A Good Idea to Evaluate

I had a reader comment the other day that really made me stop and think...


"Love your site! I don't want to be critical, but running the dishwasher three times a day?!! wow, I get mad at my family (of 6 also) for filling it up once a day! I agree with Jennifer, I make my kids use the same cup all day and even a plate gets reused if it only had a sandwich on it. BUT. . .I would run the dishwasher more if we had a sickness going around or were extremely busy, which could be your reason."

It made me wonder if I could be doing things different. It's always great to take some time and re-evaluate your methods and routines to see if it's worth it to make some adjustments. So today I kept an eye on my dishwasher to see just what I was filling it with. Here's how it looked.

At breakfast I whipped up some apple muffins so I filled the dishwasher with: a few dishes from last nights dinner that wouldn't fit in, two muffins tins, two giant mixing bowls, 6 plates and cups, a spatula, measuring cups and spoons, a knife and the pieces to my food processor.

Load 1

At Lunchtime everyone had leftover spaghetti so we had 6 big dinner plates, 6 more cups (cuz gross, we don't re-use cups unless it's just water) utensils and empty tupperware.

At dinner time I made homemade mac and cheese (skillet, pasta pot, 2 mixing bowl, utensils, casserole dish, food processor) green beans (another pan and lid) and PB and J cupcakes (muffins tins, mixing bowls, frosting piper, and various utensils.

Load 2

We had guest for dinner so we had 8 plates, glasses and sets of utensils, and various pots and pans that wouldn't fit in the previous load. Still some space left to be filled with late night snack dishes.

Which will be Load 3


With all six of us home most days (hubby has a home office) we tend to have two to three meals around the table as a family....with actual place settings. We like it like that. Plus cooking from scratch for generally two meals of the day requires lots of bowls and tools that need to be washed before I can cook again. Since time needs to be balanced too, I'm not willing to hand wash all those dishes (or assign it to a kid). So in evaluating, I'm ok with two to three loads per day.

Do those of you that are home all day, cooking from scratch find that your dishwasher is always full?

What To Do When You Are Out Of Dishwashaer Detergent

The end of the month is always tight for us. We always make it but we are squeaking the whole way. So this week I ran out of dishwasher detergent. I debated whether or not to run to the store and do the money juggle but decided I could wait until the 1st when we get paid. With six of us living here I run at least two to three loads in the dishwasher everyday. I guess I could have hand washed but I just don't have the time to add anything else to my day. I knew I couldn't use regular dish soap in my washer because one weekend when I was gone, the husband decided that was a great idea and the kids called me letting me know that my kitchen floor was covered in 6 inches of bubbles. But I DID have another none sudsing soap in the house.

Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent!

Woohoo. It washed my dishes great, left no residue and they came out sparkly clean. So if you haven't already tried the homemade laundry soap yet, maybe that will help get you there. And if you have, then now you don't need to panic if you are out of dishwasher detergent.

Homemade Upholstery Cleaner

So I have this couch I don't need anymore. And what do you do with stuff like that if you have any frugality whatsoever? You try turn it into cash of course. I decided I would list it on Craigslist and wanted to get the best price I could. But lo and behold, some scabby boy of mine decided to crawl all over it's tan cushions and bleed. I thought it was doomed to be freecycled but what have I got to lose right? I'd give it one shot to see if I could get it cleaned off but a quick glance in my cupboard told me that there was NO upholstery cleaner anywhere. Here's what I came up with and it worked like a charm.

Homemade Upholstery Spot Cleaner (no more expensive aerosol cans)

2 1/4 cups hot tap water
1/4 cup liquid dish soap (preferably with a de-greaser in it)

Mix the soap and the water in a bowl and whip until you see suds. Using a clean cloth dip into the soap mixture, squeeze out the excess and rub onto the stain. Lightly scrub with a small toothbrush. Wipe away any suds with a clean damp cloth. Rinse cloth and repeat until suds are gone. Repeat the soap process if necessary until stain is gone. Dab moisture from upholstery with a clean dry cloth. Then set a fan to blow on the spot until it's dry.

War on Germs Makes Cents

Summer is over, the doors and windows that usher in all that fresh air are shut and the whole family is closed in the house for the next several months. While I love all the coziness that the next seasons bring, it’s also a breeding ground for germs and winter illnesses. But there are some things you can do to make sure that the sick-fairy doesn’t visit your house. Along with vitamins and other immune builders you can kill all those germs that get carried in through dirty hands, shoes and sneezes with just a few cents and some homemade concoctions. So it’s time to build up your germ fighting arsenal and plan for a winter with fewer illnesses and much more cuddling around the fireplace. Here are a few recipes to get you started.

Homemade Disinfectant

2 teaspoons borax

4 tablespoons white vinegar

10 drops of essential oil (tea tree, pine, eucalyptus or thyme)

Hot water

In a clean spray bottle mix borax, vinegar and 3 cups hot water. Add 10 drops of essential oil and use on counter tops, door and cupboard knobs, and toilet handles. Make sure to label your bottle clearly.

Lavender Antibacterial Spray

1 cup water
20 drops pure essential oil of lavender

Pour the water into a spray bottle. Add the lavender essential oil and shake to blend. Spray on the surface and let set for at least 15 minutes, or don’t rinse at all. Great on cutting boards, bathroom surfaces and other places where bacteria might grow.

Homemade Air Freshener Ideas

A closed up house can get stuffy and stale. Try these ideas to freshen it up!

• Place a few drops of your favorite pure essential oil on the inside tube of a roll of toilet paper. Every time it is turned, it will let off the scent.
• Add 4-5 drops essential oil of choice to 1/2 cup water. Pour into spray bottle and mist area.
  
• In the kitchen bring a small pot of water to boil with some of your favorite spices in it.

Book Recommendation on Creative Cleaning

I came across this book at the library and it blew my socks off. It's got some amazing info on using everyday household products to clean just about any thing you can think of.

• How to clean crayon off a wall using Baking Soda
• How to rejuvenate wilting flowers with Epsom Salt
• How to get rid of the mildew smell from your cars air conditioner system with Lysol
  

The author quotes a lot of brand name items (I'm thinking he might have some paid endorsements in the book) but I've found generics work just as well in many of the situations.

So go HERE to take a look. I'm going out to my Volvo right now to try the one about the air conditioner. Woohoo!

Frugal Spring Cleaning!

Make sure and go over HERE to enter the GE giveaway. The first winner will be announced soon so check back!

Toward the end of each of my pregnancies I would get an overwhelming urge to sort, clean and organize. I was a crazed woman for the last few weeks before each baby’s birth as I purged my house of all excess clutter and scrubbed every nook and cranny until it passed the white glove test. I made honey-do lists as long as my arm and my husband quickly learned to convincingly pretend it was just as important to him that the baseboards were dust free and the contents of the freezer were all color coded. And even though my pregnancy days are over, that feeling still visits me every year to some extent. When it starts to get close to spring, I get the urge to clean away all the germs and clutter that have accumulated over the winter.

Now, spring cleaning doesn’t mean you have to spend hundreds of dollars on toxic cleaning supplies to get your house sparkling. In fact everything you need to clean your entire house is probably already lurking in your cupboards. You just need to know what it does and how to use it. Homemade cleaners are a great way to save money. A three to four dollar brand name store bought cleaner can be made for just pennies at home and cleans just as well if not better. And most of the time the ingredients in the homemade version are much healthier for your family and the environment. Do you have these items in your house already?

Ammonia – Disinfects and cuts grease

Rubbing Alcohol – disinfects

Distilled White Vinegar – effective for killing most mold, bacteria and germs

Borax – cleans, deodorizes, disinfects and softens water

Baking soda – cuts grease, gently scours and neutralizes odors

With these few household items that you probably already have on hand, you’ll be able to scrub away the winter grime and save a bundle in the process.

All Purpose Cleaner

Empty Trigger Spray Bottle

2 Tablespoons distilled white vinegar

1 teaspoon Borax

Water

1/8 cup of liquid dish soap

Pour the vinegar and borax into the spray bottle with a funnel. Follow with one cup of warm water and swish around until dissolved. Fill the rest of the way with water leaving about 1 inch of space at the top. Pour in the dish soap. You now have a cleaner that can cut kitchen grease, disinfect counter tops, and wipe out odors at about 10 cents per bottle.

Window Cleaner

¼ cup ammonia

1 cup rubbing alcohol

1 teaspoon liquid dish soap

6 ¾ cups water

Mix all ingredients together and pour into a spray bottle. Store extra in a jar for later use.

Soft Scrub

½ cup baking soda

Enough liquid dish soap to make a texture like frosting

Apply with a sponge and some elbow grease. Good on bathtubs because it doesn’t leave any grit behind.

Furniture Polish

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 teaspoon vinegar or fresh lemon juice

Mix the ingredients in a jar. Dab a soft rag into the solution and wipe onto wood surfaces. Cover and store indefinitely.

Oven Cleaner

1 cup or more baking soda
Water
A squirt or two of liquid detergent

Sprinkle water generously over the bottom of the oven, then cover the grime with enough baking soda that the surface is totally white. Sprinkle some more water over the top. Let the mixture set overnight. You can easily wipe up the grease the next morning because the grime will have loosened. When you have cleaned up the worst of the mess, dab a bit of liquid detergent or soap on a sponge, and wash the remaining residue from the oven.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

I admit, I hardly ever clean my oven. Usually the day that the smoke alarm goes off because of the gunk on the bottom that's burning up, is the day it gets cleaned. But it's a yukky job and usually requires some super-toxic smelling chemical that I wonder about using in a place where I stick my food. Just seems kind of stupid, doesn't it? But I came across a simple method of getting it clean with out the aerosol can full of un-namable ingredients and it works great!

Homemade Oven Cleaner

1. Use a spray bottle full of water to thoroughly wet down the floor of your oven.
2. Sprinkle enough baking soda (at least a cup) over the gunk. It should cover the whole bottom of the oven in a white layer.
   
3. Let set overnight
4. In the morning, wipe up the grease and goo.
   
5. When you've removed most of it, dab your sponge with some dishwashing liquid and wipe up the rest.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? Please link directly to your post, not your homepage, and please include a link back here to the Grocery Cart Challenge.

The Search Is Over: Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

I think I've tried EVERY homemade dishwasher detergent recipe known to man. But every single one of them left a film on my glasses and finally I gave up. The good news is that I found out that the dollar store brand (Sun) works just as well as any other store bought I've tried. The even better news is that I finally, after three years of searching, found a home brew that works and is way cheaper. I've found that the homemade detergents work differently in different types of water (hard and soft), but out of all that I've tried, this finally works for me. So experiment with it and let me know if it works for you.

ADD:

1 Tablespoon of Borax
1 Tablespoon of baking soda (not washing soda from the homemade laundry soap)

Pour into your powder dispenser and close the lid.

MOST IMPORTANTLY:

Fill your rinse reservoir with distilled white vinegar and then run your washer.

No film.

Shiny clean dishes.

AND a bonus because the vinegar cleans out your dishwasher and removes any odors.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? Please link directly to your post, not your blog, and please include a link back to the Grocery Cart Challenge.

Say Buh-Bye To Dryer Sheets

A reader sent me a link to an amazing idea and I thought I'd pass it on. Instead of using dryer sheets, this link shows you how to make a dryer ball out of tin foil that not only removes static but so far has lasted 6 month without replacing. Talk about frugal! So go on over HERE and check it out. I'm so excited to try it.

Homemade Clorox Wipes

Dannele wrote in and wanted to know if I had a recipe for homemade Clorox wipes. So here's how to make your own for WAY cheaper than store bought.

Homemade Clorox Wipes

1/2 roll extra strong paper towels
2 and 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup bleach

Cut paper towels in half with serrated or electric knife.Place cut side down in airtight container. Boil water, add bleach, pour over paper towels. Remove wet cardboard tube. To use, pull out wipes one at a time from center. Store in a recycled clorox wipe canister or a small plastic tub with a lid.

If you don't want to use bleach you can use this recipe....

Natural Disinfectant Wipes

1 cup witch hazel
1 teaspoon tea tree oil or peppermint oil (natural disinfectant)
1/2 cup water

Cleaning Up After Bed Wetting

I had a reader ask me if I knew how to clean up a mattress after a little one has wet the bed and I'm sad to report that I am highly qualified in this area. There are lots of fancy cleaners out there but really all it takes is some baking soda, white vinegar and dish washing soap.

If you have a repetitive bed wetter it's best to be pro-active. I used to take one of the large heavy duty outdoor garbage bags and place it between the mattress and the fitted sheet. Then when my little munchkin had an accident I never had the wet mattress problem. The layer of plastic caught all the liquid and my only clean up was laundering the sheets.

So if the urine got on the mattress here's an article on how to clean it up using inexpensive, earth friendly household items.

For more Works For Me Wednesday tips go HERE.

Homemade Hand Sanitizer

I had a reader ask me how to make homemade hand sanitizer so I did a little digging and YES it's possible. There were a gazillion recipes out there but not all were efficiently made to kill germs. The main thing I found out is that in order for it to properly kill germs it must have at least 60% alcohol in the recipe.

Here's a link to a simple but effective recipe to kill germs.

I like the thought of making our own because you can control the ingredients in it but I'm wondering how cost effective it is since I can buy some at the dollar store. So you'll have to decide if price is more important than healthy ingredients or vice versa. For me, I like being able to control the chemicals and have it smell the way I want it to.

Let me know what you think.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap- Another Homemade Fabric Softener

I had a perfectly good recipe on here for a homemade dryer sheet that made my clothes smell good, took out the static and softened the fabric. It worked just great as a sheet. But when I got my new front loader machine and dryer, and the dryer ended up with a stainless steel tub with directions NOT to use dryer sheets (probably because of the wax in the commercial sheets but I wasn't taking any chances) I was in need of a liquid fabric softener. I tried the homemade recipe I had been using and just poured it into the dispenser but I didn't like it as well.

So the hunt for a new cost efficient liquid fabric softener was on. Plus it had to work just as good.

I came across this, gave it a try and now I'm in frugal love. We're talking super cheap and scented just the way I like. Plus it's environmentally friendly it that's something you're concerned about. So now you have two options to choose from.

Homemade Liquid Fabric Softener

1 cup baking soda
6 cups distilled white vinegar
8 cups water
10-15 drops of your favorite essential oil scent. (check my left sidebar under "laundry supplies" for some great essential oils.) I like to use lime, orange, or lavender

You will need a one gallon container. First add the baking soda to the container. Next add 1 cup of water. Slowly add the vinegar to the bottle as the vinegar and baking soda will start to fizz. Don't be worried. Then add the rest of the water swirling around & cover venting the top a few times. Last add the essential oil.
Add 1/2 cup in your final rinse cycle for each load but give the bottle a good shake to stir up the essential oil if using.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share this week? Please link directly to your post, not your homepage, and please include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap - Homemade Baby Wipes

Allison sent me an e-mail with a recipe for Homemade Baby Wipes that I thought might benefit some of you. So cool that you don't have to rely on the grocery store for this.

Homemade Baby Wipes

Take a roll of Bounty Select-a-size (I have only used Bounty so I don't know how generic holds up) and cut it in half. Remove the center cardboard tube. Save the other half for another batch.

Mix into a Ziploc or Rubbermaid container:

• 2 cups of water
• 2 tablespoons baby wash
• 2 tablespoons baby oil
• 1 tablespoon alcohol (optional - but I have always used it)

Place the paper towels in the Ziploc with the solution and start pulling from the center. I usually make them the night before and flip the bag over so the paper towels are thoroughly wet in the morning.

I got to thinking about this recipe. I've heard several people say that they use flannel scraps for wipes and I thought you might be able to use them in this recipe too. Just put them in the Ziploc solution and let sit. That would save the cost of the brand name paper towels. Then you would wash them like normal cloth diapers. I've also heard of people putting this solution in an old plastic wipe box with the built in dispenser so that's another option too.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? Please enter your info into Mcklinky. Be sure to link directly to your post, not your homepage, and please include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Cleaning Cloth Diapers With Homemade Laundry Soap

One of many frugal regrets I have is that I wasn't savvy enough to use cloth diapers. I still was a newby at frugality when my first was a baby, over 13 years ago, and the gross factor had much more power over me than it does now.

So when Colleen sent me an email asking about using my Homemade Laundry Soap to clean cloth diapers, I drew a blank. Here's her e-mail...

Hi Gayle,

I have been using your homemade laundry detergent for a little over a year now w/o any trouble. So, I want to first thank you and then ask if any of your readers have said that they safely wash cloth diapers w/ the homemade detergent. I am concerned b/c some sites warn against using borax claiming that is is abrasive. I already wash my baby's clothes w/ the homemade detergent, but wanted to play it safe with the diapers since they come into such close contact w/ a delicate area. :)

Thanks, for your time and all of the great ideas that you put out there for all of us!

Sincerely,
Colleen

Does anyone have an answer to Colleen's question?

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

We have four sinks, three showers and three toilets and with six people living in this house they can get clogged. Instead of expensive chemicals to unclog our drains, we use an inexpensive alternative that doesn't have any nasty fumes.

Homemade Drain Cleaner

1/4 cup baking soda

1/2 cup vinegar

Pour baking soda down drain and follow with vinegar. Let sit for 20 minutes.

This cleans our grease clogs, most hairballs, and even helps clogged toilets that plunging hasn't helped. We let it sit and foam up in a clogged toilet and then a few more plunges and down it goes.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share?

• Please link directly to your post, not your homepage.


• Please include a link back to the Grocery Cart Challenge from your post.

Homemade Oxyclean...Just In Time For Summer Vacation

What is it with summer? It seems that the grass stained knees and the dirty stained bottoms double in quantity as kids spend most of their time playing outdoors. Good times, but it kinda stinks for the laundress of the house. That's when we whip out our Oxyclean. But if you're anything like me you'd rather pluck your chin hairs in public than spend the outrageous price to buy this stuff. So here's a homemade recipe that will save you an enormous amount of money.

Homemade OxyClean

1 cup water

1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide

1/2 cup baking soda

Mix together and soak laundry in it for 20 minutes to overnight and then wash as usual. Or you can just skip the water and pour the peroxide and baking soda directly into the wash with your laundry soap and wash as usual.

This idea is participating in WFMW at We are That Family.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap - Homemade Linen Spray

It really bothers me that when I pull my cotton sheets from the dryer (or clothes line) they have what I can only describe as a burnt smell. Even before I used homemade laundry soap and homemade dryer sheets, I had this problem. The perfume from the store bought soaps would wear off and I'd still be left with unpleasant smelling pillowcases and linens. The answer was the fancy luxury linen sprays that you find in the stores. But what do you do when you can't justify spending well over $10 for a product like that?

You make your own.

It's so easy and just WAY cheaper. Plus you know EXACTLY what's going in the bottle and landing in your bed for you to sleep in all night. And the best part? I'm being frugal but still adding a little pampering and luxury into my life. So here you go. The best recipe for...

Homemade Linen Spray

1 teaspoon of essential oil (a popular scent is lavender but we don't really care for it. A nice fresh scent is jasmine and I really like mango oil for a light fruity scent.)

1/4 cup of witch hazel (you can substitute this with vodka, cetyl alcohol or stearyl alcohol)

3 1/2 cups of water

I used an old hairspray bottle with a pump spray and just washed it out. Then I poured in all the ingredients and gave it a good shake. Just spray on your sheets every morning when you make the bed. You can use this on tablecloths or any linens. It dries quickly and leaves a wonderful scent that smells so good when you turn down your sheets at night.

The witch hazel or alcohol is used as an emulsifier to keep the oil and water from separating. You can make it without, but you'll need to shake it very well to get it to mix together without leaving oily spots. I recommend using the emulsifier.

Check my sidebar on the left under "I Recommend" for a great set of essential oils. You can also add them to your homemade laundry detergent to have a scent to your clothes. I plan on trying it this week.

If you'd like to leave a recipe to share please remember to link directly to your post not your homepage. And please include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

How To Save Hundreds Of Dollars On Laundry Every Year

We have six people living in this house which means LOTS of laundry. With two adults, three rough and tumble boys and a daughter who changes clothes as many times as the mood strikes her, it takes me three to four loads a day to keep from getting buried in dirty clothes. Even using the one-towel-per-week rule, if I skip a day, I'm doomed. Which means my dryer could run almost all day long.

An electric dryer uses around 4000 watts of electricity per hour. My local electric company charges me 5.12 cents per kWh(which means 5.12 cents for every 1000 watts per hour).

Excuse me while I go math-geek on you. I do have a HUGE point to make.

4 x 5.12 cents = 21 cents per hour it costs me to run my dryer.

No big deal right? Only 21 cents? That's not much. It usually takes an hour to an hour and a half for me to dry a large load of towels. No biggie. But consider this. I run my dryer for an average of 5 hours....5 days a week.

21 cents per hour x 5 hours = $1.05 per day.

$1.05 per day x 5 days = $5.25 per week.

$5.25 per week x 52 weeks = $273.oo per year.

Now we're talking. See how those pennies can accumulate? Wouldn't you like to knock $273.oo off your budget each year? That's a frugal weekend at the beach, fresh paint throughout your whole house, a huge chunk towards paying off some debt, a nice chunk in your savings account.

So how can you do it? It's as simple as a clothesline.

If you hung all of your laundry on a clothesline you would save hundreds of dollars per year. But let's be conservative. Even if you only hung half of your laundry on a clothesline you'd still save over $100. My husband always says, "Well, if you found a $100 bill laying on the street, would you pick it up?" Uh...yeah! Duh!

Consider it picked up.

I happen to have a house that came with those metal posts already cemented into the ground so all I did was go to the dollar store and for $2 I got some new nylon laundry line and strung it up. I invested in some wooden spring-hinged clothespins that have lasted me at least 10 years, through sudden rainstorms, kids playing with them, and numerous loads of laundry. (Don't buy plastic. They end up breaking every year and you have to replace them too often.) And I'm set.

If you don't have posts in your yard you can buy a reasonably priced umbrella clothesline that folds up for around $50. (see my left sidebar under "I Recommend") And if you need to dry them inside you can buy a retractable clothesline for a little under $50 (see sidebar). The retractables are so cool because they just roll right up when you're not using them and can be used in small spaces.

Don't want to spend the money? Build your own. Get creative with some dollar store nylon line and a couple of trees in the backyard. Put some hooks between your deckposts and string some line up there. String up your garage. There are a gazillion ways to do it. And for a few hundred bucks in savings, it's worth it to get creative.

Here are a few tips for air drying your clothes...

• If your clothes are going to be in direct sun, hang them inside out to avoid fading.


• Hang clothes by their seams to avoid clothespin indentations on the front of your clothing.


• Knit clothing stays soft when hung outside but towels and jeans can get stiff. My husband likes it but I don't. Before they are completely dry, throw them in the dryer for about 10 minutes to soften them up and finish drying.


• The neater you hang your clothes the less wrinkles you'll have. Don't be messy = less ironing.


• Make sure your clothesline isn't set up around pine trees or sap will get on your clothes.


• Clothes that need to be hung up after drying can just be put on a hanger to dry. It saves a step and space on your clothesline.


• Hang matching socks together with one clothespin to also save time. Make sure to hang them toe-down. They will dry faster and softer.

If you want to save even more, try homemade laundry detergent at a penny per load.

For more WFMW tips go HERE.

Wrapping Up The Questions

What would be the best place to start as far getting a handle on budgeting? To me it seems to be one of those things that is so overwhelming I don't know where to start.

If you are looking for help planning a complete family budget than there is no better book that I can recommend than Larry Burketts The Financial Planning Workbook. It's an easy to use, in depth guide on how to set up a budget and includes all kinds of worksheets and advice to work it all out. If you look in my left sidebar I've got a link to Amazon where you can get these for a discount. If you are asking specifically about where to get started concerning just your grocery budget you can check out my section on "Just How Do I Do This" in the right sidebar and that should give you a good start.

I was also wondering about the homemade laundry detergent. Is it easy to make, and is it safe for use on baby clothes? I'm expecting my second baby and want to make sure anything I use is safe for the kids. My husband looked at me like I had lost my mind when I mentioned making laundry detergent.

The laundry detergent is VERY easy to make. It probably takes me 15 minutes to make a double batch. It is very safe and works well on people with sensitive skin. All the ingredients are non-toxic except for the Borax which is a still a natural occurring compound but the amount in each recipe is minimal.

Do you have any frugal secrets for your homeschool?

THERE IS NO NEED TO BUY BOXED CURRICULUM SETS! Gosh I wish I would have understood that in the early years. I spent hundreds of dollars on stale boring curriculum that we hated. I pull from several different resources for my curriculum and my most frugal sources are e-bay, Rainbow Resource (offers a huge selection at discount) and good ole Paperback Swap for our reading material. (if you decided to sign up please use my e-mail: gaylebryant6@hotmail.com as your referral. )

Have you ever done a post on whether or not you CVS?

I don't CVS or use coupons. I'm not opposed to either and maybe at some point I'll find the time to invest in this. A lot of you out there are getting some amazing deals. But I've noticed several things. One is that I'm not willing to buy 5 car air fresheners just to get a good deal on toilet paper. I don't need car air fresheners so this really isn't a deal for me. Plus if I were to crunch the numbers I could just buy the TP at one of the liquidators at a cheaper price and not have to pay for the other items that I don't really want. And Second, most coupons out there are for brand name items or convenience foods that I don't normally buy. I can get the same things for good prices if I just buy generic or again, hit the grocery liquidators. When they start making coupons for flour, sugar, eggs, milk, or the basics I'll be all over it. And I sure wouldn't pass up a coupon if I knew I could get it cheaper than my regular shopping. But right now I'm not willing to invest the time to learn the system and track down all the sale ads and double coupons and e-coupons. Maybe someday.

Don't forget that Friday is our big recipe swap. I'll be posting Mr. Linky again if you all want to join in.