hundred and sixty pounds of cherries and we didn't pay a dime, and we've got quite a bit of work under us already. Took a couple hours to collect the cherries and then we've only barely made a dent in what we've collected so far. So over the next few weeks we're going to be doing quite a bit more work. And this is something that I wanted to get across to you, my listeners, to help you realize how important it is to me and my family and how impressive it can be to you and your family to engage in this type of behavior, This idea of being frugal and taking advantage of the things around you to be able to make the most of it. Now, if you think about it, in this particular instance, I was able, Yeah, g Mann preppers saying in the chat room, make me a cherry pie. Yeah, I'm sure I could probably hook you up with one or two so guaranteed or four. Yeah. So I was doing some math and I just happened to call the uh, the grocery store in nearby to finally have they had cherries on sale? And it turns out this time of year you can get cherries on sale for about dollars ninety eight a pound. So when you tackle a dollar ninety eight a pound times about one hundred and sixty pounds, it works out to about three hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty cents. That's money that I didn't have to spend. But it's my materials that I was able to use with, and obviously without spending that money, the money that I would have spent can be used for other things like canning supplies. I think I figured I spent about eighty dollars on miscellaneous stuff, and I got enough bags for fermentation and jars and lids for to supplement what I already had so for a fraction of what I would have paid, I got way more than I needed, and I've got plenty to be able to continue on. During the show, we're going to be hitting what I'll be calling the five points of frugality. The first point is remember where you came from. The second point is being frugal takes work, the third make do or do without, the fourth see things for their possibilit after their original use. And number five give grace where grace is due. So let's take a quick break and when we come back, we'll start digging in to these five points in the Next Generation show. Have you visited Survival Gearsystems dot Com. 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Make medical kits by doctor Bones and the Nurse Amy a part of your medical story. You'll be glad you Dida and special thanks to our sponsors. If you get a chance, please make sure to visit those folks and check out what they have to offer. They do keep us going on air, so be sure to take the time and check out the amazing products and services that those guys have available. Also, one quick reminder for tomorrow night, don't mess out on Behind the Headlines with Alan Getz where he goes in depth so you can get the truth behind the headlines. And now on with the show. Let's start with the first point point one. Think of it like the first point of a star. There's always a beginning, so the first point is in my mind to remember where you came from. During the break, am I Gray too or am I Gray sorry? Am I Gray put a comment in the chat room that he's going to be the third generation to be using a set of nine cases of canning jars, and I got to say, that's that's pretty amazing, because you've got to realize that how many, how many hands and families and work has gone into creating meals to sustain families and keep themselves alive and in food, I mean, and to be able to even have things. And that really kind of is a great way to lead into this first point, to get into this topic. I was a little bit I was unsure, and I checked out a couple of websites, you know, to take a look and see, you know, what other people would consider frugality to be. Jay Fergie says, she grew up very poor, and you know, I'm realizing now that kids today are pretty well off, and unfortunately they don't realize it. So last night I decided to bring We had a little bit of a round table birthday celebration turned what was that long golf game whatever that is hillbilly golf, and we sat around, we spent a couple of hours, and I just asked one simple question, what were some of the ways that your parents or grandparents took advantage of being frugal to get their families through whatever tough times they had to endure. And I was really kind of I mean, I was surprised when I wasn't, but I was really kind of interested in how many different things came up. I mean it was like a set of fireworks. One person would tell a story. And then you know about how you know. Their parents saved one particular thing, or you know, rebent nails to be able to use them in the future. Again, things like that. No conversations took off like crazy, and this idea that the frugality that their parents exercised when they were growing up, two or three generations passed where we are now has become an otherwise. Unknown in the world today. There was. There's two or three generations that kind of missed that link. A big part is because, on my opinion, how easy it's been to obtain things and how easy it's been to discard things. So, in my opinion, one of the ways the Greatest generation was able to become the greatest general generation is because of how much they accomplished and how little they had to work with in comparison to the tools in advancement of today. Jay Fergey in the chat Room says, it's now an age of instant gratification, and that's exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to kids. Colin was sitting there with us at the table, and he says, you know, how'd you put it when when you go into school and they ask you to to do. It, write nothing but what's about you? You're like, they want you to tell about yourself? I guess yeah, they. See it's to get to know you. But yeah, it's all about me is what they call it. All about me is the name of the Yeah. And I think this point one is really centered around the idea that hey, look, you know there's with all the social media out there today and the opportunity for kids to talk about themselves, it's really crucial to be able to get in there and help understand, help them to understand that who they are is actually a product of the people generations past who've struggled and labor and done without so that these guys could live their lives of convenience. And my grace in the chat room saying how many grandparents had used a tinfoil drawer. I mean somebody out there listening might be able to call in and share some of your ideas. G Man saying, hey, he's brugal with washing socks. He'll wear them one day and then wear them a few days later before washing. I gotta say I do the same thing, not with my socks, but I actually wear a pair of work pants and if they're not, if they're not blatantly dirty, I'll wear them again because it doesn't make sense to go through and wash them time and again because I wore them for a day. And this idea that you can't just take something and be ready to get rid of it as soon as you touch it, essentially, the guys in the chat room, it's actually, we don't have a whole lot of people in the chat room tonight, Jay Ferry and m I Gray and g Man, but man, it's going crazy with some of the things that these guys have talked about so far in just this few minutes. So let's get into point two. That first point, obviously is knowing where you'd come where you had come from, and I think, especially with the story that I led into about the ration book, is something that few people realize. And this idea that the greatest generation was able to accomplish what they did and living in an environment where they had to ration food on a nationwide level is something that's you know, it's not that far from the truth, and it's not far from reality. And yet nobody under the age of thirteen probably realizes the importance of that, and you'd be hard pressed to find many people under the age of forty to realize that. So Part two, this is a big part. Being frugal takes work. And I got to tell you, especially after this weekend, going out to get those cherries, spending two hours fifteen feet in the ladder, shaking the tree, collecting all of them, and then packing them all the way back home, and then it's just now getting started processing them. It's something that most people don't realize and most people don't want to do. And fruit trees, I think are probably one of the biggest things that you can take advantage of because most people don't want to deal with the fruit in their yard. The generation's pass have planted all sorts of great fruit trees, and you go around most suburban locations and you'll find them blooming like crazy, and then all the fruit just winds up going to waste. And in most cases, the first thing that I've been able to do is go through and put the word out that hey, if you know anybody with fruit trees, let me know, because I can use the plums. I can use the cherries, I can use the peaches, I can use the pears, I can use all that stuff. And most people are actually pretty willing, I guess, to let you come on their property because it's less work for them to do, and they don't realize that they're missing out on the benefit of all that fruit. And it's kind of interesting that this idea of fruit, and I wanted to share this with you folks, that the idea of frugal actually comes from an Indo European root word broogue, which literally means fruit or produce and the value and result. So when before even English was around, the idea of frugality existed within the idea of fruit. And hopefully you can take some of this information as a piece of fruit. You can share it, you can consume it, or you can save it for later and watch it turn into something better. But with that being, frugal takes work. So are you tired? They can't see you nodding, Yes, I'm tired. Yeah, Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you spent doing today? On today and yesterday both? Well, like Dad said, we started with shaking the trees and collecting all the cherries, but then today my Grandma, Grandpa and I got up early in the morning and wash some flats for the cherries so we can freeze them and then hopefully start preserving them. But we just dumped them in the sink and handpicked all of them. We rinsed them off, and then put some parchment paper on the flat and threw them in one of the big tall freezers. You missed the most important part at the time, the cherry pitting. Oh, well, the main thing you were spending two hours doing pushing that button to get one pit out at a time. So, I mean, it takes a lot of work to do this kind of stuff, but it's worth it. I think it's worth it. And eventually, when we get around to making fruit leather and you know all the I think you wanted to make cherry ice cream. I mean, maybe we'll wind. Up using that as one of our projects down the road. But cherry is just one thing. I've also spoken a couple of episodes back about the wood. You know, between the amount of money that I've saved just in collecting my own fruit and collecting my own wood has allowed me to save almost one thousand dollars that would have gone towards someone else providing that stuff for me, and the idea for gal Anything you can provide yourself is something that's money not spent and instead it's earned and reallocated elsewhere, and you can take the money that you have and use it in a more efficient manner. It comes to kids, as they did about money. Sometimes it's hard to be able to expect to them what value is of something. Now, Colin, if you went to the store today, in fact, we might do this anyways and had to shell out two dollars for a bag of cherries, you may not see it as worth it for that because of how much work it takes to put into that too. You know, to that bag of cherries. Why would you want me to buy cherries? Exactly? Why would you want me to buy cherries? We just picked one hundred and sixty pounds of. Cherries, Yeah, exactly. One of the most tangible ways you can do this, you know, maybe you're not out there and have the ambition or the season or the climate or the opportunity to go out and pick a bunch of cherries is to go through and pay close attention with couponing. This is a pretty big tangible way that you can go through with kids and help them realize that the value of a dollar isn't equal to the face value on the bill in front of you, because when you're able to take a dollar bill or a twenty dollars bill, there's a difference between when you go and get a dollar worth of material or five dollars worth of material for that same piece of. Coin. Basically, you know, there's been times. Where I've gone into the store and I've been able to go through and just with basic couponing, watch the ticker from the sales thing pron out a receipt as long as my receipt was before on all the savings, and I've been able to get eighty to ninety dollars worth of food for about forty five to fifty dollars. G Mann Preppers in the chat room says brugal is also making or growing your own goods such as cleaners, tools, toys. Even he says, you know it's you can make a long list of all the things that you can do yourself that help add and help people realize the actual value of something and how much work goes into something for one, but how much true value there is to doing that yourself. One of the things we've been batting around is. Curies. We've got literally hundreds of pits, hundreds and hundreds of pits. So one of the things we're talking about doing is taking them and properly sitting them to get maybe fifty tree starts, so there's a good chance that you know, say a third of them grows. Well, we've got. Fifteen trees and we could easily go out and sell them for five bucks apiece as a young sapling in a year or two. Well, there's another sixty bucks right there, just by taking advantage of what's available to you. But it does take work. Point three is make do or do without. To me, understanding the difference between value and a perceived bargain is key and my dad is one of the biggest influences in my life with this because we've been able to go through and see the difference between a harbor freight screwdriver and a clin screwdriver. And for those of you who out know out there who don't know what a client screwdriver is, it's probably a twenty or thirty dollars screwdriver mostly used for electrical work. But the idea is that if you go and buy a one or two dollars screwdriver because it's cheap, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a quality tool. That you can use the rest of it. Doesn't know why not, because it's not You can't make good use out of it. Because if it breaks on you the first time or when you really need it, then how much did you actually save by spending two dollars on a chronomy tool versus ten or twenty dollars on a quality tool. One of the things the conversations that came up last night, my dad was saying that there used to be TV shops everywhere, repair shops, you know, you could go in and change out the bulbs and make it work, computer repair, phone repair, shoe repair. Does anybody even know what a cobbler is anymore? Yeah, side to an apple cobbler. But with the modern commerce of disposable products, these skills and resources are all but extinct. Am I Gray says his grandfather had a box of straightened nails that were pulled out from old boards, and I've heard of that before. You know, there was a guy that I used to work with and he said that the he was a framer and the guy that he wound up working under during his apprenticeship back in the seventies was what he called old school, and he would go down and shout and basically get him in trouble for throwing nails away after they were bent, and you know, because it was wasteful. And this is back in the seventies, and this idea that straightening a nail was worth more than discarding it as something. Today it would be absolutely unheard of. You know, you can spend hours doing that, like am I Great says in the chat room, just hours an hour straightening nails. But the thing is is when when you've straightened a nail once or twice, you realize the importance of driving it true the first time and making the most out of what you have. You know. So a big part of this, as far as you know, obviously, if you're going to buy cheap tools or cheap furniture or cheap appliances, you have to realize that what you spend your money on, your hard earned money, makes a difference. And when you go through and try and buy a store, buy something from a store, it makes a lot more impact when you buy something that has quality to it. You know, buy from the United States, just like the alien gear here right here in Idaho, just a couple hours away. I mean, some of the best holsters that you could get in the country is made right here in the US and where even if it's from your own country, buy from your own country. But keep in mind that when you get something, take a look at it closely, cobble it together until you can get it fixed. It may not look the best, but the longer you can keep something in service, the more you'll get out of it. And the idea that when you go to buy something, you look at it for it can, can it even be repaired, makes a significant amount of difference versus you know, buying it with the expectation that it's going to fail and you're just going to have to throw that money out the window. So when it comes to doing without, do without, especially if you can't afford it. And I gotta admit this is easier said than done. In today's culture, it's very easy to get sucked away with, you know, trying to do things for other people and not be able to pay your own bills at the end of the day. But it's not the only way, but it is the only way to help kids understand that when you say no to their oddball requests, that sometimes you must also do without. At times, you know, say someone wants a little toy or something like that, Well sometimes they're going to have to do without. Maybe not, maybe it's because the quality of the toy, Maybe it's because of you know, you know that five years down the road or two years down the road, it's going to wind up in a yard cell for a quarter or or less of what you would have paid for it if you're lucky. So improvise if you must. But debt is not an option. It wasn't for the greatest generation and they did just fine. So I think getting out of debt is probably one of the biggest ways that frugality will help out with regards to kids. You can help them understanding the reasoning behind telling them no, especially in the store, which generally in some instances it happens, you know, where you'll have a kid that doesn't get a toy or something that he wanted and they're throwing a tantrum, And then you get another kid who winds up having, you know, the same discussion with their parents. Are not all away, and when their parents says no, they understand and they walk away. But the hinge point between those two scenarios is because when you say no and when they ask why and you say because I said so, it's difficult to grasp at any age, regardless of whether you're a kid or an adult. So if you're trying to explain to a child why they can't have something, it's better if you can engage them in a way to understand cost savings, to achieve a goal like a toy, and include them in the process so it'll make more sense in the long run. For example, you know, come help me pick some cherries, and then at the end of the day we should have enough set aside to where we can do something else. At that point, then it makes sense for them to ask. And what you'll find in most cases is those requests tend to taper off pretty quick. So point four point four in this star see things for their possibilities beyond the original use. This kind of relates to the previous topic because obviously, if the possibilities of something when you buy it turns out to be you know that it's going to wind up in a landfill. Somewhere you might reconsider that purchase. And Mom, you could probably speak to this. Last night when we were sitting on the table or around the table talking, you mentioned that, well, the nylons in the parachute, can you can you talk about that? Yeah? And during World War two nylons were a premium and the sign of quality nylons was that they had a black stripe down the back of the legs. So women would get their less than quality nylons and just paint use nail polish and painted stripe up the back. They would take the parachutes. The pair chutes during World War Two were all made of silk. They still are, and they would re purpose the silk and make dresses out of them and things like that, and darning socks. We were talking about that as well. But there's a lot of things that they would use again to use other than what the original purpose was. A pair of chute became clothing nylons. You retrofited them so that they were stylish. Instead of stockings. Right, So nylons versus stockings were two very different things. But you were able to make do with what you had and see things for the possibilities beyond the original use. And this is actually kind of a precursor to the project of the week, so we'll probably get to that a little bit here in a few minutes. But to me, this idea of say, seeing things for their possibilities beyond the original use is critical because it's the main way to avoid bringing more junk into your life. You know, we just cleaned out the garage the other day and I found about six buckets of old folgers cans full of nails and screws and bolts and. All sorts of things. And you know, when people bought things in the past, they always found another use for it, whether it was a container or you know, a piece of fabric. And if you think carefully about how you can or can't use something, then you can think twice about how much you really need it. So how is how is this something that you can relate with your kids? Well, there's this is actually a really easy thing to do. And you know, like with the best thing to do really is get get ahold of the artist in the family or the tinker. And when you go to buy something, before you purchase it, see what you might be able to use after the fact, after whatever it is contained in or used for is done or maybe the parts in it. I mean, what about Altoid's tins or or like you know, painting the like even taxidermy, taxidermy or things like that. I mean, you can you can make a lot out of things that people have tossed aside, or normally people will toss aside. You know, how about an old cooler? You know, like for the project of the week, you know, we're going to be exploring how you can turn an old coalman style foam insulated cooler into an air conditioner that you can use in your house for a fraction of the cost. What about old pants? I mean, could you go through and sew a pair of pants up? And if you can't, could you use the fabric? I actually cut it up, cut up a bunch of my old pants work pants that I have retired, and I keep the fabric around to be able to use it for all sorts of different things around the house. Used it for the dogbed. Yep, we used a patch of some of my old pants to repair a rip that my dog had created in his dogbed. That clue that I made for Dad is all kiss old levies. And still have ago. Yeah, Pappy in the chat room says, it's amazing what I find alongside the road while hiking or biking. One man's junk is another man's treasure, right, and there is I do want to make a clear definition here between being resourceful and hoarding. I'm not talking about hoarding here. I'm talking about taking something that someone else has either tossed away at a thrift store or something that you would throw away after its intended use, and repurposing it in a way that allows you to make more out of what you have. So, you know, your old backpacks when they get a tear in them, sew them up. Old leashes can be you know, repurposed for ropes or cordage. You know, old tires or tools or saw blades. You know, like you're artists in the family. You know, maybe they could take an old saw blade and turn it into a la cut. What you gotta say, dad, or oh yeah, that's right, Yeah you can. You can turn into a lazy yeah saw blade into a lazy Susan. We should put that under the Oh yeah, you could do that, put a ball bearing underneath it, and you could use an old saw blade is a lazy susan my sharp point, rusty, rusty thing for your tool bench. No, I've seen people use old saw blades and take laser cuttings out of them and do all sorts of neat stuff. And it's these things can actually be used as artwork and sold, you know, if that's something that you're into. But the main point is to see things for their possibilities beyond that original use. So lastly, zero point five, the last point, give grace where grace is due. Now for this, I wanted to share with you a quick story, actually to two quick stories, because they're really decades apart. There was. Just the other day I went to the store. I had to pick up a couple of things, and I was standing in line. There was a lady and her daughter and they had got their things. It was maybe a bag worth of food and a canelope and a watermelon, and the lady wound up buying what she could and she had him weigh the watermelon and the candelope, and she had to make the decision because she couldn't afford both. And at the end of the aisle, the little girl was bagging the food and she looked up at her mom and asked why she couldn't, you know, why they couldn't take the watermelon, and her mom didn't have an answer for her. And to me, it didn't seem right for me to be able, you know, standing there getting my b and luxury items whatever they may have been, and this girl who is realizing that she has to make a choice between a cattle, a cantalope, and a watermelon. So these they were bagging their food at the end of the aisle, and I asked the clerk, Hey, how much is that watermelon over there? And he waited up and I said, yeah, go ahead, and it was like four dollars and twenty four cents, you know, less than a cup of coffee. And I said, just go ahead and. Put it online and send it down there so that they could take it. And so he did, and he got it to him before they walked out, and they both said thank you. And when the cashier came back, he said, wow, that's you don't really see that anymore. It just doesn't exist anymore. And from that point on, I couldn't even look at the guy in the face because he was right. It was scary that sometimes people have to make those kind of choices on a daily basis, and when it comes time to give grace where grace's due. This is exactly what I'm talking about. The story that relates but it doesn't is one of a gentleman named Jim Hatley who's an old farmer or no store owner who's long gone. He's been dead for a number of years. But my father in law, or seem to be father in law told this story last night that one day his dad had to go to Jim Hatley with his hat in his hand and present to him the fact that he couldn't pay the note on his food bill, because you could in that time, you were able to actually charge against your food and then pay for it when the crops came in. Well, the crops didn't come in that year for him, and he had eight miles to feed, and Jim Hatley, I said, you know, don't worry about it, take care of me when you can. And that's something that I think really goes hand in hand with this whole life idea of being frugal. People confuse credit with grace, but it's the opposite. While it's important to hold people accountable, it's more important to be there in times of true need, and you can demonstrate grace by example and help your kids understand. Why do you remember when you went on that cruise, the boat cruise thing in elementary school? Yeah? Fit grade. Can you tell that story real quick? Just what happened? Well? I vaguely remember it. I remember the cruise. But what happened was there were either a number of students or some students in particular, that couldn't go on the trip, so they had to stay at school and do work. And it was the last field trip of elementary school. And Dad could probably describe it better. It was his money, but I I couldn't. They couldn't afford the trip, so Dad had me taken some money to the teacher so that the students could go on the trip. And I can't. I don't remember much after that. Did you learn anything from that? Yeah? Yeah, And I learned that you know, when it's important, you need to make some choices. But I feel like you made the right choice. So essentially, there were nine students who couldn't make the trip and they were running out of time for whatever reason, they couldn't afford it, and the the what was it ten bucks? I think I had so if you realize, I mean, if you think about you know, if a kid isn't able to afford a ten dollars field trip, there's probably more going on at home than then really needs to be explained. So sometimes taking advantage of those opportunities and making sure that your kids understand why you're doing it can make a big difference, not only for them in that moment, but long into the future when those opportunities present themselves again and the frugal person can step in and make a big difference. There is a difference. It's hard to explain, but it's easy to see when you So let's take a quick break and when we get back, we'll get into the pint sized prepper project. Of the week. Oh no, a complete collapse, martial law. Oh my gosh, I've got to get out. I've got to get to my cabin. This is it, Okay, don't panic, assess the situation and get the right gear. It's time to get at a dodge. A game of post economic survival, escape the city using your gear and your wits by kill Switch Bunker Games LLC. Available on Amazon, kill Switch Bunker Games like Us on Facebook. Kill Switch Bunker Games. When disaster strikes and your GPS is useless, ancient navigation techniques will ensure your survival. New from Ulysses Press Prepper's Survival Navigation. With this guide, you can easily travel through even the farthest remotest places. Utilizing tips from the United States Army and lifelong wilderness experts, you'll learn life saving navigation techniques. 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Welcome back everybody to the Next Generation show, and let's dive right into the pine size project of the week. Today. We're going to be doing a homeade ac unit, which is a project inspired by the Friday night show host over at reality Check Reality Check with Michael Klein and e k I just dropped the link into the chat room with some Facebook images of the project, and for those of you listening on the podcast, I'll be putting the link in the comments section of the show page. And I've been lacking a little bit on sharing the links, so I'm gonna go back through the last show pages, back to the beginning and drop the links that I mentioned in the show up on those pages. So if you ever listen back on them, then you can refer to some of the pages the links that we dropped in the chat room. But maybe not, you know, maybe you missed out on because of the podcast. Colin also put a YouTube video in which is a similar idea of what we had done, and Colin, why don't you go ahead and run with this one? Tell us how what we did, how we put it all together, what it takes. And. You know, kind of what what is. This project is all about? Well, this project was something that we found in the Popular Mechanics magazine, which we get a lot of our ideas from. But it's a homemade air conditioner. And the YouTube link I put in the chat room was another guy who made a similar thing. Like Dad said, but we made it out of a cooler, PVC and a fan and that was pretty much it. Oh and ice, of course. But the process was we took the cooler and I think we made the hole for the PVC first, and you can place that wherever you want. But you have a hole for the PVC and you can guide the air where that you know, the airflow wherever you want it to go. But you have one hole in the top for the fan and another for the PVC anywhere else and you put We tried a few different things we made at the beginning of the week, so we had pretty much all week to mess around and see see what worked best. But you can put crushed ice, cubed dice, you know, full ice blocks or we tried popsicles even once, but those don't work out too well. Sticky mass. Yeah, So when you have the fan on the top of the cooler, you face it down inwards to the cooler and the hole for the PVC, will, you know, blow it out each side of the PVC or the pictures on the Facebook page you can see what I'm talking about. We had kind of a tea that split it in two different directions and shout it out toward the bottom of the cooler and the fan will blow down and go out those PVC holes. And I had a bucket filled it with water and then put the ice block in the cooler and I would put it in there around nine or ten in the morning when it started to warm up, and then took it, drained the cooler at in the afternoon, right back into the bucket and refroze it overnight and then just the process just restarted. Now so basically, and I think we went through and we found the cooler, which we actually we got for free at a yard sale because a lady was just trying to get rid of them. I think we had some little pen containers that we used to hold ice that we had also gotten free. What else is there? The PBC was actually left over from a sink replacement project a few months back that we I set aside, thinking maybe I could use it someday, And here we are using it, and the fan was I think the only thing that we paid money for, and it was about three I want to say, and since we're not using the same amount of electricity, and maybe i'll I'll test it when I get home to determine the difference between an air conditioner power usage versus this unit power usage. It's not going to blast cold air in your face like an air conditioner will, but it does change the ambient room temperature enough to make it at least tolerable in some of the summer heat. So one of some of the things that you can do a little bit differently here that might work better is if you have gel packs or things of that nature, you can freeze them and with that and then you won't have any of the water mess within your box and you can fill it up as much as you want, and then when you're at night, when you're you know, done with your freezer, freezer bags or whatever, you can put them back in the freezer and you you'll actually save more energy by keeping your freezer full. This is a kid went kid friendly way to demonstrate the main some of the main concepts of frugality. Number one is cost savings, obviously from the things that we just talked about. Number two is resourcefulness because you know, we're just kind of looking around for the things that we can use to make this work. Number three is a make do attitude like I mentioned before, you know, make do and do what you can with what you've got. And number four the ability to see objects as more than just disposal. So it's I think it went pretty well as a project, and I mean the build is pretty easy. I think, you know, some of the skills you used were, like you're saw measuring out holes and cutting through those properly attaching equipment, things like that. So it's a great project that you can use at home, and if you don't like it, you can tuck it away and pull it out another day to explain to other people how it works and some of the ways that they can use as heck, throw it in your chicken coop if you want to keep it cool. With that. Let's do the final takeaway on this topic for today. Most parents today have been born outside the time when people had to be self sufficient, before a time when government restrictions like food, fuel and other rations needed to support the efforts of World War II set the standards of living upon the entire nation. Children today have been raised in a world of good fortune. They've been raised with a level of convenience in a world of disposable everything planned obsolescence, as my dad says. But ultimately, this idea of being frugal is a trait far more valuable to your child than their digital self worth on social media. It's in this resourcefulness that our nation and our children will succeed in the midst midst of any disaster large or small, from the loss of a job to the collapse of a financial system. I encourage you to recapture this skill. In your own home. It is in this environment that you, as parents can contribute to a childhood that is content, self sufficient, and frugal at the heart. So, next time your kid walks in the door with a hole in their jenes, mend it with them. Even better show them how, because with each stitch you tell the story of how this nation and your family can come together in the worst possible times. Lastly, in case you missed it, on last week's show, the Art of intentional positioning, Finding the purpose before the place and making the move was a great show, great interview. You can download it on. The show page or on your favorite streaming service. And for next week's show, in the spirit of the Alien gear giveaway, we'll be talking about kids, guns and parental control how these are becoming increasingly intertwined. Stay tuned on the show page for more details. That's it for today. Everyone, Welcome, Thanks for joining us on the Next Generation Show, and don't forget to tune in next Sunday at three o'clock Pacific time, six o'clock Eastern, where we explore another aspect of the little things in life that make all the difference in the world. This is your host, Ryan Buford and your co host calling reminding you to stay informed, get involved, and be prepared. Thanks everybody, have a great night, make it a great week. Today's broadcast has come to you through the courtesy of the Prepper Broadcasting Network. See our hosts, show schedules, and archive programs and more at Prepper broadcasting dot com. Thanks for listening.