Home made laundry detergent--powdered

Yesterday I took a leap and while we were at the store purchasing conditioner for our home made laundry softener I found and purchased a couple items for homemade laundry soap, didn't realize I needed the Borax so John ran and got some from Walmart on his way home from work at 10 pm.

Anyhow, I should have written down the prices of each item, I do believe we spent less than $10, the Zote soap was like 98 cents on sale at our local Super 1 Foods, we also got the washing soda there (Arm and hammer super washing Soda or something like that) it came in a box.

I was going to post a link to the website where I found the recipe I used, but as I was trying to copy and paste the page vanished before I could copy it, and I can't find it now (cause believe me when I say there are billions of recipes on billions of pages) this one was super simple though and so I figured I would give it a try

found the link-- http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soaprecipes/ss/powderedlaundrysoapsteps.htm

it calls for:

1 4-5 oz bar of soap

1 cup washing soda (which is different then baking Soday)

1 cup borax

now the lady who posted this said she used her food processor to grate the small bars of soap you get from hotels--LOVE IT!!!! But since I had already bought a 14.1 oz bar of Pink Zote soap from super one foods I used my little ikea grater and went to town while watching a movie on fancast with my son, even though I did a fine grate I found that I still needed to put it in the food processor to chop it up even smaller, I added 1/2 a cup of washing soda to each 1/3 of soap I put in (cause I only have a medium size food processor and when I stuck just the soap in it got to sticky and the washing soda helped to keep it seperated. I continued this till it looked like the soap was 'powderish' and then waited for my husband to get home with the Borax and then mixed it all together.

so I used

1 14.1 oz Bar of Zote

3 cups washing Soda (give or take 1/4 a cup, I kind of lost count)

3 cups Borax

I mixed it all together then put it in a sealed container and shook it up, there isn't that much there but since you only have to use 1 Tablespoon per full load it should last a while, we will see. I haven't used it yet but plan on washing my husband's pants with it in the next few minutes. We of course aren't completely out of the ready made store brand but wanted to make it and try it before we were out in case it didn't work out so we will have to see

I also made home made dishwasher soap with the remaining washing Soda and some Borax (turns out the box of Borax my husband got me goes a long way)

I used 2 and about 3/4th cup of each since the recipe at tipnut.com suggested that use 1 cup Borax and 1 cup washing soda but wanted to use up the washing soda so just used equal parts...I plan on giving this a try today as well and will let ya'll know how it works--oh, you use 2 tables spoons of this with each load, so it should go a long way also.

I still have some borax but figured I would just store it for future endeavors.

have you ever tried your own home made cleaning products? what recipes did you use and did you like it?

I also make my own laundry softener but since this post is a bit long I will share that recipe with you another day

some thoughts on frugality and how it pertains to me

I am trying so hard to get back in the blogging mode so I have something interesting to write about but to be truthfully honest, that is turning out to be a bit harder than I originally thought, not cause I don't spend much time on the computer because that definitely isn't the problem, I just don't seem to have anything that I think is that interesting to share, so why waste both our times...but I promise, life will be getting interesting very soon I do believe, take this week for example.

i won't lie to you guys--we are beyond poor. I remember as newly weds filing taxes and thinking 'we are so poor, we only made $42,000 this year' or something like that, but now that I am disabled, unable to work, no longer receiving my lovely check from the heartford and my husband is the sole provider his employer 'salaried' him at $17,888 a year--I say 'salaried' him because he gets paid hourly, and because he can get overtime when available, he is also on call a lot and gets paid extra if he gets called-in, but the point is, we are definitely poor.

Oddly enough though, we are much better at living within our means now then when we make $42,000 as newly weds because we ate out all the time, I didn't know how to cook and when we did eat at home it was always a boxed meal that came practically prepared for us, and don't get me started on our bills--2 cell phones, 2 car payments, 2 insurances, 2 mortgages, cable TV, the best internet, eventually a home phone (but not dropping the 2 cell phones), a dog that was pampered (I remember paying about $300 to get her fixed, I made it a point to send her to a vet that would keep her overnight) we also had a cat that got the most premium cat food. Yes, we definitely spent what we made and never had a penny to our name which is why I had numerous credit cards that were all maxed out.

Now jump forward 6 yrs (we have been married almost 8 but 6 yrs ago my son was born and that was when John lost his first job) thanks to generous family members that love us we have 2 vehicles that are paid off (both of which just happen to be in the shop this week but I will get into that later), we have both of them fully insured, but only pay about $100 a month, we have Cable internet and phone which costs us about $50 dollars a month, we pay about $500 a month in rent, and our utility bills fluctuate but we usually pay less than $300 for all 3 of them combined (we have gas, power, and water--which includes trash pick up and sewage and other city things) My husband is currently making monthly payments to student loans which we brought down from $108 to about $60 this year a lone and have paid it half off to get back into good standing with them after we went severely into default. I have one credit card for a hardware store which is currently maxed out to buy us a new fridge but we are slowly paying it down--it has a $500 limit which is nothing compared to the cards I use to have maxed out.

Now, I must say life without cable TV with a child can be difficult at times, but over the years we have collected a rather large supplies of DVDs and VHS movies--we don't buy them as soon as they come out like we use to (when they would be $15) instead we wait to find them for less than $5 at yardsales/2nd hand stores or buy them out of the $5 and less bins at the stores, occasionally we spend a little more on a special movie for a special occasion but thanks to HULU.com, fancast.com, and our library (not to mention the TV channel pages that show their shows) we haven't missed cable too much. We don't own a flat screen TV, one of our TVs still has dials to change the channels, so we definitely are not 'high tech' like I use to be--always had to have the biggest and best--but as I have matured I have realized that even the newest and biggest thing eventually become 'old school' and so why spend the money when it first comes out when eventually you can find it used for even cheaper, and if you can't find it used, then better for you, obviously it doesn't last and would have been a waste.

My husband does maintenance and janitorial work, turns out, he is often coming into contact with items being 'thrown out' that he is allowed to bring home--I can't begin to tell you the awesome items he has brought home, including the laptop I am typing on, both our i-pods, multiple other laptops, projectors, projector screens, furniture items--and that is just to name a few--seriously, he gets hooked up!!!! most things need a few minor repairs but that is when him being so handy comes in handy.

Anyhow, this is turning out to be a lot longer than I thought it would, but I just wanted to say, It is funny how the more money you make the less you seem to have and yet the less money you make the more you pay attention to where every penny goes so that you might be able to find a way to stretch a little further.

As time goes on I will hopefully be able to share some of my money saving methods with you, like how shopping at Sam's Club can be beneficial even for a family of 3 (which 9 pets), little home remedies to not only save a trip to the doctor but also trips to the vet. How a few extra pennies here might save you a fortune later, and how sometimes you have to give a little to get a lot.

I know my grammar is horrible and not everyone will like my way of thinking, my ideas, or the way we choose to live, but I am not out to make everyone happy, if nobody reads my blog then so what, but just in case someone can learn something from my experiences then at least it will be here for them

for now I am going to sign off and go pull dinner out of the oven--keep posted, more thought to come

baby boy bunny sold 1/16/2011

the day after we bought Adam and Eve we were blessed with new baby bunnies. While preparing thanksgiving dinner I took out some vegi scraps to find Eve had given birth to babies, I couldn't count them accurately at that time and didn't want to bother, I later discovered she had birthed 7 babies, one died before he even got fluff and then between three and 4 weeks we lost 3 more babies (and one of our adults dug out and ran off) it was a very devastating time for us (specially since one of them was found dead on Christmas Day), we loved these babies very much and my son prays for them every time he says a prayer (and surprisingly he prayers a lot). 3 babies survived, we are keeping the 2 females, and hope we can find a suitable home for this little darling. He will officially be 6 weeks on Thursday the 6th, he appears to be very healthy and I can't see anything concerning, right now as I type this he is sitting rather content on my chest, he was very compliant when I took his pic and I know he is going to make someone the perfect pet.

he is tiny and I have no clue how big he is going to get but he his parents aren't huge, we just don't have a weight, I would guess they are about 5-6 lbs, he is about 2 lbs right now at most I would think, but I am bad at guesstimating, sorry, he is super cute and I know he will make a wonder family pet. Bunnies are rather easy to litter box train and can totally be left to roam out of a cage after they have been litter box trained.

this baby boy sold on Jan 16, 2011 to a very loving lady--thanks!!!!

the bunny formally known as prince

Today (Jan 1, 2011) we took our first trip to Canton trade days, we spent $30 filling up with Gas on our way to Canton at the Chevron, we then had to pay $3 to park and walk about a block to get to animal alley where we spent about 2 hours looking at all the various puppies and birds, there wasn't many selling bunnies but we were rather excited to find a Red eye White, we purchased him for $15 and named him Prince since we plan on mating him with our other Red Eyed white (who is named snow white.) which was born on Thanksgiving day to Eve.

the woman we purchased him from said he was about 9 weeks old and that he was born around Oct. 25 or so, the other bunnies that were from the same breed had different color patterns but the breeder said his Grandma was a Red Eyed white.

this was our first trip to Canton's first Mondays and we were rather excited, we didn't see much other than animal alley but I am excited to return and see what else they have to offer, maybe next month.

December 2010

• in 12/9/2010 we purchased: from Atwoods

1. 25 LB bag Rabbit Pellets $7.99

• on 12/11/2010 we purchased:

1. welded wire 24" 1X2" 100 Ft 14 Gauge $68.99 from Atwoods
2. cage clips from Atwoods $4.69
3. pliers for Cage clips from Atwoods $10.29
4. Various wood and screws from the Home depot $72.04

• on 12/16/2010 we purchased: from Atwoods

1. Tent pegs (.69 cents X 12) $8.28
2. Cage cups Galvanized (food dishes @ $5.59 each X2) $11.18
3. Bermuda Hay $8.65

• on 12/22/2010we purchased: from Atwoods

1. 25 LB bag of Rabbit Pellets for $7.99
2. salt Trace Mineral Spools (49 cents X4) $1.96

• on 12/28/2010 we purchased: from Atwoods

1. various medical supplies $29.61

December 2010's total is $231.67

no income was made through sales

November 2010 Expenses

we purchased

1. heat lamp $9.99--Atwoods
2. heat bulb X 2 $8.98--Atwoods
3. Adam and Eve $20--Lady in Canton (?) came with cage, feed, waterer

can't find receipts for anything else, but didn't wasn't really keeping them until after Eve had her babies.

Grand total spent $38.97 and we had no income from sales

When I grow up...

Yesterday Dominic was watching a movie about pilots and flying planes (I found it while organizing our movies last week) and he came in to update me on what he learned, I felt the need to blog this conversation so I didn't forget it (note, at this very moment he is in the bathroom trying to feel a balloon up with water, I heard it rupture and him mumble, 'my clean shirt', yeah, gotto remember these 'cute' moments)

"mom, so the guy on the show says when I grow up I can fly airplanes"

"Dominic you know I worked on airplanes when I grew up"

"oh yeah, but mom, you just sat in airplanes, I want to fly them" (I was a flight attendant)

I don't really remember how the conversation went after that, I was just so flabergasted by his 'yeah, but you just sat on the plane' anyhow, the conversation continued this morning cause he watched it again this morning...

"So mom, when I grow up, I want to fly airplanes, and you can sit in them and then we can work together, ok mom, ok?"

"ok, Dominic, sounds like a plan"

I hope when he grows up he learns a flight attendant does more than just sit in a plane or he is going to have a rough go as a pilot working with flight attendants cause they don't like pilots who don't think they do nothing, trust me, this I know.