As most of my friends will tell you, my nose is constantly running. First of all, I was born with a deviated septum, which combined with a myriad of environmental allergies leaves me blowing my nose all the time. Typically, I go through a box of tissue every couple of days, which culminates in a lot of wasted paper products -- even if I was really careful about making sure I didn't waste. Also, at .79 cents a box for the cheapest store bran tissue, that still amounts to a good $82 a year assuming I would go through two boxes a week! After calculating this, I realized that I needed a better solution.

Sometime after Christmas my mother and I were walking through the men's section of a department store when I spotted a dozen cotton handkerchiefs on sale for $4.00 down from $10.00. Considering what the hankies could have potentially saved us (and the environment!), I grabbed a pack. I wasn't sure that Nick and I would make the switch to handkerchiefs completely, but after the first few days using a cotton hankie seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Once you get past the habit of blowin' and throwin' it out, carrying around a hankie is just as easy as carrying around a handful of disposable tissue. Even accounting for the washing and drying of the hankies, these also save you quite a bit of cash over the course of the year (especially during flu season!).

If the idea of blowing into a tissue more than once creeps you out, I would suggest cutting the hankies into twos or fours and perhaps sewing the edges to prevent fraying. You can then keep a stash of smaller handkerchiefs on hand that you only use once before tossing it into the wash. Nick solves the problem by folding the hankie a few times so that he knows which square section he has already used.

Although I found it kind of weird the first few days, now it seems like the most natural thing in the world. In the future I would be tempted to buy some organic cotton and make hankies & hanky-holders for friends (that would appreciate them) as gifts. Monograms, stencils and embroidery all could be used to make an nice, personalized gift for people who are tickled by cute eco-friendly gifts. For those of you who prefer not to craft, you can pick up retro or modern hankies of various colours online and at department stores.

I haven't come to the point where I will offer guests a hankie (I still keep a box of tissues on hand), but overall I am pleased with the switch.

When Nick and I initially moved into our condo, we had to get creative with decorating as we had very little money and very little space to work with. Here is a Saturday afternoon we spent building a new bookshelf and decorating an inexpensive storage box, both of which were purchased at Ikea.

The total cost of the storage box project was $30. I spent $20 on the storage box, and then another $10 on a beautiful sheet of paper & some glass flower beads (to glue over the screws) from a specialty store.

Before:



During:



After:





As for Nick’s project, we had tried to figure out how we were going to store all our books in such a small space. We had a smallish space between the balcony door and the hallway but the only bookshelves we could find that would fit were like $150 dollars and there was no way we were paying for that. So essentially we came up with buying some cheapie Ikea storage shelving and staining it. Since the shelves came too far out [5 slats to a shelf - app, 2 ft] Nick in his infinite genius decided to cut them down to 3 slats, and bolt the remaining 2 slats up on the top to hold cds. Because he was worried that the books wouldn't be held in well enough because of the width, he went out and bought cheap dowels to put through the remaining holes which he glued in with wood glue. We stained it with the white pine stain as well. All in all, 5 shelves at $5 a piece, $10 for the sidepieces and about $2 for the dowels. So for less than $40 we had a shelf that fit.

Putting it together



Sticking in the dowels:



Cutting the dowels down to size with the dollar store saw, tee-hee :



The shelf in its new home:



Stained and filled:



I always try to keep an open mind when I am scouting for a particular piece to decorate or store things. Scout second-hand stores or inexpensive stores such as Ikea; sometimes you can find things that are structurally exactly what you wanted but that the aesthetics are horrific. A new coat of paint, a decoupage or sometimes just a replacement of hardware can sometimes be just the thing to spruce up old or basic furniture. Other times – like with the shelf above – a few creative cuts and some structural enhancements can be had for very little money and will end up being just the piece you were looking for.

This is one of those things that we make when we need a fast, filling side dish.

1 C white rice (not instant)
1 chicken noodle soup package (à la Lipton's chicken noodle - I use generic)
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp butter or margarine
3 C water

In a medium saucepan melt the butter on medium. Open the pack of chicken noodle soup mix. Hold the soup base chunk while you shake all the noodles out into the pan with the melted butter. Add the cup of rice and then stir the noodle/rice mixture until the noodles are well browned but not burnt. Add the 3 cups of water into the saucepan followed by the thyme, soup base and the garlic and onion powders. Stir it all up until it is well mixed and then bring it all to a boil. Once boiled, turn the head down to low and cover. Remove from heat when all the broth is absorbed, about 15-20 minutes. Fluff with a fork, and serve.

I know it isn't a huge savings but this makes twice as much as rice-a-roni and costs about 1/2 the price.

Nick and I have a rich wine drinking history. At the beginning of our relationship our first dates comprised of us taking turns cooking dinner, which we then ate picnic style on top of Nick’s ratty futon. A bottle of wine and candles rounded out most of these evenings, and we would sip our wine and talk for hours as we got to know each other. Cooking and eating together soon became a hallmark of our relationship with most of our evenings spent sharing stories over a bottle of wine; in fact, we still do the same thing today. However at $7 a bottle for the cheapest wine, it is a habit that is also cost-prohibitive.


Jeff writing up our order

Around the same time as we started some guerrilla budgeting, we both realized that we spent a lot of money on wine. Unfortunately, we were limited in our choices; our apartment is too small to actually make and bottle our own wine so our options were to either cut down/quit drinking or pay the high prices. Since we definitely didn’t want to cut out one of our only pleasures, we cut down our wine consumption to the bare minimum. Still, wine was a fairly expensive habit.


Room where the wine is kept to ferment

Luckily for us, my father introduced us to a local company called The Wine Garden. An old friend of his had started the company as a wine exchange business with the idea that individuals who made wine could meet and exchange bottles from different batches allowing people access to different types of wine. People would come into the (then named) Wine Exchange and make batches of wine, which would then go up on the communal shelves. You could then go and choose as many bottles of wine up to the amount that you made with your batch. For example, if you made one batch at 26 bottles, you could then purchase 26 bottles of wine from the stock. That way you had maximum variety but still fell within the legal realm of having made your own wine.

Unfortunately, the province of Ontario is heavily regulated when it comes to alcohol. Soon the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) realized that the Wine Exchange (if left to grow large enough) would seriously impact their bottom line. After a few years of discussing what fell into the realm of the law, the Wine Exchange closed down the club portion of the business, changed their name to the Wine Garden but they still to offer it’s wine making services to those in the Ottawa region.


Bottles after being disinfected before bottling

The exchange club or not, the Wine Garden is still an excellent resource for those of us who love wine, but who don’t have the space or money for the expensive equipment you need to make your own. The way it works is that you can go in and buy either a half batch (13 bottles) or full batch (26 bottles) of one kind of wine. Since the winemaking tools are kept on their premises, all you have to do is purchase the juice and put in the yeast. Your wine then is kept on-site where it ferments for a month. Once that month is up, you call and make an appointment to come in and bottle your wine (the laws are strict, you must do it yourself) using their machines. On average, bottling takes about ½ hour of your time and when they are corked and labeled, they are ready for you to take home. The only thing that you will need is a place to store your self-made wine.

Initially you will have to buy the bottles for your wine, but providing you don’t break a lot of bottles this is mostly a one-time purchase of $0.75 per bottle. We make 2 batches (52 bottles) at a time, so we had to buy 52 bottles at a cost of $39. In all honesty, we haven’t broken a bottle yet, so we haven’t replaced the bottles we have. Other than that, the only other price you pay is around $2.00 for enough corks for our 2 batches. Overall, the price for a batch of wine will vary depending on the type you will be making and this reflects the price difference in the juices. Over time I have found that a bottle of wine comes out to about $3.50 - $4.00. Considering that the cheapest wine we can get at the LCBO is $7 (and is, frankly, awful), wine drinkers may see a savings of 50% from their first batch.


Before and after being filled

Although I do enjoy most of the wines while they are still young, I do realize that many people are used to having their wines age for a little longer. Nick and I have often discussed staggering our wine purchases so that we can let the wines sit for another few months, although in practice we never have managed it. If you have the time, space, and inclination, the best way to go about making wine to age is to calculate how much you drink over the period of a month and then calculate how long you would like to age the wines. So if you drank a batch a month and you prefer to age your wines for a year, you would need to put one batch away every month to keep up with your demand a year from now. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of storage space so we have yet to try this.


Nick corking our wine

If you are an avid wine drinker, seeking out a winemaking business that has the equipment on the premises is an inexpensive, low-hassle way to get wine. I figure that we spend about 1 hour of time buying the juice, throwing in the yeast and then coming back a month later to bottle and label our wine. If that isn’t enough to convince you, consider these points as well:


1 – You are supporting a local small business in your area
2 – You are refilling the same bottles, saving them from having to be recycled or worse, thrown in the garbage
3 – You are spending less hours of your life driving to the liquor store (or wherever you buy alcohol), choosing & then standing in line to buy wine


Need I say more? Making your own wine takes very little time, effort or money and provides you with a superior product at a fraction of the cost. Nick and I have been part of the Wine Garden for about 2 years now and we still cannot say enough great things about the quality of the product or the level of customer service. If you are in the Ottawa area, check out one of the 4 Wine Garden stores in the area. For those of you around the country or around the world, a quick google search of wine making suppliers in your area should turn up some resources in your own community.


Happy brewing!



Home sweet home


The Wine Garden
1000 Somerset street W, Ottawa, Ontario (613) 230-0722
1818 Bank Street, Ottawa, Ontario (613) 737-6767
3710 Richmond, Ottawa, Ontario (613) 820-7459
2882 St Joseph blvd, Orleans, Ontario (613) 834-2586

Article about the Wine Exchange

Other brewing links
- WineMaker magazine
- Making wine and beer
- So you wanna make your own beer
- Fermentations: wine and beer making in Toronto