Dehydrating food with free solar energy

If you come up with too much food, whether it's cooked or fresh, fruit or vegetable, the chances are that you can dehydrate it for future use. If you have a vehicle, place food (check to see if it needs pretreatment first) on trays or food safe screens (screens with cloth placed over them are fine) and set them inside a vehicle parked in the sun. Open a couple of windows an inch or so. Or set trays directly in the sun and cover them with loosely woven cloth to keep insects off of them. Sun drying takes a little longer, but it's a lot cheaper (as in free)!

Free hot water

A barrel or bucket painted black or other dark color, filled with water and set in the sun (even in the winter) will absorb enough solar rays to heat hot enough to wash dishes, do laundry, or even bathe. It may take a few hours, so keep an eye on it and move it if necessary to keep it in the sunshine. Alternatively, stretch a long hose across a sunny lawn (even on a warm winter day as long as you keep it up out of snow) will heat water in a few hours.