It gets harder and harder to practice living frugally.  A short while ago we heard that the power companies in Australia are going to be increasing the cost of electricity to consumers by 23% ... 23%!

It struck me that, while we're not in a state of disaster like many in the world, we can learn from disaster survival guides about how to scale back our cost of living expenses to the absolute bare minimum - emergency preparedness without the hysteria, you could say.  By no means do I refer to living in tents or in abandoned factories to save a buck - it's more about utilising the ideas that are already out there to gradually bring down our cost of living to within our personal income.  The added bonus is that if you have the knowledge, and the worst happens, you're already prepared!

Survival Kits For Living the Frugal Life

Naturally, we have many, many options here at LivingInSmallHouses.com for a frugal house and reducing mortgages but we're going to go one better and find survival shelters as an addition to your disaster survival kit for that 'just in case you need it' moment.  There are far too many recent cases of hurricanes, floods, fires and other unforseen emergencies to consider anything but being prepared with an emergency survival kit.  It's just like a fire drill - necessary to have even if you never have a reason to use it.

Next, onto the expensive items in most of our budgets - we'll search out a way to save money on bills such as our utilities - electricity, gas, phone and water (including the wonderous invention of the survival water purifier).

It would definitely be remiss to not cover frugal recipes for meals and to that end let's explore how to come by survival foods (and I don't mean army rations!). If you're not a green thumb you don't need to worry - with survival gardening we'll show you how to grow simple organic food that will keep you healthy in both body and bank account.