Homemade Cleaning Products

We have had several busy days here at our little homestead.  The holiday season is right around the corner and both of my girls are expecting little ones.  McKenna, pictured below, is due in the next month or so.

This was taken this past Saturday, hard to believe she is 33 weeks in this picture!

We have been busy washing new little human clothes, putting baby beds together and cleaning the last of the clutter out of 'Coopers' soon to be room.  This past weekend I was talking with a friend of McKenna's, about using coupons and living a frugal, self sufficient life.  She and her new husband have just purchased their first home and are discovering how expensive running a home can be.  I gave her a few tips on how she could cut her budget by  meal planning, couponing, and doing things such as  by making her own cleaning products.  That evening I had her make her very first batch of homemade laundry soap.  She and her husband were so surprised to see how easy and inexpensive it was!


Here are a few recipes for cleaning products that can be made with basic ingredients most of us have on hand.

Laundry Detergent

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 2 cups of Borax

• 2 cups Arm & Hammer Washing Soda

• 1 bar of laundry soap 

 Instructions:
Grate laundry soap, mix Borax and Washing Soda all together.  Use 2 tbsp. per load.  Please note that this recipe will not foam or suds up.

Fabric Softener
 

Soften your clothes without harsh chemicals with this simple alternative. The vinegar will also help to reduce laundry detergent residue on your clothes, a bonus for members of your household with sensitive skin. 

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 1 cup white vinegar

Instructions: Pour vinegar into the laundry rinse cycle (or the fabric softener compartment, if your washing machine has one).

All Purpose Cleaner 

Use this to clean, disinfect, and deodorize a variety of surfaces. Use it to wipe down kitchen and bathroom countertops, stovetops, appliances, and more.

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 1 cup vinegar
• 1 cup water
• spray bottle

Creamy Scrub "a.k.a. soft scrub"

Instructions: Mix vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Spray onto surfaces and wipe with a cloth or sponge. Caution: Improperly diluted vinegar can harm certain surfaces. Always test first in a small area if you're unsure.
 

Use in place of commercial creamy scrubs to clean stained and dirtied surfaces.

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 1½ cup baking soda
• ½ cup water
• bowl or jar

Instructions: Mix baking soda and water in the jar (or bowl) to create a paste. Spread paste over surface, and wipe with sponge.

For stubborn stains, let paste stand for 15 minutes before sponging off.
 

Soften your clothes without harsh chemicals with this simple alternative. The vinegar will also help to reduce laundry detergent residue on your clothes, a bonus for members of your household with sensitive skin.

Furniture Polish Recipe

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• spray bottle

Instructions: Shake well and apply a small amount to a flannel cleaning rag or cleaning cloth. Spread evenly over furniture surface. Turn cloth to a dry side and polish dry.

Strong Glass Cleaner Recipe

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 1 cup rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon clear, non-sudsing ammonia
• Spray bottle
• Recycled newspaper to wipe the glass (works better than any paper towel)

Homemade Glass Cleaner

Ingredients & Supplies:

• 1 cup rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• Spray bottle
• Recycled newspaper to wipe the glass (works better than any paper towel)

Granted, it's an admittedly small step in the right direction, but with the state of world affairs over the last several years, anything and everything helps!

Frugal Kung Fu Part 1

Many of us live paycheck to paycheck, but even if we get a raise or a promotion, it's all too often that as we make more money, our living styles and expenses seem to increase at the same rate.  Let's call it life inflation.  Unfortunately, sometimes things go the other way, and these days that's the case for most average people.  That the middle class is shrinking is really just another way of saying that most people are either making less money or haven't increased their earnings fast enough to keep up with the inflation of goods, services, food and energy, and are thus experiencing a decline in their standard of living.

  

            If you find yourself in either of these situations, either you're earning more but seem to still be barely getting by, or the cost of living is out-pacing your income, you've come to the right place.  Today we're going to share with you quite a bit of information that will provide you so many ways to cut costs you're bound to take up at least a few of them.  Let me say first that there is a plethora of "10 ways to save money" type of articles out there.  We've read more of them than we can count, and what we've found in nearly every case is that either the tips aren't relevant (diversify your portfolio and check the yield on your bonds, lol!) or it's something we're already doing.  What we've also found is that the things we do every day to save money that have a real, noticeable impact are entirely missing from these articles.  If you want to start reducing the cost of your daily subsistence in substantial ways, prepare to be amazed (ok fine, mildly impressed) at the things you could be doing that you're probably not.
 
            In this new series, we’ll show you frugal ways to save money without significantly changing your lifestyle.  These aren’t just fanciful ideas, these are things we actually do here in our home every day that keep the wheel spinning for us.  


Frugal Kung-Fu Tip #1:  Couponing

Maybe you’ve seen these ‘extreme couponing’ shows that have come out lately.  We’ve actually never seen any of them (you’ll learn why later).  Maybe you clip the occasional coupon now and again.  However, if you’re not an extreme couponer, you should be.  We regularly go to the grocery store, fill out basket with $150 worth of food, and walk out having paid less than $30.  Sometimes we pop in for a little haul and walk out with $50 or $60 worth of items and pay only $9 for everything.  It’s nice to get 25% off here and there, but when you start being able to get things you need in large quantities and approach an average discount of 80% or more, that’s when it gets good and you’re really start getting ahead.  

An actual receipt from a recent trip to Publix

 Most people imagine that to do this you have to spend hours and hours cutting coupons and figuring out deals and such.  This is absolutely not true.  Melissa spends no more than one hour a week dealing with her coupons, many times it’s more like 30 minutes.

Well here’s how it’s done:  start by visiting websites specializing in extreme couponing.  They have an entire team of people who stay abreast of every sale and every deal going on at every major grocery store.  They also figure out and organize how to put the deals together so they build on each other.  They'll show you exactly what items are on sale and exactly how much each item is going to cost you.  They'll also tell you exactly where to find the coupons necessary to put a given deal together.  If you tried to do all that yourself it certainly would take hours and hours.  These sites do nearly all the work for you.  All you have to do is review their listings, decide which items you want to purchase, and gather the coupons you need for those items.  All the coupons come either from the Sunday paper or are printed from the internet.  Gathering them will be the only time you’ll spend, which is why it will take an hour or less once you know what you’re doing.

Now, let me say, there is a slight learning curve in as much as different stores have different coupon policies.  All you do about that is go to each store's website and you’ll be able to review their corporate coupon policy.  Sometimes it's worth it to have the policy printed out and with you when you hit places like Walgreens and CVS.  You’ll understand the reason for this pretty quickly.  You see, when you walk up to the counter at some of these drug stores and they ring everything up and the total comes to say, $50 or so, then you run all your coupons and it ends up being discounted to $4 the cashier is going to be confused and figure something must not be right.  More than once they’ve called the manager over to review the transaction and believe it or not, the cashiers and managers will sometimes actually resent you for getting so much for so little.  They may even act like they earn on commission or something and try to tell you you’re not allowed to do what you’re doing.  That’s when you show them their corporate coupon policy and make them understand that yes, you are allowed to do exactly what you’re doing.  On the few occasions this has happened to us this has cleared everything up and to this day we’ve never been refused or denied our purchase. 

          By extreme couponing, not only will you save huge amounts of money, you'll end up with large numbers of things you have to have.  We have a large container with probably 50 name brand razors that in most cases were free or close to it.  We have 20-30 each of toothpaste, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, etc., and all of it was either free or cost something like 50 cents each.  This is stuff everyone uses that’s not going to ‘go bad’ because it sits there for a couple months before you get around to using it because you have so much of it.  Stockpiling is a Good Thing!  If you’re not extreme couponing, you’re missing out.  Period.


Sidenote:  If you want all your questions answered and receive a more thorough step-by-step walkthrough of exactly how things are done, we have a class scheduled for this Saturday, November 12, but only one person has registered to attend.  If you're interested and want to learn from a pro, either leave a comment or send Melissa an email.  If we can gauge people's interest we may schedule another class in the future.

Help Yourself Help Others

Around here we tend to stick to a very tight budget.  It’s the only way to keep the freezer filled and the lights on.  Racey was talking to a friend of ours at the market recently, and he made the comment that our little house of cards is dependent on all the little tips and tricks we currently use and if we stopped doing just one thing the house would fall.  To some people that would be too scary and they would chose a different path.  For us it’s the only way of living we've found that makes us happy and still keeps things going.  Now, if anyone reading this feels so inclined to give us a million dollars, we would be glad to change a few things.  But, left to ourselves, this is the plan that gives us the most successful results.

Like all plans, ours needs to be re-evaluated and adjusted from time to time when life circumstances change.  Case in point, we have just acquired two additional mouths to feed with a 3^rd on the way and due here in early January.  One is working full-time and the other lost their job so things are tight all the way around and getting tighter. 


Our little house of cards was built to feed, clothe, and shelter three people, not six!  So what are we going to do?  Well since we are ‘preppers’, we have a surplus of canned food and dry goods that will ease the added food budget crunch.  We converted our bulk storage pantry (which was our loft) into a bedroom and we're in the process of finding a new home for all our supplies.  The shelves in the picture below were put up this summer to hold all the fruit and veg we canned.  Now they hold pictures.... this was not in the plan but I'm glad they are here and can be used in this time of need.

We will be stretching the meat order that much further, and the fresh produce we get from the market has become even more valuable to the household budget. 

 I already coupon all our toiletries, personal care items, and  food products that I can’t make myself, but I'll need to be a little more aggressive at it.  We've built up such a surplus in the last year I was starting to get a little lazy.

This is a good example of why Racey and I go to all the trouble to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.  We are not doom & gloom, apocalyptic, anti-government type people.  We're ordinary folks, just like you, that have other people who, in times of crisis, turn to us for help.  Life’s unexpected changes can happen to anyone at anytime.  We need to be prepared to weather the storm and come out on top. This is not easy for any of us, but it is doable. If something similar happened in your household would you be able to help? 


I encourage you to assess your situation and see if there are areas you could build up in order to be better able to assist family or others in times of trouble.

Where is all our money going?

How do you know when something is a good deal?  Do you wait for the store to put it on sale?  Do you compare brands, prices, quantity, even different stores?  Or do you just buy what you need and hope the money last till the next pay day?  Several women I know have taken the time to put together a price journal of the items they purchase on a regular basis.  This is a working journal that changes depending on your ability to source better deals, sales and inflation.  We started keeping track of our items in February of this year. Each time I return from the store I save the receipt to log the price I paid for the item in my journal.  This helps me see what is going up and what is going down.  If something is increasing then that is an item I began to actively source somewhere else.  It also becomes an item that I keep my eye open for coupons for and sales of that item.  Sometimes I've already found the lowest price in which case I use coupons and sales to get it for a lower cost, but sometimes the price is just increasing overall. 

See Honey! I'm saving us money by buying in bulk!

Have you ever asked yourself "where is all our money going?"  You know there are no new big ticket items sitting around the house, you haven't gotten a new wardrobe lately, and, heck, you can't even remember the last time you splurged on something other than the really cushy toilet paper!  You are working the same hours, maybe even more, but still you are coming up short.  When you keep a price journal it's easy to see if the culprit is price inflation.  This information is helpful when planning or adjusting your budget.  If you see that your grocery bill has risen 15% in the last six months then you know some other expense is going to have to reduce in order to maintain the same budget. 

In our journey many things have gotten the boot.  We've disconnected our cable television, ditched our cell phones, and severely limited fast food.  These things aren't bad or evil, we simply can't afford them.  Ask yourself... Who are you trying to impress?  I honestly can't say I miss these things... they were just something I was accustomed to.  I grew up on fast food and convenience.  My mom was a young, single mom who worked a full-time job at minimum wage until she was able to move forward a little.  There was literally no time to do anything for herself.  We cleaned our own house, and Saturday was the day it was cleaned from top to bottom with no exceptions.  Quite simply, we were broke.  We ate cheap food, wore used or discounted clothes, and my mom worked her butt off just to keep things going, but somehow she did.

Maybe you're in this situation.  Maybe you're fortunate enough to have a good education and a supportive spouse. Whatever your circumstances are, keeping track of your expenditures is the only way to move forward.  That way you'll know where you stand and how you can continue to move forward.