Wednesday, January 27, 2010

My Homemade Laundry Soap

This is the original recipe. Over time I have changed it to fit more of my needs. I'll put how I changed it in parentheses after wards.

Laundry Soap (From Reader's Digest Homemade)

*1/2 cup soap flakes (I use Ivory Soap most of the time, but have been known to use whatever I've been able to get cheapest, just grate them finely, or run them through the food grater, and I usually grate up 5-6 bars)
*1/2 cup baking soda (I usually just dump in 3-4 of the small boxes)
*1/4 cup washing soday (I usually just dump in a whole box)
*1/4 cup borax (I just dump in a whole box of this too)
*(I add in 1/2 box of All-Color Bleach)

1. To make the soap flakes, lightly grate a bar of pure soap, such as Ivory, on a coarse kitchen grater (I've found if you coarsely grate it, they don't melt in the wash water)

2. In a large bowl mix all the ingredients together. Store in a tightly sealed container. (I usually keep mine in a 5 gallon bucket.)

3. Use about 1/2 cup of the mixture instead of detergent in each load of laundry. (I don't use near that much, I usually use between 1 Tablespoon & 1/3 of a cup, depending on how dirty the clothes are and the load size.)

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Detering from the plan...

Well, tonight we're neither feeling like cooking, so we're munching on garlic & cheese biscuits that we baked last night. For supper, we're having frozen meals from this last weeks grocery shopping... Oh, by the way, we bought something last night and I forgot to post it. We walked up to the gas station up the road last night and got a sunday paper and a quart of milk. Total: $4.33. We're in for a storm in the next few days... Not sure what we're in for, but ya know...

Followers!!!

I'm so excited! I got on today and I gained 2 more followers since yesterday!!! Yay! Tell your friends!!! So far today we haven't done anything, I slept most of the day, since I didn't go to bed till 6:45 this morning.

I got a special present in the mail today :)

We haven't put it together yet, but it's here!!! I'm really excited. It folds down flat, for easy storage. I can't wait to get it together!!!

Day 3, Morning

Well, Tonight is a sleepless night, as I'm still not feeling well. It's 4:15 am, and we are eating breakfast :). For breakfast this morning we had 1 egg, 2 apple cinnamon muffins with butter and hot tea. All pantry items :) We made up the muffins last night.

For lunch we have planned leftover turkey bowls, with the corn, mashed potatoes, green beans, turkey and gravy leftover from the last two days.

For supper we will have a ham steak (we bought a big bone in ham and sliced out some steaks from it, while they were on sale right before Christmas). We're gonna have buttered lima beans, frozen from the garden, with it.

We also made up last night some jello for today and some pudding that we ate as a snack last night. We're working on trying to eat through all of the expired and close to expired things in the pantry and freezer so that we can start out fresh.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Day 2

Today was day 2 in our challenge. We had leftover ribs with baked potatoes for lunch. Instead of rice-a-roni we had baked carrots with the baked potatoes and ribs. :)

For supper, we had leftover turkey from a turkey that we bought when they were on sale for $.49 before Thanksgiving. We bought 4 of them and we cooked one up at that time to eat on and freeze the leftovers. We still have the other 3 in the freezer. We had mashed potatoes, which we already had on hand, we usually get these in a 15 lb bag for around $2.98 at Food 4 Less. With that we did gravy that I got on sale with a coupon at Target before Christmas. The veggie was corn from the garden this summer that we had frozen.

I didn't get a chance to play with the bread machine today, I wasn't feeling well most of the day. Maybe tomorrow... I'm thinking maybe a pumpkin or banana bread (I bought a case of pumpkin when they first put it out before thanksgiving with the shortage! and I have tons of frozen bananas in the freezer)

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Day 1

Tonights dinner meal cost us close to nothing. We did a little pantry/freezer raiding.

Smoked BBQ Baby Back Ribs
Au Gratin Potatoes
Green Beans
Bread & Butter

The Ribs were given to us, as well as the bread. The Green Beans came in a box that I got of food off of freecycle. The Au Gratin potatoes were a Betty Crocker box mix that I had bought on sale, with a coupon. We will probably have ice cream here in a bit for dessert, I got those on sale with a coupon too. Got 6 bricks of Hiland ice cream a few weeks back for $0.99 each!!!! :)

For an evening snack, while we watched movies, we had yummy popcorn, popped on the stove, in a pot, with butter :) Yummy!

The ribs were done smoked on the charcoal barbecue grill. Hubby made them up, putting them on the grill over a pan of water, with the charcoal over to one side, to smoke them. They were so good they didn't even need any bbq sauce!!! They were yummy.

Tomorrow we have planned

Leftover ribs with a baked potato and maybe a rice a roni or something for lunch
and for supper, turkey slices (from a turkey, we got for $.49 a lb) we cooked before Christmas and froze the pieces of), mashed potatoes & corn & bread and butter.

I'm also going to work on trying out my garage sale bread maker tomorrow as well! :)

Friday, January 22, 2010

$30 a week Challenge

So, we sat down the other night to figure out our budget. DH asked me, how much would I need on an average week for my household budget (personal care items, cleaning, food, etc.), and I said, well, on average here lately, I've been spending between $30 and $40 a week. So we decided that for a while at least that my weekly budget is $30. I'm going to keep track of my progress on here. I'll post my shopping trips, menus, recipes, and everything else I do to stay within that budget. We also bought me a book tonight, that I'm going to post things that I learn from. We bought The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half by Stephanie Nelson (The Coupon Mom). We also ordered my very own shopping cart so that I can start taking public transportation more for my shopping trips, and I can walk to the stores within walking distance (within a mile from the house). I can't wait to see where this takes us!

Dawn

Shopping Trip 1-22-10

Target:



(1) Tide Sample Size - $1.12 Coupon: $1 Final: $.12

(4) Healthy Harvest Ronzoni Pasta - Sale $1.22 Coupon: $1/2 Final: 2.88/4

(1) Honey Nut Cheerios 25.25 oz - Sale: $3.50 Coupon: $1 Final: 2.50

(2) Lean Cuisine Meals - Sale: $2 Coupon: $1 Final: $1

(3) Lean Pockets - Sale $1.79 Coupon:$1/3 Final: 4.37/3

(1) Cosmetic Bag (for use as a coin purse) - $.97

Target Discount for bringing my own bag $.05

Final Spent: 14.49

Savings: 11.05





Aldi's (went yesterday but was still this weeks budget)



Neufchatel Cheese - $.99

2 lbs Carrots - $.99

Total: $2.08





Dillons:



(2) Cheerios 14 oz. - $2.77 Coupon: $1 Final: $1.77

Total: $3.66

Savings: 2.84





Walgreens:



(2) Wet Wipes - $2 Coupon: $1.50/1 RR: $1/2 Final: FREE

(1) Dozen Eggs - $.79

(3) Chunky Soup - $3.19 Coupon: $1.50/3 Wags: $1.50 ea. Final: $1 ea.

(1) Dawn Ultra - $ 1.39 Coupon: $.25 Wags: $.99 ea. Final: $.75

(4) Lindsay Olives - $2.19 Coupon: $1/2 Wags: $.99 ea. Final: BOGO Free

Total: $7.91

Savings: $16

RR Recieved: $1

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Cool contest I found to win free groceries for a year

"Even if you don't want to enter, please click so I get an extra entry!!!"
Hey, I just entered this contest on Cozi.com to win free groceries for a year. All you have to do is put in your email address.

Even if you don’t enter, please click the link to help me win. (I get an extra entry for telling you.) Thanks!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Wags & Dillons Trip




Total for Trip: Spent $30.48
Saved $41.38 (from coupons and some discounts)

-DILLONS-
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese - Sale $.85 Coupon Buy 3 get 1 free
Nissan Chow Mein Dinner - Sale $1.00 Coupon $.50 Doubled FREE
Yakisoba Cheddar Cheese Dinner - Sale $1.00 Coupon $.50 Doubled FREE
Nissan Bowl of Noodles - Sale $.89 Coupon $.50/2 Doubled
Fleschmann's Yeast - Sale $5.99 Coupon $.50 Doubled
Airwick Warmer - Clearance $.59 Coupon (Free with purchase of 2 refills) FREE
Airwick Refills - Clearance $1.99 Coupon $1/2
Glade Oil Candle Holders - Sale $1.74 Coupons $2/1, $1.50/1, $2/2
Frozen Wild Blueberries - Sale $3.99 Coupon $.65 Doubled
-WAGS-
Mother Earth News Magazine - $5.99
Post Grape Nuts - Sale $1.75
Nivea Body Wash - Sale $4.99 RR $2 Coupon $1
Herbal Essences - $3.99 Coupon FREE
Biotene Gum - $2.19 Coupon $2
Burt's Bees Hand Soap - Clearance $3.59 Coupon $1
LySyl Lip Balm - $2.99 Coupon $1 Mail in Rebate $2 MONEY MAKER!!!
AT WAGS I ALSO HAD A $3 OFF PURCHASE OF $10 OR MORE, AND A $5 GIFT CHECK TAKEN OFF!!!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Seventh Generation Sample & Coupon!


This arrived in my mail today! It's a sample of the Seventh Generation Dish Soap & Fabric Softener sheets! There's enough soap to do one sink load of dishes and 2 softener sheets! And, a $1 off any Seventh Generation product coupons that doesn't expire till March! I have found these products at Target, and many of the products are very inexpensive, as Natural/Earth-Friendly products go.