Frugal • Purposely Frugal

Ditching The Store-Bought Cleaners!

Apr 272013

A couple of years ago I began dabbling in the world of baking soda and vinegar as cleaning products, but didn’t get into it whole-heartedly. Then when we moved here I didn’t bring any cleaners with me and thought it’d be the perfect time to see how long I could go without buying any cleaners….well we’ve been here going on 9 months, and I’ve purchased almost none! So what have I been using the last 9 months? I’m glad you asked!

Vinegar

You can buy a nice big jug of distilled white vinegar for just a couple bucks.

I use it for:

Cleaning mirrors and windows, just keep it in a spray bottle for easy use.
Sometimes I clean my floor with just hot water, but sometimes I use vinegar too.
Pour some baking soda, vinegar and then hot water down a slow drain to help clear it out.
Use in place of fabric softener.

Vinegar makes great window/mirror cleaner!

Baking Soda

I like to buy the larger boxes of baking soda and use it not just for baking, but also for cleaning!

It works great on:

The kitchen counter top.
The kitchen sink.
The bathroom sink.
The toilet bowl.
Getting strong onion and garlic smells out of my wooden cutting board.
Combine with vinegar for a fizzy cleaning product!

Keep baking soda in a spice jar for easy use.

Keeping baking soda in a spice bottle makes it easy to sprinkle around for cleaning!

Disinfecting Wipes

Disinfecting wipes are really the only store-bought cleaning supply I have right now (not counting dish soap). I know they’re not the most frugal choice, but they come in handy, like when we were chopping up meat from an entire deer on our kitchen table! I’ve been reading about various DIY disinfecting wipes and if I do try it, I’ll have to make a new post!

Any recommendations on homemade disinfecting wipes?

This post is linked at Frugally Sustainable and A Blossoming Life.

97 Cent Stain Remover!!

Lessons in Laundry, Series 3 Responses »

Feb 052013

As you may know if you read my blog much, I’ve started making my own powdered laundry detergent and one of the ingredients I use is a bar of fels-naptha soap found in the laundry detergent isle of Wal-Mart and probably most any grocery stores.

You may (or may not because I don’t recall mentioning it on the blog) know that Cameron works 2 afternoons a week at our on campus garage where he fixes things on the training center’s vehicles (don’t ask me details, car stuff is all over my head). But what I do know is that he comes home with some very dirty jeans. I’ve had a bad habit of throwing the pants into the laundry hoping that the grease and grim will just come out in the wash and all will be fine. Well….that doesn’t usually happen, and then I of course have to make things worse by throwing them into the dryer which bakes the lovely stains in even more.

Finally the other day Cameron decided to scrub some of his grimy clothes with fels-naptha before they went into the wash, and guess what? It really did get the stains out! Now I’m not sure if it would work on his clothes that have been stained awhile and dried in the dryer and all, but it really does work with fresh stains and you don’t even have to scrub that much! It also helps with t-shirt armpits laden with sweat and/or deodorant.

Is fels-naptha a better economical choice over other stain removers? I walked down the laundry aisle and came out with these figures:

$6.86 for 1.59 oz. Tide Stain Eraser To Go- This had 16 little individual erasers in it.
$2.94 for 0.338 fluid oz. Tide Pen To Go
$2.98 for 14 fluid oz. Shout Advance Gel Spray
$2.96 for 18 oz. Shout Advance Foam Spray
$.97 for 5.5 0z. Bar of Fels-naptha

I didn’t actually sit down and compare the unit prices for all of these, it seemed to intimidating with some being in ounces, others in fluid ounces, and then how do you compare bars to sprays to pens to erasers? But if you look at the numbers overall, you can see that the fels-naptha is a pretty good bargain. Plus the fels-naptha only has a wrapper that needs to be thrown out, whereas the other options have a lot more packaging.

If you use just a little fels-naptha for a stain then want to us the rest for laundry detergent, just set the soap somewhere where it can dry out before grating it into the laundry powder.

Now if only I had started using fels-naptha sooner…

This post is linked at Frugally Sustainable, The Frugal Girls and The Purposed Heart.

Christmas Gift Ideas

Christmas, Crochet, Frugal Gifts, Gifts 2 Responses »

Dec 312012

I know this is post-Christmas, but I thought it still might be useful for future-Christmases or birthday presents. Here’s a few of the low-budget gifts we gave this year:

Home-made hot cocoa mix. There’s a lot of different recipes out there, but I stuck close to this recipe, only I used french vanilla creamer. This is a great gift idea, because you can make a big batch and divide it up into multiple jars for a lot of gifts. It looks pretty in a glass jar with marshmellows on top. I put snow-man shaped french vanilla flavored marshmellows in it to go with the french vanilla flavor.
Trail mix – I made a nutty trail mix for my dad, with almonds, peanuts and Christmas colored peanut M&Ms. I layered them in a glass jar, an idea I got from pinterest. What’s great about this idea is that you can personalize it by putting the person’s favorite, fruit, nuts or candies in it.
Using my Swagbucks* – I was able to get one gift free (not including shipping) by using my swagbucks to get an Amazon giftcard, which I used for a gift.
Crochet dishcloths – Dishcloths can be simple to crochet, so it’s a great gift idea even for new crocheters, plus who can’t use a fresh new dish cloth every now and then?

Hand print pot holder. I got this great idea from Ally’s Helpful Hints for Mommies. Use acryclic paint and have kids make a hand print (or foot print) on a hot pad. Then have the kids, if old enough, write their name and date on it with a sharpie.
Crochet hat – I made a crochet bear hat for my nephew with this pattern. It’s basically just a beanie with two ears.

* When my referrals from this link earn points for searching, I win matching swag bucks, up to 1,000 points per person.

“Home-made” Cleaners for Us Wimps

Cleaning on the Cheap, Decorations 2 Responses »

Aug 232012

There seems to be a big move towards home-made cleaning products. They’re cheaper, more natural and supposedly better for the environment, but to be honest sometimes the thought of making all my own cleaning products seems daunting. Mixing ingredients that I don’t usually have around the house, or cooking laundry soap over the stove kinda daunts me at this point. The good news is, I’ve discovered just because I don’t want to cook up my own cleaners, doesn’t mean that I have to buy all my cleaning products either!

Elbow Grease

We get in such a habit of using a special cleaning product for every surface that could ever be imagined. There’s floor cleaner, oven cleaner, window cleaner, furniture polish….. While it can be good to have some specific cleaners, it’s not always necessary. I usually wipe down my counters, tables or shelves with just a damp cloth…no cleaner at all. Unless I’m cleaning up raw chicken or a super gooey mess, a damp cloth and a little elbow grease usually does the trick!

Soaking

When I have to clean out my crock pot I usually fill it with water and maybe a little soap and let it sit! I let the soaking do most of the work for me. Then when I wash it out, usually most of the hardest gunk falls right off. Soaking can also be done with stained clothes.

Vinegar instead of Windex

I did a post on this before and in my post I mixed white vinegar and water, but I’ve changed that and now I just do all vinegar. Just put it in a spray bottle and spray your windows and mirrors then clean with an old newspaper or rag. I like using microfiber cloths. You can impress your friends by telling them you make your own windex, and they never have to know it’s just one ingredient!

Vinegar for Fabric Softener

I like to soak stinky shirts in white vinegar to help get rid of the smell, but it also has other benefits in laundry use, which you can read about here.

Baking Soda

Baking soda can be used for many a cleaning job. It works good for scrubbing, especially when paired with an old toothbrush and it helps get rid of odors (as does vinegar). You can sprinkle some in the toilet bowl, clean sinks or counter tops with it. To make it handier to use you can keep it in an old spice bottle and sprinkle out as much as you need.

Vinegar + Baking Soda

Mix the two ingredients and you have a bubbly reaction! I’ve used these two together to put down sink drains to get rid of odors and help keep the drains clear.

Easy Air Freshener

I’ve made my own Febreeze using fabric softener. It worked pretty well too.

Have you tried making home-made cleaners and detergents? Do you just buy them? Or do you meet in the middle, like me?

DIY Key Holder

Decorations, Frugal Gifts, Kid Crafts, Organizing 4 Responses »

Aug 152012

Key holders are my best friend! I think I would lose keys every day if it wasn’t for having one hanging at the front door. When we moved, we got rid of the one we had, but never fear! Cameron came to the rescue! He went outside and found some wood and sticks just lying around, then drilled 3 holes in the bigger piece of wood using an antique hand drill that he had purchased used on ebay.

Then he glued the smaller sticks inside the holes and let it dry…and viola! I now have a rustic, nature themed key holder, so I don’t lose my keys! Plus almost no money was spent making it!

Helping Kids Learn to Give

Christmas, Frugal Gifts 2 Responses »

Dec 082011

It’s so fun to give Christmas gifts to our little kids, isn’t it? Seeing their little eyes light up with excitement as they tear the paper off a gift! But them sometimes they get a little greedy with all the gifts and instead of appreciating the ones they’ve already opened, just want to open more and more and don’t want to wait for others to open their gifts. One year my Mom did are really clever thing with my little brother to help him learn not just getting, but also giving. We took him to the dollar store and told him to pick out a gift for everyone in the family. Since everything was a dollar we didn’t have to worry about him picking out something too expensive. He really enjoyed being able to pick out things by himself and we enjoyed getting the funny things that a 4 year old thought we’d want! I think the funniest thing he picked out was one of those toy jewelry and nail sets for Mom, but she proudly wore her gaudy purple fake nails and plastic necklace and clip on earrings to our family get together Christmas day!

Crayon Cookies

Cheap Entertainment, Christmas, Frugal Gifts, Fun Frugality 6 Responses »

Nov 292011

The pink, orange and yellow one in the front was my favorite

Gracia got a nice crayon set for her birthday this year. She had crayons before that, but they were all broken and miscellaneous crayons. I didn’t throw the old crayons out though. I saved them to make crayon cookies with, and finally got around to doing it!

Take all the paper off the crayons (if these are old crayons, chances are the kids have already done this!).
Break them into pieces and put in muffin tins. If you have cool shaped muffin tins that would be even better. You can put like colors together or what’s really fun is mixing the colors up. My favorite combination was bright pink, yellow and orange (see photo). I also made a camouflage one with brown, green and black (see photo below).
Turn your oven on very low then put the muffin tins in.
Keep your eye on it and once the crayons are melted take them out and let them cool a little, then put in the freezer (I got the freezer idea from Ten Ten). After being in the freezer they pop out super easy.

You can experiment with these to see how you like them best. My first batch were a little thin, so I made the next batch a little thicker. These are a great frugal gift to put in stockings, or use as party favors. They’re especially good for little toddlers just learning to color, since they’re big and easy to hold, but any kid can use them.

I saw a crayon maker on a commercial, which uses this same idea, so I looked it up online and it cost $30. I made mine at home for practically free, just old crayons and a tiny amount of gas to heat the oven.

Some other frugal kid gifts are:

Juice Lid Memory Game

Homemade Finger Paint

Homemade Bubbles
This post is shared at Frugally Sustainable, a new favorite site of mine!

Frugal Decoration: Bean Jar

Decorations 2 Responses »

Oct 272011

I made this frugal decoration! You’re probably looking at it and thinking, “What’s so exciting about a jar of beans?”….and you’re probably right in your thinking. I’m a very unartistic, uncreative person, so when I actually made a decoration I was very proud of myself! Even if it is just a jar of beans! But it was very frugal!

The jars were my Grandma’s, and the beans were just some that I had in my pantry. The really cool part is that if I ever need to use the beans I can, since dry beans don’t go bad (or if they do, it takes so long I’ve never seen it happen). The other jar has some sunflower seeds, I haven’t decided if I should do the bean thing with that jar too or not.

3 Random Tips

Money Saving Tips 3 Responses »

Oct 262011

Today I have 3 random tips. The first two are ones I learned from an episode of Sandra Lee’s Money Saving Meals.

You can make your own colored sugar for cheaper than buying it. Just put some sugar in a bag then drop some food coloring in and mix it up!
You can use brown paper bags to soak up grease in fried foods instead of paper towels. The only problem with this idea, is all of the stores I shop at only have plastic bags so I don’t usually have any extra paper bags around the house, but I still thought it was a great tip for any of you that might have paper bags!
My last tips is if you have a little cilantro and you don’t know what to do with it, its tastes really refreshing in a salad! It’s my new favorite way to eat salads!