Laundry...

It never ends :)

Once I get caught up it seems like things are back at the beginning again. I've been going back and forth trying to find an affordable environmental friendly laundry detergent and haven't had much luck until recently.

After ordering my new cloth diapers I knew I needed a special detergent (I messed up my last set of cloth diapers by using a not so great detergent). The Bungenius detergent seemed expensive so I ended up ordering some Charlie's Soap online.

I love it!!

It has worked wonderfully and we've had no diaper rashes from the cloth diapers as some others have reported. Now I am currently saving up for this.

We do around one load of laundry a day at my house. It seems that is the only way I can stop on top of the laundry here. This pail should last us over 2 1/2 years. That's around $44 a year for laundry detergent.... or $3.67 a month... :)

This is a great price for environmentally friendly laundry detergent.

For more frugal tips visit Lifeasmom!

Cleaning out the pantry

If you read my menu for the week you might remember that I mentioned the recent storm we had required that we stock up on certain foods like bread and milk and we decided to use our grocery budget for it.

If you know me personally you know I'm extremely frugal so our grocery budget is already really low anyway. While we could have chosen to spend more and expand our budget for the week we chose not to and figured out a way to make our budget work...

We organized our pantry :) One day last week I organized our pantry and while organizing I found enough food to last throughout the entire month! I found lots of things that we had on hand and took what was left over and bought a few little things to make those into complete meals as well.

Cleaning our pantry I noticed some food close to expiration that needed to be used up as well as many things I had forgotten we had. Now that everything is organized I hope to be able to keep it this way *crosses fingers*!

For more frugal tips visit LifeAsMom.

Saving money on bottled water

In our quest to be frugal I know that we have all heard that tap water is cheaper than bottled water. And it is. But there comes a problem.

Before work I would fill up my reusable water bottle to take with me to lunch, but by 8:00 I had drank my water leaving me to buy a bottle of water for lunch. Not very frugal. And I can't take multi water bottle to work. I got to thinking and came up with a solution.

On Monday mornings I fill up a pitcher with water. This goes to work with me and stays in the workroom frig. Whenever my reusable water bottle needs to be filled I have my water pitcher there saving me from having to buy a bottle.

For more frugal tips visit LifeAsMom.

If your coming from Life As Mom, I didn't realize it was financial goal week so you get a frugal tip :)

Let me explain...

When revisiting my goals from last year I mentioned that I was no longer using my reusable bags when shopping as the plastic bags had now become our main source of trash bags.

(FYI... I hate using plastic bags as trash bags for the mere fact that they are horrible for the environment, but trash bags are also horrible for the environment right? And if I'm going to use something horrible for the environment it might as well be free... just saying)

When we moved into our new house we had a small cabinet near the kitchen sick which didn't have alot of options as far as how it could be used. We had originally decided to store baking sheets vertically there, but as I was unpacking I had a great idea :) It was just the right size for a small bathroom trashcan. And small bathroom trashcans are just the right size for the plastic bags you get when grocery shopping.

So in my kitchen we have both a small trashcan and a traditional somewhat larger trashcan. We use the larger trashcan for larger things and the smaller trashcan for the majority of our trash. With our garbage can being right out side the kitchen door it works really nicely to use a small bag and immediately take it outside when it is full. This has helped tremendously with the number of garbage bags I have had to buy lately and therefore helping on the road to save money :)

For more frugal tips visit Lifeasmom.

Homemade Christmas Ornaments

Ever wonder what to do with all of those wonderful art and crafts your children do? How about the beautiful pictures that they color in Sunday School?

One quick and easy way to preserve them forever would be to make them into Christmas ornaments.

To make an ornament take a picture that they have recently colored (make sure to write the date on it) and laminate it. Then hole punch a hole in the top and lace with ribbon and viola! There you have a homemade ornament of your little one's artwork!

Not only will it be a nice trip down memory lane when setting up your Christmas tree, but they look great in the bows on top of presents for grandparents!

For more great tips visit We are that family.

Saving some money!

I read a great post over at Money Saving Mom today. Who is money saving mom you might ask? Only one of the best money saving resources ever!

Money Saving Mom is written by a mom named Crystal who is constant giving money saving tips and ideas. As a matter of fact Crystal and her husband are so committed to being debt free that they saved up 100% of a mortgage. That's right folks! They saved up for a house and God provided them a way to be mortgage free :)

I came across an article here about the things that this family does in order to stay debt free. After reading her article it made me stop and think about all the things that my family and I currently do in order to save money.

So in no particular order.....

1. Make our own soap

2. No Paper towels

3. Cloth diapering (this one will be started up again as soon as we find some new ones we like)

4. Keep our air set around 85 in the summer

5. Keep our heat set on 65 in the winter

6. Use the cash systems for our groceries

7. Use a weekly menu plan

8. Grocery shop using a list

9. Shop consignment sales

10. Replaced our dryer sheets with tennis balls

11. Wash clothes in cold water (except for the cloth diapers)

12. There are also some more things that I do to save money but they border on the crazy side so I'm not going to list them for now :)

I realize that we do alot of things to save money, but there are some more things we could be doing

1. No more candy bars and soft drink snacks

2. Eat out less

3. Eat less meat

4. Fans only instead of AC

5. No cable

6. Line dry clothes

All in all we do pretty well, but could always do better :)

My first freezer meal :)

I saw a wonderful recipe here on Heavenly Homemakers: Meat and Cheese Burritos!

I thought that my family would really enjoy this and most of the ingredients were on sale this week at the grocery store.

I had no meat thawed, but did have some breakfast sausage. I used the sausage and made a nice breakfast burrito if I do say so myself. This was really good and right now I have 6 in the freezer for a quick breakfast or dinner :)

Whoo - Hoo to my first freezer meal!!

Kitty Litter Part 1

I love saving money! I understand that most people like saving money, but what makes me different from everyone is that I will go to some extreme limits to save money. My husband (as well as most of my family and most of my friends) thinks that I am a bit crazy in my money saving ideas, but I think that I'm being a good steward of what God has given me :) Let's take the kitty litter for example....

One of my goals this year was to make my own kitty litter. When my husband got our cat last month from our local humane society he had a coupon so he went and got some kitty litter. My goal was never to have to buy more when that ran out. At the humane society the cats are kept in cages lined with newspaper and a handful of shredded paper in the corner of the cage. At this point my cat was use to using shredded paper, why would I want to change this? Because I wasn't use to a newspaper filled litter box!

I started the journey by putting a small layer of litter in the bottom of the pan and then using shredded newspaper on top of the litter. This went beautifully and I almost thought about stopping my journey here. I pressed on however and for the last week I have been using no store bought litter whatsoever. The key to making this work: changing the litter every night (or sometimes more)!

Every night I line the pan with layers of newspaper and place the shredded paper on top. Sometimes this will last until the next night, sometimes I change the litter box the next morning: either way I'm saving some money.

Again, my husband thinks that I'm crazy (not to mention gross) to make my own kitty litter and you very well may think this too, but I'm ok with people thinking this. I'm a little bit of a better steward for it :)

Tennis Balls?

A few years back when my husband and I became serious about getting out of debt we looked at where we cut expenses and would put that money towards our current debt. As silly as is sounds we decided to cut dryer sheets out of our budget forever. Silly right? But if you think about how much money these costs you realize that this is an example of how nickels and dimes really add up.

Let's say you spend $3 a month when you buy a box of dryer sheets. Over the course of a year that is $36 we could put towards paying down our debt. That's without doing anything different! It's like a free $36, and who couldn't use that!

To begin life with out fabric softener with we started using white vinegar in the rinse cycle of the washing machine. This left our clothes just as soft as if we had been using dryer sheets. After a few months of buying vinegar I realized I wasn't saving to much so step 2 in the journey was to replace the vinegar with tennis balls in the dryer. Yes you heard right, we use tennis balls in the dryer.

What a wonderful solution this was. No more spending money on dryer sheets and we still get super soft clothes at the same time :)

P.S. I read about tennis from an online blog, but can't remember which one. If it was you I am truly sorry about not being able to give you credit. Email me and I will be sure to give credit to you!

P.P.S. For more info about the things (chemicals) found in dryer sheets go here.

For more Works For Me Wednesday hop on over here to We are that Family

Goals for 2010

I've been giving lots of thought to my 2010 goals and what better way to hold myself accountable than to share them with everyone :)

Here goes....

My goals for 2010

1. Complete The Bible in 90 Days study with the ladies over at momstoolbox. Never reading the Bible in it's entirety is something that I am not proud of. God's word is our most powerful weapon against the enemy and we can't use it effectively if we've never read it. I can't wait to start this journey.

2. Use reusable bags when shopping. I bought some cloth holiday bags (made from recycled material) the other day which will make the perfect reusable bags for the grocery store. I bought 3 different colors so I can have different bags for cleaning supplies, dry goods, and cold stuff.

3. Make my own kitty litter. We got a cat in December. My little girl loves her, I hate having to spend money on kitty litter if I don't have to. This year I would like to save some money by learning to make my own instead of buying some. Not only will this be better for my pocketbook, but the environment as well.

4. Become better with my cash system. There are many places you can turn to to work towards becoming debt free. Two of my favorite are Dave Ramsey and Crown Financial Ministry. I have gone through Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover and enjoy listening to Crown Financial Ministry through my local radio station. Both emphasis the importance of spending cash for purchases. My husband and I started becoming serious about spending cash a few months ago and have really seen a differences in our finances. My goal is to develop a cash system for more than just groceries and cleaning supplies.

For more 2010 goals checkout thehappyhousewife.