DIY-Formulas, Garden Tips,Solar Batch Heater, More

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin
Your choice for urban survival resources
http://www.PoorManSurvival.com


In This Issue:

1. How to get things done around the homestead
2. A simpler, fairer tax system-47 Ways-Immature stuff…
3. DIY Garden Tips & Formulas, Prepper survival garden
4. DIY Solar batch heater
5. A nationwide garage sale in Australia
6. Cut your electric bill by comparison shopping


Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it."
-- Mark Twain



Odds are you did not win…but you might in the next round!
Do you have an interesting story to share?

Jim of AZ was our grand prize winner and Jason of MI took second place in our Suggestion Box promotion. Also, Dave R of Cleveland, OH gets a DVD for his wonderful sharing of our newsletter and website. These fellows won because of the content and other suggestions they have consistently made during the past few months.

Apparently, there was little interest among you for the un-circulated Silver Eagle ounce of silver, now going for more than $40 on eBay and elsewhere.

It’s a bit of challenge knowing what content to include in each issue. We’ve tried including recipes, household pet coupons and DIY vet care tips, bootstrap business ideas, a wide range of freebies and more…but without feedback, we haven’t a clue of other subjects we should cover.

Not to fret. Round two begins with this issue. The other prizes we have, including DVDs and a mini-bugout kit will continue to be given out while supplies last. NEW prizes include a new Ronco Pocket Fisherman, a pair of Emerson 7X50 binoculars with UV Optics, accessory kit and carrying pouch and a 35 PC First Aid pouch with carrying case.

Do you have an interesting story to share? Perhaps an unusual experience in becoming more self-reliant, a sideline or fulltime business that would interest other readers, an experience with livestock or farming, a particular government gripe or run-in with the law in which you triumphed…we’d like to profile such experiences. Send them to the same email address below. If we use your piece, you’ll be in the running for the next award.

For details (pay attention new subscribers) go to:
http://poormansurvival.com/SuggestionBox.aspx

The Poor Man will hold its Suggestion Box program each month, lasting 30 days…so share your ideas, content, resources and more with us by sending them to:
Poormansurvivor@yahoo.com -- In the subject line, place the word ‘Suggestion.’

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Have a sinkful of dirty dishes and no dish detergent, use shampoo (make sure it’s the non-conditioning kind) to clean them. If you have oily hair and use shampoo specifically formulated for it, all the better. It will cut right through the oily pots and pans and greasy dishes.


Many freshly picked foods begin to lose vitamins immediately upon harvesting. Nearly half the vitamins may be lost within a few days unless some measure is taken to cool or preserve the vegetables. Within one to two weeks, even refrigerated foods have lost half their vitamin content.
Some fresh foods have less vitamins and nutrients available than do canned foods in fact. For example, canned tomatoes are higher in lycopene (an antioxidant) than their fresh counterparts. Because protein is not lost during the canning process, meats and vegetables high in protein remain so after canning.

Here are some low-cost DIY things you can do for your garden:

>Cure tomato blossom rot. Calcium is the cure. Crush two Tums tablets per plant and add to the plant whenever you water it.

>For perkier annuals, bulbs & perennials. Mix 1 cup of sugar, 3 cups bone meal and 1 cup of Epsom salts in a bucket. Sprinkle a pinch into the bottom of each hole as you plant them.

>Use leftover liquid-free fertilizer. Save your bathwater, water you boil vegetables and potatoes in, leftover beer, juice, coffee, wine or milk, water from when you change your fish tank…feed those liquids to your plants and vegetables.

>Use these common ingredients to jump start your compost pile. Mix flat beer and cola and sprinkle it over your compost periodically. It will accelerate the process.
Prepper Survival Gardening video you’ll find interesting-Living History School
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIdzmIn79UE&feature=player_embedded

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How to get things done (around the homestead, not Washington)
Quite frankly, most people need help figuring out how to get things done. That’s where Hipp’s Help comes in. On this website, you’ll find the information you’ll need to do what you need to do. Hipp’s Help includes tutorials on home improvement, basic and intermediate gardening, cooking and other topics to help you live life
http://www.hippshelp.com/

Cut your electric bill
Research your area to find competing utilities. Prices can vary by 20%. Check:
www.WhiteFence.com

DIY Project - The solar batch heater is made with a steel drum.
Since a standard 55-gallon drum cannot withstand city
water pressure, but some pressure is needed to push
water through the system, gravity flow is often used.
This involves a second 55-gallon drum, filled with cold
water and elevated above the batch heater drum. Gravity
provides enough pressure to move water from the
elevated drum (cold-water source) to the batch heater
drum and finally to the hot water faucet in a sink,
shower or other outlet….

Materials Needed
55-gallon drum (Be sure the drum has not contained any toxic materials.)
Flat-black paint (made to adhere to metal surfaces)
75 (approx.) concrete blocks for frame
Foil-faced insulation, 2 - 4 ft. x 8 ft. sheets (Do notuse polystyrene sheets -- they will melt. Use Thermax, Rmax or another isocyanurate insulation.)
Reinforced garden hose or automotive heater hose, 3 sections (1/2-in. inside diameter)
Hose clamps, 3
3/4-inch fitting, copper or CPVC (3/4-in. thread x 1/2-in. sweat x 1/2-in. sweatPipe, copper or CPVC
Pipe, copper or CPVC (1 ft., 1/2-in. outside diameter)
http://diysolarhotwaterheater.com/


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Useful & Interesting News

Make a little extra scratch by signing up to provide your tips. Multi-category, no fee to sign up and create an account. Example:
Start a new gratitude box tradition
Take a shoe box and let your kids decorate it. Use lots of glitter, stickers, etc. Cut a hole in the top. Then, whenever you (or the kids) see someone doing something that you are grateful for write it down and put it in the box. At Thanksgiving read all of the notes. It makes for a really neat way to celebrate Thanksgiving!
http://www.daytipper.com/Default.aspx


In exchange for mortgage payments, consumers' homes painted with ads
If consumers are willing to accept advertising on their cars, in their personal lives and on their social web pages, then why not their homes as well? That, indeed, is essentially the premise behind a new initiative from California-based mobile ad startup Adzookie, which just this week launched an effort to turn homes into giant advertising billboards

National garage sale encourages community spirit
Nice idea from the ‘Down Under’
Following on from the first event, set up last year in Bondi by Darryl Nichols, this year’s sale has already seen over 1500 sellers sign up across Australia. Listing a sale on the site is free, with the location and description of each registered sale appearing on the Trail's map and in local newspapers. Participants are encouraged to come up with unique and kooky titles for their sales as part of the sense of fun and community spirit the day hopes to foster, and the Garage Sale Trail website also offers these vendors tips — including advice on how to "keep your sale green". Members of the public taking part in this year's event will also be able to use the Trail's smart phone app, which lists the registered garage sales and can direct buyers towards them with voice-guided navigation.

Iceland Declares Independence from International Banks
It would be nice to see Americans exercise the same fierce independence!
Iceland is free. And it will remain so, so long as her people wish to remain autonomous of the foreign domination of her would-be masters — in this case, international bankers.
Read more at NetRightDaily.com: http://netrightdaily.com/2011/04/iceland-declares-independence-from-international-banks/#ixzz1JIpKRP8g

Nearly all revolutions, riots and panics are preceded by major food shortages, high taxes and high unemployment. View the video…
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011/04/collapse-of-america-urban-chaos-food.html

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TIP-got an email for the IRS? Never open it as they never send emails-it’s a scam!

Complex Inferiority
A simpler tax code would be fairer, more efficient, less intrusive, and less infuriating.

How to fix our tax system
The main page of the Poor Man cites the need for a fairer, more simple tax system…one which doesn’t reward so many of the Fortune 1000. Here are few more ideas.

Keep it short. The Baltic countries are a great example of this-- the entire Estonian tax code is about 70 pages, roughly 1/1000th the size of the US tax code (which is still prone to so much interpretation). It takes about 15 minutes to fill out an Estonian return, and you can do it online.

Simplify it. When you have a tax code that's so complex it has given rise to a multi-billion dollar preparation industry, you have a problem. There are dozens of different forms at the IRS, and over 20 versions for the 1099 alone! This is a system that is prone to massive error and frustration.

Hong Kong is a great example of a simple system. Taxes are levied at a flat rate of 15% based on the "territorial principal" that only income derived from Hong Kong is taxed. There is no capital gains tax, no VAT, no estate tax, etc. And yet, the biggest problem the Hong Kong government faces regarding taxes is how to give away their massive surplus.

Keep it low. When you make it easy and painless for people to pay taxes, it removes most of the incentives for them to cheat. In Singapore, tax rates are among the lowest in the world with a maximum rate of 20%. The capital gains rate is zero. The corporate rate varies from 0% to 17%.

The federal tax code, which in 1913 could be published as a single 400-page book, today occupies some 72,000 pages. In the last 10 years alone, reports National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson (your designated friend at the IRS), "there have been approximately 4,428 changes to the tax code." The instructions for filling out Form 1040, which took up two pages 75 years ago, are 179 pages long this year. Compiled from various sources.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/04/13/complex-inferiority

WARNING: Immature Subject Matter. Viewer discretion is advised.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/14/47-ways-to-say-irs-what-do-tho

The problem in the US-too many special interests who buy political favor! The odds of a simpler tax system happening in my lifetime - probably zero.

Newly planted trees require frequent watering. Perforate small used pails at the bottom and set by each tree and fill with water. Water will trickle out slowly and soak into the soil.

Parting thought-a concern from a reader>>restoring our country-Part II

Swarms of government locusts have consumed the nation

Q. I find your newsletter and site loaded with much needed information. Government agencies and bureaucrats at all levels have overwhelmed America with laws which have undermined the rights of the people. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are becoming a distant memory. How would you restore the country? --Frightened Mom

A. It will be tough. Our country may already be too far gone. It took politicians (of both parties) about 30 years to bankrupt our nation, strangle its people in red tape, destroy jobs and small business. The bureaucrats have too much authority to create rules, regulations and fines which have decimated our country. They’re the swarms of cancerous locusts which have choked the land. People have begun to awaken to these facts and few are happy with our political system, which is in danger of becoming a socialist state.

I do not ever advocate a violent overthrow of the government (it may come to that of its own accord). Here are some suggestions:

>Get involved. Join the Tea Party, support foundations which fight government abuse, write letters to your representatives, newspapers, meet with likeminded groups and work together, stage recalls of local politicians who are anti-citizen, file court challenges, withdraw financial support of government wherever possible.

>Stop supporting anti-citizen corporations. Corporations, such as GE (government electric) pay no taxes, ship US jobs overseas and buy off a lot of politicians using the record profits they make using sweatshop labor. Washington policies encourage this.

>Become more selective in your TV viewing. Most network television is crap and so are their nightly newscasts. Honestly, how many more “reality” shows can our nation stomach as a diversion to the corruption of our nation? I get more real news from the BBC than from the major networks in this country. When is the last time any of them created a hard hitting documentary? Programs such as Dateline, have become canned ‘murder mysteries’ of the week. Since John Stossel left 20/20, the show has become anemic. Occasionally, 60 Minutes will live up to what made it famous.

>Become more self sufficient. Become self employed, learn homesteading skills, get off-the-grid, share newsletters and websites such as ours with others.

Watch this video by Gerald Celente, famed trend watcher to get more answers.
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2011/04/gerald-celente-we-dont-have.html

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