Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

I am so stinkin excited!  I flipped the casserole dish over so you could see how clean it is.  I cooked baked oatmeal in it this am and put it in the dishwasher with all the crud still stuck to it!

Making homemade cleaning products is really addicting.  It is fun to see how clean you can get stuff with a few simple, nontoxic products.  Best of all, I feel like a real supermom, by saving sooo much money!

I have been using my homemade laundry detergent for quite a while now and still have a little over half a gallon left.  Since I made the laundry detergent, I already had almost all of the ingredients for the dishwasher detergent.

I found the recipe for dishwasher detergent at One Good Thing by Jillee.  If you haven't checked her blog out yet, you might want to find a couple good hours to read through her awesome ideas.  Feel free to click on the link above to read all of her great background info on the detergent.  I am just going to give you a quick recipe for it here.

1 cup of Washing Soda (or baking soda)  If you made the laundry detergent, you already have this!
1 cup of Borax Once again, used in the laundry detergent
1/2 cup of Kosher Salt
1/2 cup of citric acid or Fruit Fresh  Fruit Fresh is used in canning, so you can usually find it in the baking aisle or the area of your store where you will find canning jars

Mix all of the ingredients together.  I put mine in a gallon ziplock bag.

When you are ready to wash your dishes:
Put 1-2 TBS of the powder AND 2-3 drops of liquid dish soap (like Dawn or whatever you have on hand) into the detergent well.
Dump 1/2 cup-1cup of white vinegar into the bottom of the dishwasher (Or you could fill the little jet dry compartment with vinegar.)

Wash! And enjoy living the homemade/frugal life with me!

I used 2 TBS of powder, 2 drops of liquid soap, and 1/2 cup of vinegar. 

Living Area Re-Do

Describing a home layout is a little difficult unless you have actually been in a house, so I will do my best.  

We bought this home because there are so many angles; the rooms are not just square boxes.  This makes the home interesting, but kind of difficult to "stage."  When we moved in, I had the entertainment center on the wall that now has pictures.  That door is the door to our bedroom.  To the left of the pictures is our dining room.

Basically all that I did in the living room was repaint the walls, rearrange the furniture, and made new curtains and pillow covers.  I will be making white slipcovers for the couch and chair next.

This is the view of the living room from the couch and big chair.  I painted the canvases above the fireplace.  It is hard to see, but they are just blue (the same blue that is in the dining room) with 2 fleur de lis on them.  I also painted the vase that green color and put fake flowers in it to pull the red from the Yuengling poster.  The lamp is an old yucky lamp that I spray painted black and bought a new lamp shade for.  The bird on top of the entertainment center also got a coat of blue paint.

On the other side of the entertainment center is the hallway to the kids' bedrooms and bathroom.  That wall is a collection of all Bryan's airplane pictures.  That is our front door at the end.  On that cool angled wall is my sewing "room."  I have 3 long shelves, I guess about 6-7 feet long, my sewing table and some plastic storage bins underneath. We also mounted lights under the bottom shelf so I can see better when I sew. Oh, and the sewing "room" wall is painted the same color green as the kitchen.

The kitchen got a nice new light green coat of paint, Bryan hung the nice small shelves for me, and I made a new valance.  The valance is a three tier, ruffled valance made from blue, green, and a floral fabric.  (This picture is taken from the dining area.)

Last but not least, is the room that took the most time.  Our dining room got a coat of blue paint and then I stenciled a creme color on top.  It creates a wallpaper effect but for much less money and if someone moves in and hates it, they don't have to strip off wallpaper!  It wasn't a hard project, but it took 2 1/2 days to do the stencil alone.

 A close-up of my 3 tier blue ruffled valance and two pillows.  The floral is the same fabric in the kitchen.  It is the shape of a stop sign and has a cuddly minky fabric on the back.

Now, how much did this project cost us?  I don't have a definite figure, but I can tell you that I bought 3 gallons of paint at $20 a gallon.  The stencil was gifted to me.  The stencil paint cost about $5.  The shelves cost around $100.  (Shelves btw, are funny.  The Shelves themselves are cheap but they get you on the brackets!)  The fabric was my big ticket item.  The floral is a custom order upholstery fabric that I got for $50 (and that was half price off!  $25 for 2 yards).  The blue fabric was only like $4 a yard but I bought a whole bolt of it (I think that is like 7 yards).  The green fabric was also pretty cheap around $6 a yard and I only bought 2 or 3 yards.  I have used just about every inch of the fabric!  So I believe that is around $270. The project is worth so much more than that!  Before, the living room just didn't feel right and my sewing area was a wreck since I only had the table and plastic drawers.  It is all so comfortable now.  We have gained seating with the window seat (it had awful miniblinds before) and the fireplace hearth.  And the house will show that much better when we have to sell. But I love this house so much, I am not looking forward to selling anytime soon.

A great big thank you to my friend Sarah Pena for helping design my space.  There were so  many times when she question my color choices and kept me on track!  Anyone in the New Orleans area that needs help designing the home, Sarah is a very affordable choice!

Tackling Clutter- Mail and Entryway Stuff

Please ignore the bag of party stuff under the shelf.  Those are supplies for the kids' birthday party and I don't know where else to put them.

Does anyone else feel like their lives are consumed by junk mail?  I don't think there is anything else that drives me so crazy.  I also have a tendency to lose things like my keys and sunglasses (a must here in southern Louisiana). To address these two issues, I asked my dear husband to mount these things in the garage.  This is a corner of the garage, right next to the door to enter the house.

The white board and key shelf were in the house previously, but they are really not pretty items that I want to look at every day.  I keep stamps and return address labels on the board.  On the shelf, I have a small bowl that we keep change and other things you might empty out of your pockets.  The large shelf is just a scrap piece of plywood.  It is screwed into two cleats (also scrap lumber).  On the shelf, which I will use like a desk, is my address book, blank envelopes, my shredder, and a container full of pens and pencils.  Underneath the shelf, I have a plastic tote that can also function as another shelf space (I usually keep my purse on it), a garbage can, and an umbrella bucket.  There is also space for shoes, so I can take them off before I enter the house.

So now junk mail never even enters the house, I *should* always be able to find my keys, purse, and sunglasses, and best of all--the project cost $0!!!  I hope this helps other people trying to conquer junk mail clutter.

Laundry Detergent Recipe

I linked the laundry detergent recipe to a previous post ("Home Economics"), but it is kind of buried now.  So I figured I would repost the recipe.  I found this particular recipe at a website called "Living on a Dime."

Homemade Laundry Detergent

1/3 bar Fels Naptha Laundry Soap, grated
6 cups water
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
Heat 6 cups water and soap in a large pan until dissolved. Stir in washing soda and Borax. Mix and heat until dissolved. Boil 15 minutes. Remove from heat. (It will have the consistency of honey.*) In a 3 or 5 gallon bucket, add 1 quart of hot water, then add the soap mixture. Mix. Add enough cold water to make a 2 gallon mixture. Mix until well blended. Let sit 24 hours. The soap will gel*. Use 1/2 cup for each load.
Makes 2 gallons. (Approximately $ .40 per gallon)

I also posted a few tips in another post.  Click HERE to go to the post with my helpful hints in making the laundry detergent.

Laudry Detergent and "Poo-Free" Hair

Making laundry detergent was really quick and easy.  And the cost can't be beat.  Like I said in my previous post, my homemade laundry detergent cost roughly 40 cents a gallon (and you only use 1/2 a cup per load).

Lessons that I learned in making the detergent.
#1 use a food processor to grate the Fels-Naptha soap.  The recipe only calls for 1/3 of the bar, so I cut the bar in thirds and then grated each third separately.  I put the other 2/3s of the soap in two separate baggies so they are ready for me the next time I need to make detergent.
#2 Use a large stock pot to make the detergent.  First, you dissolve the soap in boiling water (6 cups).  You wouldn't think that you would need a large pot, put when I added the washing soda and borax (1/2 a cup of each) the whole pot foamed up quite a bit.  Just be prepared to stir and remove from the heat if needed.
#3 I think it is really important to boil the solution for 15 minutes.  I think this step is critical to make sure that all of the ingredients gel together, as opposed to making chunks when it cools.
#4 After boiling, you will need a container that will hold 2 gallons.  I grabbed a small garbage can, put 2 gallons of water in it and used a sharpie to mark the spot where 2 gallons fills.  Sooo, put 1 qt of hot water in the container (trash can), then pour the hot soap solution in, stir it around.  Lastly, add cold water to the solution until you hit your 2 gallon mark.
#5 What do you do with 2 gallons of soap in a trash can???  I just happened to have to old milk jugs.  I grabbed my large measuring cup and used it to scoop soap out of the trash can and pour into the milk jugs.  I did this over the washing machine so if I spilled any it just went into the washing machine.  Let your soap sit 24 hours and then enjoy!
#6 You will need to shake the solution before using it.

Can I tell you how much I hate having my picture taken???

I was a little more skeptical of this next cheap "home remedy."  Poo-free hair.  Sounds hilarious and it's nutty, so I had to try it.  So the premise is that shampoo is actually bad for our hair.  It causes you to produce more oil and messes with the pH of your hair/scalp.  So what do you use instead?  Baking soda.  From what I have read, you can mess with the proportions of baking soda and water to fit your needs.  I used the basic recommendation: 1 TBS of baking soda dissolved in 1 cup of warm water.  If you have psoriasis, they recommend upping the baking soda/lowering the water, to make more of a paste that you would massage into your scalp.  The recipe that I used make a very liquidy solution, which I just poured over my head and gently worked through my hair and rinsed.

*Some people have a problem with knots and tangles using this, so they recommend brushing your hair before getting in the shower.*

Oh, and since I didn't know how this would work, I put 1 TBS of baking soda in a glad container with a 1 cup mark on it and added water when I was in the shower.

For condition, you use 1 TBS of apple cider vinegar dissolved in 1 cup of warm water.  If you are prone to oily hair, only apply this to the ends of your hair.  I was worried about oil, so I just poured it over the ends of my hair and rinsed well. 

What you see in the oh so flattering picture above is me, a day after the poo-free treatment.  I went out with my mom friends last night and a couple people complimented my hair.  I, personally, don't think it looks better than before, but I am going to give it a chance and try this method for a week or so.  My hair looks fine, but it feels a little oily to me.  I might end up not using the vinegar (just use the baking soda and my soy conditioner).  If I do like this method, I will use an old shampoo bottle to keep the solutions in; but for now, I will stick to making up one batch at a time.

Home Economics

Leftover Chicken, Beans, and Rice and Chicken Stock To-Be

I am trying to save even more money around the house.  We did pretty good tonight!  The kids and I ate chicken, rice, and green beans.  The total cost of the meal was just over $5 and I have a TON of chicken left over, a good bit of rice, and about a serving of green beans.  I bought the chicken when they were on sale for 69 cents a pound.  I actually bought 3 of them and stocked them away. 

I found a recipe online for "The Best Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot." Now, I wouldn't say this was the best chicken I have ever had because I like it in the stove when it gets nice a crunchy.  But as my mom says, you're not really supposed to eat the skin.  With this recipe, that definitely wasn't a problem.  The chicken was flavorful and moist though, and it was done in the crock pot, so it didn't heat up my kitchen and clean up was pretty easy.  The best part though, is that I am making chicken stock in that same crock pot overnight and will make chicken and rice soup with the leftovers.  All I will have to add is a little more rice and veggies!  (Which cost about $2.)  So I am getting a ton of food out of $7!!!

My second experiment is freezer cooking.  There are so many people out there in blogland using freezer cooking to speed up meal prep.  There are tons of different approaches, but what I am going to do is make a double batch of my meals this week--half of which will get frozen.  Soooo, anyone want to guess how much I spent to make these meals????  $120 (This includes all of my breakfast/lunch/snack items for this week plus the dinners for 2 weeks.)  Now, I did cut costs by including one vegetarian meal and one pasta meal.  Also, I did have some of the ingredients on hand.  The dinners  I will be making are:  Vegetable and Bean Pie, Beef and Potato Casserole, Tuna and Broccoli Casserole, Turkey and Mixed Vegetable Casserole, and Spaghetti with Homemade Meat Sauce.  One meal this week is mom's night out and another will be at a friend's house.

I also plan to make some breakfast rollups that I will freeze to have for last minute breakfasts.

Freezer cooking is a little daunting to me.  These are all recipes that I found online so I can see if I really like this method.  In the future, I would like to incorporate my regular menus into this system just to stock pile some dinners for those nights that I just don't feel like cooking.

My final experiment is homemade laundry detergent.  Don't worry, I am not making my family use washcloths instead of toilet paper.  This is something new and exciting to me, but it's probably common sense to our grandparents.  I, like so many other people have been happy with the deals I get online. . . so much cheaper than grocery stores!  But this is even cheaper (about 40 cents for a gallon)!  And they say it works great.  I am going to use the recipe I found here.  I have quite a few bottles of tide in my stock pile from the last sale at amazon, but I am so excited, I want to make a batch right now!  I will update in the future with my results.  If anyone is interested, I found all of the supplies at walmart, and they cost me $7.  I will be able to make a lot of detergent with this.  The only step in the process that will be a pain in the butt is grating the soap, but I found another site that recommended using the food processor to grate it. 

Budgeting: Grocery Store and Household Goods

I spend about $600 a month in groceries and such.  This has a lot of people interested in how I do this. . . without coupons.  I am sure that if I took the time to coupon, I'd save even more money, but I have not found couponing to be really "up my alley."  My issues with couponing is that you usually have to buy all sorts of processed products--stuff we just don't use.  And to get the biggest bang for your couponing, you have to shop at a variety of grocery stores, big box stores, and every drug store.  I'm sorry, but I just don't have time for that while I am lugging 3 small children around with me.

So, yes, $600 isn't some amazing low number, but I think it is pretty good for a family of 5 (even if 3 of them are little people).

Soooo, how it breaks down: I spend an average of $125 a week at the grocery store  ($500 a month) and $100 a month at Sam's Club (one trip a month).

The food savings is really quite easy.  Just plan out your meals, making sure you only have 1 (if that) expensive meal a week.  I usually have 1 pasta meal to help stretch our dollar.  When I shop, I pretty much stick to the perimeter of the grocery store.  Going up those internal aisles will just cost you more money and will probably be not so good for your health.  Most of my dinner meals make enough for us to have left overs for Bryan to take for lunch the next day.

As you can see from the picture at the top, we use cloth napkins.  I made most of these with remnants of fabric that was on clearance at Hancock Fabrics.  With cloth napkins, I don't need to buy paper napkins or paper towels.  The only paper products I buy are tissues and toilet paper. If I really went "over the edge," I could keep small wash cloths in the bathroom in a coconut oil solution instead of toilet paper.  Wow!  Could you imagine coming over to my house and using the bathroom???  lol that is almost too funny, I think I might have to play a trick on my next visitors! :o)  I could also make my family members use hankies instead of tissues.  Anyway, I buy tissues and toilet paper (only use Scott) when it is on sale and/or in bulk so it really doesn't cost much.

Another area where people say they spend a lot of money is with cleaning supplies.  This costs me almost nothing!  What you see in the picture above is Shaklee's Basic H.  It is a concentrated liquid that you dilute to varying degrees for different purposes: the strongest strength is a degreaser, the next is an all purpose cleaner, and the weakest dilution is a window cleaner.  I bought this bottle of concentrate (about $14) over 3 years ago and it is a little over half full.  I don't use the window cleaning solution often, because I have a microfiber cloth that you just wet, squeeze as much water out of, and use to clean windows and mirrors--NO cleaning agents!  It works beautifully!  I purchase laundry detergent through amazon when I see a really good sale, and I purchase probably 1 bottle of dish detergent every other month.  Not bad, I probably spend a total of $20 to $30 a year on cleaning supplies.

Now for my floors.  I don't use any chemicals on my floors either.  I use a Shark, which cleans with hot steam, on my tile and hard wood floors.

Lastly, diapers.  Yes I spend $600 a month including diapering my kids.  This is thanks to the wonder of modern day cloth diapers.  For just over $200, I have diapered my children.  TOTAL.  ALL 3 of THEM!  Now, I have bought disposables to use when other people watch my kids or when I fell behind with laundry, or they got a case of diaper rash, but I buy the diapers on amazon and never pay more than 10 cents a diaper.  I also buy wipes on amazon.  (At one point I was use cloth wipes, but I got tired of having one more thing to wash and prep.)

On the subject of Sam's Club.  I think you need to be careful in these club stores.  I keep what I buy to a minimum.  I buy trash bags,  shampoo, body wash, soap for the dish washer, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, canned chicken (yes, I know that is that really healthy, and kinda expensive, but I use it on occasion in recipes when I don't feel like cooking a piece of chicken), and a few other pantry items.  I have been going less than once a month and spending less than $100 each time I go.

And speaking of bath products, I think I do pretty good saving on them too.  I get my hair very wet, lathering water into it so I only need a quarter sized dollop of shampoo.  I also use a quarter sized dollop of body wash.  I lather it in both hands, use one hand to lather up one arm and half of my back and chest, re-lather my hands, use the other hand to lather up the other half of my upper body, re-lather my hands one more time and wash my legs.  I haven't bought shampoo or body wash for myself in 2 and a half years!

Meal Planning

Part 3 in my home organization!

Cooking is fun!!!  As long as I don't have to think about "What's for dinner?" or "Man, I have to go to the grocery store, what am I going buy??"

To overcome those two hurdles, I started making menus.  Once again, I just make a simple spreadsheet with a menu item and the supplies that have to be purchased to make that meal.  Currently, I have 10 weeks of menus.  I keep them in page protectors since cooking is a messy job.

After the spreadsheet, I have copies of all of the recipes.

When I plan menus, I consider a couple things:
1. I vary my meats each week.  Who wants to eat chicken every day???
2. I include at least one quick and easy meal each week.
3. I include one "family favorite" each week.  (like meatloaf or spaghetti or tacos. . .)
4. I don't plan to eat things on specific days, but you should plan to eat things with fresh produce or bakery goods early in the week for obvious reasons.
5. If a meal takes more than 30 minutes or needs to be marinated, I make a note of that on the menu page.
6. I also try to balance the nutrition.  I love me some Pioneer Woman, but I am not a rancher so I don't need all of those calories, so I balance my butter recipes with healthy recipes.

To avoid overwhelming yourself, plan no more than 2 weeks in one shot.  If you would like a starting point, I would be more than happy to share my current plans.

You might also notice that I have only planned 5 meals for the week.  We usually have one left over night/ a night that we eat out/ or a night where we eat sandwiches or pasta or something super simple.

My Daily Grind

I guess this is a part 2 of my home organization post.  I get all of my chores done early in the morning, but really the list of chores is so short that you could accomplish the tasks at any time during the day, as long as it works for you!

As soon as I wake up, I make the bed.

Then I go into the bathroom and wipe down the mirrors, countertop, sinks and toilet.
      *I never really have to clean the shower because I keep a clean cloth in the shower that we use to wipe down the walls after every shower.*

Next I make coffee and look over my daily plan so I know what needs to be done and what meals I will be preparing for the day.

If the kids aren't up yet, I unload the dishwasher, have my coffee and read my bible reading for the day.
If they are up, I get them dressed and make breakfast.  Once the kids are dressed I start of load of laundry.

After breakfast, Jack starts on his school work (something that he can do on his own-Math) and I do my daily chore (washing sheets, towels, dusting, or cleaning the floors).

Some keys to my success:
Get to bed early so I can wake up early and get stuff done.

Clean before it looks an area needs to be cleaned.

Do 1 load of laundry every day.


Next up. . . Meal Planning

Planning. . . My Philosophy

I love being organized.  I have gone through periods of time where I have gotten out of my routine, and life just stinks!  I feel stressed, nothing seems to get done, and I am short with the children. 

I have 2 binders that I life by: My "Household Notebook" and my "Meal Planning Notebook."

Here I will introduce you to my Household Notebook.  This keeps me grounded and will allow for anyone to "fill in my position" if anything should happen to me.  The first page is the emergency information--great for babysitters to have access to.  I downloaded it from Organized Home (scroll down to "Emergency Information."

Next is my daily go-to section: Planning

My calendars are downloaded from Organized Home (scroll down to "Printable Calendars").  My Daily planners came from Desiring Virtue.  I use the blank planners and write all of my own stuff in.

Next up: Money and Finance

 This section will be great for Bryan if I come to an untimely end, since he really doesn't know what is going on in the house!  I created a budget with software that was on the mac.  All of the other documents are really simple spreadsheets.  The online acct info comes in handy since there are times when you have to create some wonky user name or password for an account.  My brain is limited to memorizing one, maybe two user name password combinations.  The utility directory is great for those of us that live in hurricane zones--I can just take this with me if we evacuate and I have our account numbers and contacts for the utility company.  It is also nice to have a spreadsheet with magazine subscription information like account numbers, customer service phone numbers, when the subscription ends, and who gave us the magazine.  In the vehicle records, I keep a record of insurance and registration.

Pheww, time for a simple one: Phone

You could also keep any phone chains that you belong to in here or playgroups, or school lists. . .

Another crazy Stephanie section: Home Management

There are so many mundane tasks that don't have to be done all that often, but who remembers to do them???  I found a 3 month rotating schedule that adds one small task to your list of chores for the day. Scroll down to "The Basic Household Cleaning List."


However, there are things that I do weekly:
Monday: Wash sheets
Tuesday: Wash towels
Wednesday: run errands/go grocery shopping
Thursday: Dust
Friday: mop and vacuum floors


For "Party Planners" I keep a list of ideas, to dos, people to invite, and thank you notes to send for the kids' birthday parties.
Vehicle Maintenance is pretty self explanatory. . .

Last but not least: Health and Fitness
I found blank medical records online that I printed off for everyone in the family.  These are great to take with you if you end of rushing anyone to the ER. (Although when Audie was taken to the ER the other day, I completely lost my head and forgot all about my binder!!!  How frustrating!)

And of course, if you were one of those people who is able to squeeze fitness into your life, you could get fitness goals/charts/idea in here.  It is one of my goals to get back into an exercise routine but I started having problems with my neck and there seems to always be a child up earlier than I expect.