feeling frugal

I just made some homemade laundry detergent using grated ivory soap, borax, washing soda, and baking soda. I wanted some detergent that has no dyes or perfumes for the baby’s diapers, but laundry detergent is really expensive, and for some reason the less stuff they put in it, the more expensive it is.  ???  Also, the Dreft brand “baby” detergent they sell is not only ridiculously expensive, but also has perfume in it!  It might have dye too, I’m not sure.  Two completely unnecessary ingredients that many people find irritates their skin.

I’ve been wanting to try making this for a while and finally got around to it.  When I run out of regular detergent I will use this stuff for our clothes too. Well, provided that it works -I haven’t tried it yet. But the recipe has good reviews.

It’s so cheap: I just made a gallon ice cream bucket full of it for about $4, and you’re only supposed to use 1/8 cup per full load, so this batch I made is 72 loads. That is about $0.06 per load.
Compare that to Tide powdered detergent at about $0.25 per load, or All liquid detergent at about $0.20 per load, or Dreft liquid detergent at about $0.30 per load.

It doesn’t seem like much when we’re just comparing pennies but when you compare the price of 72 loads worth, it’s really obvious how much cheaper it is:

homemade: $4.32
Tide: $18.00
All: $14.40
Dreft: $21.60

So, if you use homemade detergent instead of Tide, for example, and you do two loads of laundry every week, you will be saving about $20 in a year!

lol, maybe that’s not really that much, but I think it’s cool.  And I have always been kind of annoyed whenever I’ve had to buy laundry detergent because if you look at the recipt it is like four times as expensive as most of the other grocery items you bought, so it seems really expensive.

This is the recipe:

3 c borax (found at Walmart or Dillon’s in the detergent aisle)
2 c washing soda (the only place I found it was Dillon’s detergent aisle)
2 c baking soda
2 c grated bar soap (two bars of Ivory soap)

Technically it has perfume in it from the Ivory soap.  Next time I think I might try Fells-Naptha bar soap.  It is supposed to be good for laundry.  Also, if you make this detergent, use a food processor thing to grate the soap.  It is really easy and fast!

The other frugal thing I did today was make some cloth baby wipes.  I figured if I’m going to do cloth diapers I might as well do cloth wipes too, and just throw them in the diaper pail with the diapers.  I cut out wipe-sized squares from a couple white t-shirts (knit fabric so I didn’t have to hem the edges).  As soon as I buy a little squirt bottle I will make the soap part (water, castile soap, and tea tree oil) to squirt onto the wipes when they are used.  Or you can just use water from the sink, but I like the idea of having a squirt bottle handy.

Other news:

Samuel spent aproximately 10,000,000 hours stooping over some pieces of wood and some nasty chemicals so he could strip, sand, stain, and varnish a headboard and footboard for (me) our bed.  The headboard and footboard look FANTASTIC, just like I wanted, but when we put the bed together, the side rails were too short for our mattress by about three inches!!!!!!  Boy, I am surprised one or both of us did not have a nervous breakdown.  I felt so bad for Samuel, who really, truly hated the project (the bed has those fiddly little turned spindles on it, which were ridiculously hard to strip and sand) and I know he was really worried that I was going to break down crying, because this was truly a nesting disaster.  The baby is coming any day now, and my mattress is on the floor, and there are pieces of a bed lying around my house.

So we went to the thrift store, and they had dozens of bed rails, but none that were the right type and length (hook-on rails, 80-82″ long).   But today I did some online research and found some that will cost about $50 including shipping, so I think I will use some birthday money that I got, and buy those.

UNLESS SOMEONE HAPPENS TO HAVE SOME TO GIVE US????

I just thought I’d throw that out there because you never know.

more house changes

New changes!

ground floor

1. I removed the side porch and deck, which allowed me to remove the door on the west side of the house.  Then I was able to make a semi-closed office area.  I’m thinking I will have a short bookshelf behind the couch, with a see-through bookcase on top of that, so the office is separate but not totally closed off.

2. I removed the bar w/chairs and used the extra space to make the entryway a little bigger.  It was kind of tight.  There is still a small ledge where the bar was to have a place to put food or something.

3. I made the front porch bigger.

4. I removed the shower in the bathroom and replaced it with a pantry.  Without a shower, the bathroom won’t need much ventilation, so I removed the window too.  Now the north wall has no windows at all and can be completely underground.

5. With that in mind, I moved the kitchen door over a bit so there wouldn’t be such an abrupt retaining wall from the north side being underground.  Now the ground can slope a little more gently before it stops with a retaining wall right before the door.  I had to sacrifice a window above the sink for this (because now that wall is underground) so I put a cupboard there instead.  I’d like the door to have a window in it so the kitchen gets a little light.

6. I put in a little woodshed next to the garage, so it would be convenient to carry wood through the kitchen door to the masonry stove.

7. I added a kitchen garden between the driveway and house, and a larger garden in the front of the house.  Both of these areas will get lots of sunlight, so I don’t want too many trees here.

8. I put trees on the west side to help cool the house off during summer evenings.

9. I switched around the futon and the fold-out cutting table in the sewing/guest room because it seemed to work better that way.

upper floor

1. Because I took out the deck, I was able to make the closet on the west side really big!  It’s got three sets of small double doors.

2. I took out the bedroom closets and put in wardrobes instead.  Not sure if I will keep it that way or not.

We are making applesauce today because I accidentally bought a bag of very bruised apples a while ago.  We ate the ok ones (actually they were really spectacular apples except for the bruises) but there were several left that were really bad.

We’re going shopping to buy toilet paper today, but I just wanted to brag that Samuel and I have not bought anything (except gas and bills) for the past few weeks.  It helps that we get free milk and eggs and stuff.  There are plenty of things that we want or even need to buy, but we simply cannot, and so we don’t.  Samuel still doesn’t have a job and so we have no money coming in.  We can only spend money on the things we absolutely need right now.  I’m not whining, just saying what our life is like right now.  It is surprisingly not that hard and we have become quite inventive.  Yesterday we made dinner out of ground deer, the last tiny amount of homemade spaghetti sauce that nobody wanted, sour cream, and milk, mixed with macaroni noodles.  It was really good.  Today we’re making applesauce out of those apples.  I’ve never made applesauce before, and in the past probably would have thrown these apples out or made some kind of dessert with them.  We get free cereal, milk, eggs, and juice, so we always have good breakfast food.  We’ve got tons of flour, sugar, rice, beans, potatoes, onions, and some pasta, and we’ve been making our own noodles too (SO GOOD!).  The only thing I miss is fresh fruits and veggies, but WIC supposedly will start giving me those in August thanks to a change in the program.  And we’ve gotten some yummy things from my family’s garden.   We also get peanut butter from WIC.  I will be very happy when we have the money to buy some more things, but we’re definitely very well-off right now as it is.   I plan to try and be more inventive in the future, even when I don’t have to be.  It is very fulfilling.

a cozy spot

This corner looks so inviting.

The rocking chair with the sheepskin is sooo heavenly….

Is it kind of sick that sheepskin makes me love sheep more than I would otherwise?

My dress is put together (and looking rather shapeless without a body in it) so the next thing to do is hem it, add some tucks, and some kind of decoration.

Ridiculously easy ways to go without

ETA update from last post: I have an appointment with the birth center next week!  I am so excited!  I will write a post all about it soon.  Maybe after my appointment.

I was doing some chores today and realized blogging about it might be interesting or useful to some people.

How to not have a clothes dryer

We haven’t been using the coin-op dryer lately, because we don’t have any money.  It’s $1.50 per load and doesn’t even dry things completely.  Some things I’ve learned that make me feel a little more self-righteous -instead of just poor- about not using the dryer include the fact that clothes last longer when they’re air-dried.  Dryers use heat, tumble clothes around,  shrink clothes, and set stains permanently.  All that lint they acquire is the result of clothes slowly being worn thin.  If you own your own dryer, keep in mind that it’s probably the highest electricity-sucker in your house.  It takes a lot to make that much heat and move that much weight around.

So here’s what we do instead:

One load of laundry hung on our shower rod. Ridiculously easy to do. You're going to hang them up anyway. These dry overnight, so make sure no one needs to take a shower before they're dry.

This is the rest of the same load. You can buy these drying racks for a few dollars. It's not really that good for most clothes because it's so small, but socks, small towels, etc. hang really well on it.

Some more tips:

-This only works for one load at a time, unless you have multiple shower rods or other places you can hang stuff.  Therefore, we only do one load of laundry on any given day.  It keeps things from piling up and prevents “Laundry Day” where you spend all day washing clothes.

-If you have tons of clothes, this might not work.  Also, if you put clothes in the hamper when they’re not really dirty yet, this might not work.  There will simply be too many clothes to hang up.  Our example is one load, probably one weeks’ worth of clothes for two people, not including the whites, which we will do another day.

-Ways to dry other things:

-sheets: just put them straight back onto the mattress to dry, and don’t cover them up.  In my experience cotton sheets will take about 5 hours to dry this way.  So make sure you don’t do it right before bedtime.

-towels: hang them on the towel racks.  This will not work if you use a new towel every time you shower, and you shower very often.  Think about it: you’re drying off your freshly cleaned body. The towel isn’t going to get that dirty.  So reuse it and make your life easier.

-of course, the easiest way to dry laundry is to have a nice outdoor clothesline!  A porch or deck railing will also work in a pinch.

How to not have a microwave

Our microwave died a month before we moved, and, almost three months later, we haven’t bought one yet because we have no money.  We recently decided not to buy one at all, ever, because we’ve learned how to live without one and it’s ridiculously easy.  Here are the problems we came across and how we fixed them:

-heating up most leftovers: put them on a plate and heat them up in the toaster oven (This presupposes you have one.  You could use a regular oven, but that might be overkill.  Many things you can heat up on the stove)

-heating up leftover rice: put it in a pot and sprinkle some water over it.  Cover and heat on the stove until it’s steamy.  Seriously, this makes leftover rice almost like new!

-heating up leftover pasta: boil some water and put the pasta in for one minute or so.  Be careful, it gets mushy really fast.  This works best if you mix it in with fresh pasta.  But even by itself it’s fine.

-melting butter, chocolate, etc.: Put it in a baggie and immerse in hot water for several minutes.  Or, melt in a saucepan on the stove.

-defrosting meat: Put it in a baggie and immerse in hot water.  Or, if you’re really on top of things, defrost it in the fridge the day or two before you need it.  I never remember to do that, though.  Unless it’s a whole turkey or roast.  Those are kind of hard to miss.

-making popcorn: Get a popcorn popper.  It’s so worth it, trust me.  Or, you can do it on the stovetop.

-heating up frozen dinners: Sorry, I don’t think this one’s going to work.

success!

I sold my first thing ever on craigslist.com today!  I listed a black futon for $30 at about 11:00 and it was GONE by 3:00!  Unfortunately I didn’t make any money off of it because I was selling it for my brother.  But it still made me happy!  I’m going to try my hand at selling off our furniture right before we move.

But now that I’ve seen how quickly things sell, I wonder if I will ever have any success buying stuff.  I guess we’ll just have to try it and see what happens.

I have obtained several boxes from three different dumpsters without even trying.  So it looks like we won’t have to buy any.  I’ve used up all the small ones for books so now we have lots of big boxes.  I’m not sure what we’ll use them for…. I suppose our record player and printer need to go in something.  Hmm, and our DVDs are lightweight so maybe we can put them all in one big box. And our pots and pans will take up lots of room I suppose.

I really don’t know how we can fill up a whole relocube.  We might end up taking some furniture just for the heck of it.

Gosh, I can’t stand waiting! It’s only January and we won’t be moving until the end of April at the earliest! GAAH!

I’ve been thinking of storage solutions this weekend.  I found two cool ideas for jewelry storage/display that I’m planning to implement.

first, the tree branch necklace holder:

like this one only a real tree branch, which I will wedge into a block of wood and glue onto something heavier, like a brick.  Then I will spray paint it all white or silver or something.  Or, I might just put the branch in a pretty vase.  Actually, that sounds a lot easier.  Put it in a vase with something inside to stabilize the branch.  I like bringing nature inside; I think it’s pretty.  It will help the top of my dresser look like I actually tried to decorate it, instead of just having a few functional boxes and clutter on it.

second, the picture frame earring holder:

made using a picture frame with screen, wire mesh, plastic mesh, or even a recycled onion net-bag tacked to the back of the frame.  I know, brilliant!  It’s straightforward, cheap and easy to make, highly customizable, looks nice to my eyes, has plenty of space, and doesn’t clutter furniture surfaces.  There are tons of these, including the one pictured, on etsy.  I might see if Samuel wants one for his cufflinks.  It would work with wire mesh, the kind with 1/4″ squares.

I think this will work well with my jewelry.  I like having it on display so that I remember to wear it.  None of it is so valuable or delicate that being out in the open will harm it, except my pearls, which I will keep somewhere else.

Right now the earrings are all piled in my jewelry box, and the necklaces are hanging on an ugly faux-tortoiseshell  plastic hook thing that hangs crookedly from our blinds’ drawstring, because we can’t nail anything onto the walls.

Sigh.  I love Wymount, but then again….

Ugly computers

We just got a flat screen moniter!  It’s from my in-laws for Samuel’s graduation present.  I love it so much, because I think it is one step closer to making computers less ugly.  It’s so sleek and makes the desk seem much tidier.  I just love how simple it is.

Next step in making the computer less ugly: buy one of these.

I’ve always loved roll-top desks, and the idea of using one to hide the computer sounds perfect. Besides just looking ugly, computers always accumulate clutter.  Papers, cds, recipts, cords, etc.  So I’ve always been torn about wanting the computer in a high-traffic area of the house -so people are less likely to look up stuff they shouldn’t- and wanting to hide the ugly cluttered mess.  With this desk, you can cover the mess any time you want!  Also, a lot of them come with locks, so you can keep little ones from playing on the computer when they shouldn’t.

Also I want to get a cabinet for the TV.  If there’s anything uglier than a computer, it’s a TV.

A Change of Scenery

We rearranged our living room in order to make it easier for groups to watch movies.

I know some people are completely bored by this kind of stuff, but for those of us who enjoy arranging space in a useful and aesthetic way, I am writing this post.

This was our aprox. layout before. It’s not really accurate but I didn’t want to spend more than a minute on these drawings:

Whenever we would watch movies with people, we would have to move at least one of the couches to better face the computer. The corner with the record player always looked cluttered.

Here is the new layout:

ignore the typos and stuff…

Now each seat is in view of the computer, except the corner of the love seat by the end table.

Another nice thing is that the ugly printer, computer box, wires, poorly-shelved records, and CD notebooks are almost out of sight. We put the printer and computer box under the record player. In place of the printer we put a box of my records on the desk, so that I will see them and remember to play them more often, and they won’t fall over all the time. They are well-contained and easy to flip through. Plus they are prettier and more colorful than the printer.

Here are pictures of everything.

I finally had the sense to put the light green blanket over the back of the yellow love seat rather than the sofa. On the sofa it always looked bulky and weird, because the back is curved. Now it looks nice and neat, and maybe it helps make the sofa and love seat match a little? Maybe? Please?

This desk/computer/music station looks so much nicer than before!

See how nice the box of records is? It’s leather or something. Much prettier than the beige, dusty printer. And that is my new plant that I got yesterday. Hopefully I won’t kill it. I really like the purple scarf, too. Looks much brighter and prettier than the black plastic desk surface, and I think it looks nice with the color of the wood and the terra cotta pot. It is a small thing but I like it.

Pretty, girly corner by the love seat, where I usually sit. That is the rose Samuel gave me for Valentine’s Day. It hasn’t lost a single petal yet! Samuel said it was still alive and thriving, like our love. Then I said it would probably die in a week (the rose).

I have always loved arranging space, since I was little. When I was a young teenager I would sometimes rearrange my bedroom once a month! It was fun to do and I liked the change. Plus it made it easier to clean; you have to clean up before you can move furniture. That’s another reason why Samuel and I did this. It’s the start of our “Spring Cleaning” that I am trying to get done this month. I consider it one of my duties as a wife. Well, that’s what I say in order to get Samuel to move everything around for me, heh heh.

the house pictures

bedroom

sewing/book/other room

“cool books” and dvds shelf

living room

kitchen

Playing House

Samuel and I are mostly moved in. Our apartment is really cool with lots of storage, including a large pantry. The stove is gas, which is very nice. The bathroom is entirely covered with good-quality tile (except the ceiling) which makes it easier to keep clean. There is a little patio thing where we keep Samuel’s bike and the wind chimes. The uncool things about it are: 1) the small living room; 2) the cinder block walls, on which we are allowed to have four nail holes per room, which has caused us to experiment with three different kinds of sticky picture-hanging devices, two of which caused several picture frames and one mirror to come crashing down multiple times (the mirror only once, at about 2:00 a.m.: it broke into three pieces upon making contact with the dresser); 3) the doors that are too fat to fit my over-the-door hook thingy that I use to hang up all my scarves, shawls and ribbons; 4) the extremely inconvenient location of the internet and phone jack which caused us to spend upwards of $30 for a 25-foot cable, a rug, and a roll of masking tape.Other than that, I love our apartment!