Homemade Leave-in Conditioner

This is another thing that we get ridiculously over charged for. It's super simple to make...and of course, super cheap.

To make it:

1 cup filtered water (warm)

1/4 cup Triple Moisture Daily Deep Conditioner

2 tsp Sunflower Oil

Spay Bottle

Put everything in the spay bottle, shake it up, and use.

As for the cost:
I'm not even going to factor in the cost of the conditioner, water, or spray bottle because it's already stuff that you're going to have in the house. The sunflower oil was $8.99 for 16oz...to figure out the cost for a couple tsp would be too hard because we're using such a small amount of the overall bottle. So I think that it's safe to say that the cost of making a bottle of homemade leave-in conditioner is pennies!!!

This works great, however, not quite as awesome as the expensive stuff I bought at the beauty store.  But I'm willing to sacrifice a little on quality for such a huge cost savings.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I posted a while back about going more natural and making more stuff from scratch...well, I just finished my first major move towards that goal.

Homemade Laundry Detergent!

All you need is:

1 bar of soap (I used Dove because we have a ton of it in the house for some reason)

1/2 cup of washing soda

1 cup of borax

2 - 5 gallon buckets or bins

And here's how you make it:

Grate the bar of soap into a spaghetti pot, add a few cups of water (doesn't need to be any exact amount) and heat on medium low for about 10 minutes until all of the shavings are dissolved. Pour into a 5 gallon bucket and fill the bucket half way up with hot water. Add 1/2 cup of washing soda and 1 cup of borax, and stir till everything is dissolved. Then fill the rest of the bucket up with hot water, stir a couple times, cover it up with a lid or plastic wrap and put it outside to sit over night. This whole first part only took me about 15 minutes!

The next day, the liquid will resemble more of a gel...break it up by stirring it gently. Pour half of the liquid into another 5 gallon bucket, then fill both up with hot water. Stir a couple times and there you have it....10 gallons of laundry detergent!!!!

Using a funnel (it'll make less of a mess), divide the detergent into smaller, more manageable containers...whatever you have around the house. I use old laundry detergent containers and orange juice bottles.

To use, add a cup to your load of laundry, shaking before you use it.

Note: This will work fine in HE washers because it's low suds, and depending on that bar of soap you use, it will also work just find for cloth diapers. Praise God.

Here's the cost breakdown:

Borax $4 per box (11 cups) - $0.36 per batch

Washing Soda $3.80 per box (6 cups) - $0.32 per batch

Bar of soap $1 per bar

Total cost per batch: $1.68

10 gallons will wash about 160 loads, so the cost per load will be about: $0.01

Now for a comparison:

Tide from Sams Club washes about 146 loads for $19.00

Homemade detergent will wash about 146 loads for $1.53

That's freakin crazy! Now to see how well it washes. My tests will be...normal load of laundry, then Zoe's stinky volleyball knee pads (they're BAD), and then a load of cloth diapers. Drum roll please....

Clipping Coupons Sucks

My family is supper tight on money...not a new concept to anyone I'm sure. My church had a one time event about extreme couponing, so I attended because I didn't have anything else to do (and it's a great way to meet more people at church). I was open to the idea but leery. After hearing the lady talk and share her awesome experiences for an hour, I was pretty darn excited to clip coupons. It would save my family a ton of money and it didn't even sound like it would be difficult. So I stopped at Walgreen's on my way home, bought a paper, went home and started clipping (and printing on-line coupons)! After doing this for a substantial portion of the afternoon and running my ink cartridge dry, I went to the grocery store excited to see what I could save.

Filled my cart with what I needed and made my way to the register...guess how many coupons I used? No, really, guess? Don't forget I spent all afternoon clipping and printing coupons. I had a baggie full of coupons and $120 worth of groceries in my cart, and I used...drum roll please...2. Yeah, you read that right...2 (two) coupons.

It was my first try and I was trying not to get discouraged, but after really thinking about it and going through the sale paper again today, I've come to realize that clipping coupons totally sucks! It does for my family anyway. The majority of what we buy is meat and produce (which are the 2 things that they DON'T make coupons for). We don't buy much junk food and we definitely don't buy very much of the processed/boxed foods (exactly what they DO make coupons for). It takes my family a month to go through a bottle of body wash and I don't really wear makeup (both those have a ridiculous amount of coupons available).

So I decided to go in the other direction...I'm going to save money by being more natural, be more conservative, and make more things from scratch. These habits will save money, although not quite as much as if I changed my habits to fit couponing. There are other ways that I can make more money since I won’t be saving as much. It’s going to be more work, but my family’s health is worth it.

Hi Again, It's Been So Long!

I haven't been on here in a really long time because I felt like I didn't have anything important enough to share with everyone. Well, life is flying by as usual, but for the past year, I feel like I've learned more than ever before...and I wasn't even trying to learn! From being newly married, raising a teenager, and having a baby to making friends (or lack there of) and changing jobs...it’s been quite a year. I think that all the experiences, good and bad, that I’ve had are nothing new and there are tons of people out there dealing with the same stuff. So why not share my thoughts?

So this is the beginning, I'm really going to keep up with writing this time. I hope that my posts are meaningful to someone...or at least entertaining.