Saving money & living better while roughin' it old school: Part I

I've been stewing on this blog post for a long time, but I guess I just haven't felt inspired enough to sit down and spend the time writing it. But then my friend Jenna wrote this awesome post about the modern mama, giving me the inspiration I needed to get this accomplished. After working on it for a few weeks, I decided it's probably best to break it down into installments. If I try to publish the whole thing in one swoop, I'm likely to lose all but maybe three of you awesome readers. So, without further adieu, I present installment one of Saving money & living better while roughin' it old school.

Months and months ago I decided to become aware of our finances. In other words, I wanted to find out where our money was going and where our budget could be scaled back. That's when I started cutting coupons. But even so, I was still spending way too much money. Why? Convenience, convenience, convenience. What can't you get nowadays that's as ready-to-go as possible? We don't even have to clean our own showers anymore! Scrubbing Bubbles does it for us!

All that convenience comes at a steep price. I've been on quite the health kick since becoming a mom. And becoming a mom to a "sensitive" child kicks up my desire for an organic home a notch or ten. How am I to make our home and food healthier while slashing bills?

I suppose my friend Claire must be tuned into my inner thoughts because around the same time I was contemplating all of this, she sent me this link to a recipe for liquid laundry detergent that's touted for helping clear up eczema. Cheap, easy, better for the environment AND better for Ben?! What was this gold mine I'd stumbled upon? Oh, right. It all boils down to my new philosophy on life: do things the way they used to be done. Rough it like an old school housewife! Sure, we've made some great advancements in the past few decades, but when it comes to things like parenting and running a household, I tend to believe that getting back to the basics is where it's at. That day, I realized that it was quite possible to replace almost all of our convenience purchases with homemade alternatives while slashing costs, having fun and feeling like a productive housewife (I use that term on purpose; more on that another day). I'm not going to try to reinvent the wheel or take credit for anything below, because I can't. These aren't new ideas by any stretch of the imagination! Quite the contrary, they're old ideas making a big, big comeback.

Photo from blogthecoast

1. Gardening. This is sort of a no-brainer and something I'd already planned on doing long before I became "green", but it's at least worth a small shout-out. Grow your own food! Save yourself loads of money! Know exactly what your food is comprised of! A few of my favorite gardening sites/articles are all the Gardening 101 articles on Simple Organic, You Grow Girl and Square Foot Gardening.

2. Give up the bleach & other toxic no-no's! When I found this post on homemade cleaners, I was over-the-moon excited! About two months ago, I said goodbye to Green Works, Windex and the last of my bleach and replaced them with a 50/50 solution of vinegar & water (all-purpose), a 50/50 solution of hydrogen peroxide and water (disinfectant - spray it right after your vinegar/water solution to kill germs and bacteria as well as bleach) and some baking soda (scouring agent). I highly recommend reading the link I posted to learn how best to use these cleaning products. Not only does this work as well or better than everything I was using, but it's insanely cheap. If you're afraid of the vinegar smell like I was, don't be; it doesn't smell once it's dried. Finally, let's discuss streaky mirrors and windows. Take your old, empty Windex spray bottle, fill it with 2 cups water, 1/2 cup vinegar and 1/4 cup rubbing alcohol and VOILA, you've got a glass cleaner your child could accidentally drink and you'd be all, "Drink up, babe!" An age-old trick is to use newspaper rather than paper towels to get it sparkling.

For laundry detergent, see the link I posted at the top of this article (here) or try this recipe a friend gave me: 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda and 2 cup finely grated ivory soap. Use 2 tablespoons per load. There are thousands of other recipes a quick google search will turn up, too.

Now the one area I haven't dabbled in yet is homemade dishwashing detergent. I love, love, love my Biokleen automatic dish powder and haven't heard many good reviews on a homemade one that actually works. But, if you feel like being adventurous, I have a friend who recommended this one. I do feel very strongly about using phosphate and chlorine-free dishwashing detergent that's organic and safe. Have you ever taken a sip of your child's sippy cup that's been washed in a dishwasher? It's disgusting! It tastes like the detergent. I've also heard many studies that claim one of the biggest chemicals found in the liver during autopsies are the chemicals in dishwashing detergent. I believe it!

Photo from Amazon

For the toughest grime (think toilet rings, really dried-on stove messes, etc.), I've found stainless steel scrubbers to be amazing! They're cheap, too. Amazon has a two-pack for around $2.80 here. You can reuse them, too, by disinfecting in the dishwasher. Bonus!

Mopping your floors? Another cheap breeze! Long ago, I bought a mop similar to the Swiffer disposable but it's reusable and meant mostly for wood floors. It looks like this and I got it at the Dollar Store for El Cheapo:

I bought a few extra cloth pads so I have a clean one at any given time. I was using this harsh-smelling "special formula" spray for cleaning my wood floors until about a month ago. And then it dawned on me that I bet I could use...what do you know...VINEGAR! I looked up some articles that confirmed that the vinegar/water mix is, indeed, safe on wood floors, and ever since I've been toting around my handy all-purpose homemade mix spray bottle and cleaning all the floors in my house this way. Easy. As. Pie.

Stick around for info about beauty products & food, up next!