Early Retirement Extreme

— a combination of simple living, anticonsumerism, DIY ethics, self-reliance, resilience, and applied capitalism

The blender, the spice grinder

Published in January 20th, 2022
Posted by in How to
23 Comments

As it turns out, our $25 blender can grind spices to a flour like powder on the ice crushing setting. I did not know that! Knowing that could have saved a lot of hours with the mortar and pestle, and it could also have saved the 15 bucks spent to get it a few years […]

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Make your own refried beans

Published in January 19th, 2022
Posted by in How to
14 Comments

Here’s how to make refried beans (unit cost: negligible) First you get a 20lbs bag of pinto beans for free at freecycle.org 😉 Second, you take a large bowl and soak the some beans in water all day. Third, you cook them in a pressure cooker. An ordinary pot works as well, but it takes […]

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Dealing with heat waves on a budget

Published in January 12th, 2022
Posted by in Health, How to
21 Comments

In the summer of 2003 I lived in Switzerland during one of the hottest months on record. In Europe a total of 35,000 people, mostly elderly, died due to the heat. The heat wave lasted about 3 weeks reaching temperatures over 100F (40C) affecting people who were completely unprepared to deal with this environmental change. […]

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