Homemade "Clorox" Wipes

As I have been trying to eliminate paper waste from our household as well as clean our home using safer, more natural and frugal products there's one thing I have been missing - Clorox wipes. Having 2 small children, especially an active, independent, and potty-training toddler, means lots of little messes. Sometimes I just don't want to get out the cleaning spray and a use a big rag just to clean up a small mess. Sometimes I don't have the luxury of time to run to the cabinet and get the spray and a rag - I need to get something cleaned up quickly before it turns into a bigger mess. Sometimes I want to be sure that something is disinfected and not just wiped down with water. I love the convenience of pre-moistened wipes that are small, quick and easily accessible.

But I look on the back of my Clorox wipes and read, "PRECAUTIONARY STATEMENTS: HAZARDS TO HUMANS AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS."

That is not something that I want to clean my home with, or use around my children (or my dog)!!

I've been thinking about making homemade pre-moistened cleaning wipes for a while, but just wasn't sure exactly how I would do it. Finally I took the time to make my own and I am really happy with what I came up with!

I used one of Jer's old white t-shirts and cut it up into squares. I got 24 wipes, some small and some bigger, out of one t-shirt. I'll probably cut up another t-shirt just to make sure I have enough wipes on hand at all times. I put them in a disposable baby wipe container that I kept to use for something like this. I didn't fold them or make them look organized, I just threw them in the container. I mixed about a cup or so of water with a good squirt of castile soap, some tea tree oil, and some white vinegar. I didn't measure, I just put kind of poured them all in, mixed it up and poured the solution over the wipes. Both tea tree oil and vinegar have disinfecting qualities and the castile soap is just for a little extra cleaning power. The tea tree oil and castile soap cover up any smell of vinegar, so Jer will use them too!! (If you've read any of my previous natural cleaning posts, you know that my hubby *hates* the smell of vinegar.)

When I use one, I just throw it down the stairs into the laundry hamper that I use for the rest of my rags. (Or really I just leave it sitting on the corner of the kitchen counter until I have a few rags in the pile and then just throw them all down together.) :) They get washed with the other cleaning rags, so it's really no extra work for me.

I am loving this convenient, natural, homemade, reusable, and frugal alternative to Clorox wipes!!

This post is a part of the Natural Housecleaning Carnival at Passionate Homemaking. Check it out for more great natural cleaning ideas and tips!

You can read more of my natural cleaning posts here.

What do you use for natural cleaning around your home? Do you have any convenience cleaning products that you just can't live without? Have you come up with alternatives for any of them?

Hand-Me-Downs

A little while ago I wrote about buying things pre-owned, or used, and how it saves both monetary resources and earthly resources and helps to reduce waste. Even better than buying things pre-owned is getting them for FREE!!!

Hand-me-downs, especially for children's clothing, are such a great thing! They are a way for the person giving the hand-me-downs to bless someone else, and they allow the receiver to not have to spend money buying used or new items.

In preparation for our baby boy (who is due to arrive any day!) we basically needed a whole new wardrobe. Not many babies clothes are gender neutral these days, so most of the clothes we had for Kaelyn would not work for a boy. Thanks to some AMAZINGLY generous friends of ours we are set for clothes for this little boy. They passed along the clothes to us that they had for their little boys who are 4 and 1. I now have a closet full of gently used baby boy's clothes and two more boxes of clothes for him to grow into. If it were not for these hand-me-downs that we received we would have had to spend a lot of time and money finding clothes for him, even if we were to buy most of his clothing used. Here is a picture of his fully stocked closet, just waiting for him to arrive.

We also recently received some great hand-me-downs from Kaelyn's cousins. They are mostly a size up from what she wears now, but it is so great to know that we have some clothes for K to grow into and that we don't have to worry about buying much for the next size/season.
Here's K showing off her "new" clothes.
So whether you are the giver or the receiver of hand-me-downs, they are such a blessing. If you have clothes that you are not using anymore, or won't be using for a while, I urge you to seriously consider passing them along to someone who would appreciate and use them. If you are the blessed recipient of hand-me-downs be thankful for the opportunity to save both money and the planet's resources. And take good care of them, so you can pass them along and bless someone else!

For more frugal tips check out Tightwad Tuesday at beingfrugal.net

Friday's Frugal Cooking - Yogurt in the Crockpot!!

Yes! I did it, I made yogurt in my crockpot yesterday! I am pretty excited about it - and all the possibilities!

I followed this recipe to a "T", (I LOVE the crockpot lady!) and it turned out perfectly, and it was SOOOO easy! I used Meijer whole milk, and Dannon plain yogurt for the starter. I figured out that it cost me around $1.00 (including the energy for the crockpot) to make 64 oz. of yogurt. I can buy the Dannon on sale for $2 for 32 oz., which would be $4 for 64 oz., so making it myself saved me $3 (more if it wasn't on sale)!! Plus, when I started figuring out the cost of the individual fruit flavored yogurt cups the savings were even better!!

I plan to make fruit flavored yogurt by cutting up fresh fruit, or using frozen fruit, and mixing it into the yogurt when I am ready to eat it, or feed it to K. I'll probably add a little honey as sweetener too. I would also love to try making yogurt pops for the summer time - I just need to get some of those popsicle molds.

This is a perfect frugally green recipe because it saves you money and also saves on manufacturing, packaging, transportation, etc. costs of buying your yogurt at the store,
especially if you were buying the individual cups of yogurt before. It's also much better for you because you know all of the ingredients and how much (or little) sugar, sweetener, and other preservatives it has (or doesn't have) in it. Making things yourself from scratch is a great way to save money, lessen your impact on the environment, and eat more healthily (is that a word?) I hope to make more and more of my own "from scratch" foods like this. I would love to say that I will never buy yogurt again - but I think the likely hood is that sometime I will want yogurt and not have any homemade ready. My hope is though that I will buy much less yogurt than I was before!!

Go try making your own yogurt, it is easy, fun and frugally green!

Buying Pre-owned - Resources

Oh, and here are a few of the places that I look to find used items. You will probably have to do a little more looking around to find quality used items, and like I said, have some patience, but I personally like the challenge and love the accomplishment I feel when I find just what I am looking for.

Ebay (obviously)

Craigslist

Freecycle

Half.com - a great place to buy used books! I don't think I'll ever buy a book new again!

Amazon

Garage Sales - I am SO excited for garage sale season to start! I found some great stuff last year!

Thrift stores - Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.

A great place for kids clothes is Once Upon a Child, if you have one in your area.

There are also lots of great online boards where you can buy and sell used items. Two that I frequent regularly are DiaperSwappers.com and DiaperPin.com. They both have FSOT (For Sale or Trade) boards where you can find all kinds of things, not just cloth diapers. :)

And, for those of you who live in my area, there is a women's consignment store in Granger called 2nd Time Around. I've actually never been there, but plan to go this summer after the baby is born.

I would love to hear your favorite places for finding great used items!! Please share!

Buying Pre-owned

One thing that Jer and I have talked about recently and committed to trying to do as much as we possibly can is buying things used or pre-owned. And we're not just talking about cars, we're talking about all kinds of different products that we buy: clothing & shoes, housewares, books, baby items, electronics, etc. If there is something that we want to purchase, we really want to try to find it used first, before we just go out and buy it new. This is something that we are just beginning and learning to do - we definitely are not "experts" by any means, but I wanted to share my thoughts about this with you.

Buying used will accomplish a couple of things for us:
1. It will save us money. Buying things used is much cheaper then purchasing something brand new, although we do have to be careful to make sure we are actually getting a good deal for the quality of the item we are buying used. But, I think in most cases we can buy gently used items that are in excellent shape if we are willing to look hard enough. Also, if we are patient in trying to find something used before just running out the store and buying it, we may decide that we don't really need it after all, and that ultimately saves the most money of all!

2. It reduces the impact that our stuff has on the Earth. When we buy something used we not only keep it from going to the landfill, we also prevent the use of resources that go into making that item brand new. Buying used also eliminates the pollution produced and energy used to manufacture the item and ship it from wherever it was made to here. Also, used items usually have little to no packaging, as opposed to new items which we can all agree are WAY over packaged. (Have you opened a new toy from a box lately?)

3. It will help to keep us from becoming too materialistic. If we are thinking about our purchases and whether or not we really need to buy something, we are not drawn in by the ad on TV or in the paper, or the fancy display (or sale, in my case) at the store. This also forces us to be less concerned about having the newest, latest, best, trendiest things. It helps us to remember that it's just "stuff" and we can't take it with us when we leave this Earth.

Here's a recent example from our life - Kaelyn was growing out of all her pj's. We decided that she needed some new pj's for the summer and that we would like to buy The Children's Place zippered sleepers that we love. I checked online and found a few on sale, but then went to Ebay and found a lot of 10 Children's Place sleepers in her size - the exact ones that I wanted and some gender neutral so we can use them for the next baby too. I bid on them and ended up winning. So, for less than half of the cost of buying them new, I got 10 used sleepers all at once (no shipping from multiple sellers) - and they are in great condition. I was quite proud of myself! Although because I didn't just run to the store and buy new ones we did have a few days of K having to sleep in VERY tight pj's. :)

So, the next time you are thinking about going out and making a new purchase, stop and think if you can find what you are looking for used. Your wallet and the planet will thank you! Now I'm off to search for some Crocs for K for the summer!!

Check out my list of resources for buying used!

"Frugally Green"

I figured it was fitting to share my new direction for my blog with you on April 1st, for the new month, the spring time and also to celebrate Earth Day coming up on April 22nd.

I've done a few posts recently about how I am learning to be more frugal and the ways that I have been trying to save money. While I think being frugal is a good thing, I have also become increasingly more environmentally aware, thinking about how my actions and our family's actions affect the environment and our earth. And I have been thinking about these two ideas together lately, being frugal and being green. I truly believe that we are to be good stewards of the resources that God has entrusted us with. And I have come to understand that that includes both our monetary resources, as well as His creation and the natural resources that He has provided for us.

I love following the frugal blogs that I do and hearing about great deals and how others meet their needs on such low budgets and seeing the way that they are able to stretch a dollar so much further than I have ever been able to - it is inspiring to me. But, at the same time, sometimes I think to myself, when I see stockpiles of disposable razors that were bought for "free", or bottles and bottles of shampoo or lotion, or boxes and boxes of individually wrapped granola bars, "How much is too much?" What price is the earth paying for all of the packaging and material that is going to the dump just so that one never has to pay for a razor? And at what point, when one gets home from the grocery store or the drugstore and takes a picture of their great finds, does one start to "live for" and revolve their life around all of that stuff? I don't want my life to look like that.

Also, I have been frustrated lately with the cost associated with "going green". It seems that many things that are more green may save money in the long run, but require a larger, or at least some sort of, initial investment - re-usable grocery bags, CFL lightbulbs, kitchen cloth like napkins, towels and rags, etc. When you are on a tight budget, you don't always have room for that initial extra cost, even if it could save you more money in the long term. Or sometimes products that are pushed as green products - like organic clothing or bedding, or items made from "sustainable" sources, require that you purchase something new and dispose of your old un-green item - which kind of seems to defeat the purpose to me.

I started looking for blogs that were about being frugal and being green, environmentally aware and responsible, and didn't really find much. Most are either all about the deals and saving money at any "cost", and others are just about different ways to go green and save the earth, but don't have much to do with being frugal.

So, I decided that I am going to embark on a journey to learn to be "frugally green" and I plan to record and share my journey here. I hope that you will follow along with me - hopefully I can encourage and inspire you along the way. I would love to hear any thoughts/ideas you all have about being frugal and being green as I begin my journey.

Frugal Cooking

In an effort to trim down our expenses (even more than we already have), lately I have really been trying to figure out ways to save money on food and groceries. Besides meal planning, which helps alot, I have been following a few blogs that focus on cooking and eating frugally to get inspiration.

$5 Dinners - the title says it all, great recipes and ideas for $5 dinners.
The Grocery Chart Challenge - this lady is amazing! She feeds her family of 6 on only $60/week!
Fun Foods on a Budget - some basic recipes and some interesting/different ones - all in keeping with eating frugally.

I have a few recipes that I would like to make that include beans, and I have been waiting for a sale to stock up on canned beans, but haven't come across any lately. So, yesterday I was thinking about the bags of dried beans I have in my pantry from when we were getting WIC after Jer was laid off. They were free, and they have just been sitting there, and I really could put them to good use. I looked around online a little bit about cooking dried beans and found this post at A Year of CrockPotting (which is the BEST crockpot blog ever, by the way) and tried it out last night.

I put black beans in the crockpot to soak at about 4:30 yesterday afternoon, and then turned them on low to cook at 11:30 before we went to bed. They were pretty much done when I got up at 7:30, but I let them cook for another 1/2 hour. Then I drained them and let them sit out for a little while to cool down and put them into bags to freeze, a jar to use later this week in a recipe and then the leftovers in a baggie for snacks, etc. K actually ate a handful of them for her morning snack, and really liked them. And, I feel really good about her eating beans, they are so good for you and I know that the ones I made aren't loaded with sodium like the canned ones are.

It really was easy, I loved cooking them in the crockpot and just being able to turn them on and go to bed and they were ready to go in the morning. The thing that took the most time was sorting out the bad/broken beans before soaking them. I probably lost about 1/8-1/4 of a cup in bad/broken beans.

I have to price it out the next time I'm at the store, as I'm not quite sure how much this actual bag of beans cost, because it was free with WIC, but I think they are around $1 for 16 oz., and could be even cheaper on sale. I basically got the equivalent of 3 cans of beans, with a few leftovers. I think cans of beans are around $.75 or so depending on the type of bean and whether they are on sale or not, which makes these beans MUCH cheaper, even with the cost of energy, as the Year of Crockpotting post states. And again, like I said, it was easy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be making beans like this from now on, unless I come across a crazy, amazing sale on canned beans.