Frugal Challenge Update and Making my own hand soap and laundry soap

Keeping up with my frugal challenge. We have had all of our meals at home this week not spending any money eating out. One thing I did to save money was make my own foaming hand soap. I had received some of those nice pump bottles from Bath and Body and had read you can make your own. I am not sure where I read it. May have been at Frugal Makes Cents. Anyway if you are any kind of couponer you know you can get free body wash at times from the drug stores with coupon deals so I have quite a bit in stockpile but handsoap deals are never free it seems. Maybe we just use a ton of the stuff too. So you just take your bottle and add about 1/4 bodywash and fill the rest with water. Shake and you have this:

Works great. I have refilled both of the bottles now and will have enough body wash to make hand soap for a year.

Another type of soap I make myself is laundry soap.

It costs me so little a year to make my own but the real reason I started was because of my daughter's sensitive skin and my looking for unscented laundry detergent and nearly falling over dead with the price.

Here is the link to my recipe for laundry soap: laundry soap recipe.

The coupon deals aren't too snazzy this week but I am heading out today to pick up a few deals. Not sure they will be picture worthy.

Linking to:

Coastal Charm

January Days

Yesterday was one of those January days. The sun never made it's way out and the house seems dark. Our house IS dark. With an addition that was put on the back of our house it sits long with no windows in the dining room except for one and it can seem well, dark. So in an effort to cozy it up a bit I keep lamps and little electric flicker candles on timers to come on in the winter months. Just a few shots of my day to cozy up with a blanket, tea and cookies.

I love sheep. I have little ones sitting all around the house. Don't know what it is about them.

This pillow says it all. I am "plain folk."

 It is definitely a day for these!

Joining:

Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphasis Monday
Cottage Instincts for Make it 4 Monday
Boogie Board Cottage for Masterpiece Monday
Little Red House
Brambleberry Cottage
Holidays at the Harris Home
A Stroll Thru Life
A Delightsome Life

Some Good Ideas

Seems all the blogs are a twitter with posts of their favorite 2010 ideas or posts. Here are a few of my favorites:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2010

 Organize incoming paperwork

I have a small space in my kitchen that acts as a catch-all for mail, paperwork and kid's stuff. It is always piled within a few days of cleaning it up so I used an idea I saw to help sort and contain the incoming paperwork.

Here is what it looked like before:

Messy. I  know you don't have to tell me. So here is what I did. I took one of those magazine organizers, some decorative cardstock and some letter stamps to make a paperwork organizer. Of course this is just to handle the papers that need to be dealt with as I sort them each day.

I decided on four categories. To do, bills, kids and file. So things I need to deal with, bills I need to pay or file with my monthly bills, paperwork that needs to be dealt with for the kids and lastly paperwork that needs to be filed away for long term. I stamped away and for those that are crafty, I admit that I am not.

I cut the cardstock to fit and filed away my paperwork and now I have this:

Much improved. So today when I needed to turn in a fundraiser for one of the kids, bam there it was in the kids section and when I needed to call our insurance company with a question, there was the paperwork right there neatly in the to do section. Now I want to give credit to Northern Cheapskate for the idea as I saw this on her blog many months ago but never got around to doing it. I am pleased with the outcome.

Some months later and this is still working for me. Clean and neat. Not like before.

Miracle Cleaner?

Today I was wiping down my tile backsplash and was so so about the results. Some of the grease splatters were still stuck on the tile. Well I wanted to hang a picture with one of those 3M velcro great sticky picture hangers. Like my description? Anyway, it recommended wiping the tile down with rubbing alcohol before applying the picture hanger and when I did I noticed it wonderfully cleaned the area. Even after I had already cleaned it with a kitchen spray cleaner. So I wiped the entire backsplash down with the alcohol and it removed all the grease build up and any dirt and it was so shiny I literally could see myself in the reflection. Who knew? I immediately placed the bottle of alcohol underneath the sink with all my other cleaners. Small things like my reflection in the backsplash make me happy. I kept looking at it today and loving how clean it seemed. Now I have to see what else this might clean. Within reason of course. 

This is such a great cleaner/degreaser. Someone told me to dilute with water and put in a spray bottle. Genius.


Linking with:
Funky Junk Interiors
Organize and Decorate Everything
Dittle Dattle

Secret to the Fluffiest Pancakes Ever!

I don't recall where I learned this tip to making the fluffiest pancakes ever, but it is so simple. You just take your favorite brand of pancake mix. My favorite is the Fresh and Easy brand. Do you have those stores near you? I love mine and they send coupons in the mail all the time.

 Next you add to it some sort of acid. Lemon juice or apple cider vinegar is what I use. Add about a
teaspoon for a small batch and maybe a tablespoon for a larger batch of pancakes. The acid reacts with the  baking soda or powder that is in the recipe and causes the mix to bubble a little bit. Now to counteract the sour you just added, add an equal amount of sugar if you'd like. That's what I do. Let the mix sit for a few minutes to get some good bubble action and then make as usual.  

Joining:
Foodie Friday
Kojo Designs
A Vision to Remember
Be Different Act Normal
Bargain Hunting with Laurie
Funky Junk Interiors
Under the Table and Dreaming
Life As Mom
Sunday Favorites

Frugal Shopping Update

I am purposing this year to spend as little as possible on shopping and still get what I need and then some.

Here I am with my ugly coupon binder heading out to Target to see what I could find in the 90% holiday section. I wanted wrap and cards.

Below is what I picked up:

 Here is what I picked up:
Multi pack of wrap-.60
Single roll of wrap-.25
2 Boxes of Christmas cards 2 @.69= 1.38
2 pack napkins 2 @ .20=.40
1 pack of batteries in dollar section. 1.00- $1 coupon= free. Love that!
Total with tax=$3.22 Pretty Good!

Head on over to Target if you need anything it is clearing out pretty fast but they still had lots of cute gift wrap. Why pay full price to just tear it up right?
I find a lot of my coupon deals and matchups at We Use Coupons. The link is to the right and it is definitely a wealth of good info if you are hunting deals or are a beginner just starting out. You can also e-mail me if you have any questions. Frugal shopping has saved us so much money in the last year since I started really couponing and heck I am just a novice.

Winter Garden

Is it really fair to say "winter" garden here in So. California? We don't have much winter compared to the rest of the country, though this year has been unseasonably cool. I loved it through Christmas, but I now am enjoying a small warm up. Yesterday, the sun on my back while out in the yard inspired me to snap a couple of pics of my languishing garden.

The oranges hang like ornaments from the trees. You know I have five. The previous owner must have ate oranges for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Mr. Sun, that I despise in the summer, is a welcome sight in the winter, making the yard warm enough to use and play in.

Something has clearly been munching on my pansies.

My little patio where I often have coffee in the mornings, is lonely these days. The mornings are too nippy to sit outside right now.


Linking to:
Rose Vignettes
A Few of My Favorite Things
Design it Chic

                                           Tootsie Time

I Love Mornings

I am keeping in the theme of my previous post. Including my love of  red, hearts and MORNINGS!
Yes, I said mornings. I am one of those people that wakes up smiling and talking. Drives my family nuts.
Anyway, I have set a place that makes me happy. I love my MORNINGS.

Linking to :

Between Naps on the Porch

A Collection of This and That

My Romantic Home

Southern in My Heart

Funky Junk Interiors

The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays

Sue Loves Cherries for Rednesday

Kitchen Reds

Just a few shots from my kitchen. I love the color red and I love hearts, so I am pulling out my Valentine's decor already. Helps me to get over the taking down of the Christmas decor. I'm sure you can tell I love hearts by my header. I thought it would be fun for Valentine's Day. 

The little fabric hearts in the prim bowl were a project I did last year. I am not very crafty but they came out cute.


Linking to:  and It's A Very Cherry World for Rednesday and All Things Heart and Home and The Colorado Lady for Vintage Thingy Thursday
Also linking to:
   and    

2011 Frugal Challenge Update

Took this weekend to re-organize, clean and purge my coupons. I love couponing and it is the way I pay for the items this family of six needs for a fraction of what I used to spend. I use a spot in a funky little closet to store my coupons. It was a mess with Christmas stuff thrown in there and coupons not organized. Here is the space now all spiffed and stacked by date. I don't have room for a big file system so I just stack by date and stick a big post it out the side with the date for easy finding.

Next my daughter who is detail oriented and helps me with my binder, cleaned out my folder and stashed the new coupons I had clipped.

Also, in the last week I started to call on my different bills that I may be able to negotiate reductions in. I called our cell phone carrier and found there were some things on our bill we were paying for that we didn't need. My bill will now be $14 less per month. I will work on our insurance rates this week. Worth a shot.

I cleaned out my purse and car and added tons of change to my change bucket. I cash it in about 2-3 times a year at our bank. The total usually is around $65. I will then immediately deposit it and go home transferring the money online using it to pay towards a debt we are working on. That way it is not able to be squandered elsewhere.


I have all my coupons clipped and lists ready to go and will make stops today in a circle to save gas. Lastly, I have my $20 P&G rebate all ready to pop in the mail today. Let's hope for some good rebates in 2011.

Grown Up Space

Aaahhh! All the Christmas stuff and such is tucked away for another year. I miss it but I love the sort of visual resting space after all the decorations are down and before you put back all your year long decor. Gives one a chance to see the space and decide if you want to make changes and we did.

This spot on my counter held a tree this morning but now it is clear of clutter and replaced with some hopeful spring flowers and a simple candle. My little piggy hides a funky blue tile that is original to the kitchen.

Now I wish I had a before pic of our funny little front room. It was the original dining room before a remodel. We had our two year old's play toys in here and gates to corral her in that worked great when she was little and crawling, but we decided to turn it back into a grown up room. This is where we put our tree this year and you can see her toys off to the left.

We don't want to spend any money on furniture and frankly our house is full of the stuff so we set to movin' things around. I like it so much and it flows into our dinging room.

 You can see one of the gates on the right here that we need to take down. SO MUCH BETTER. I'd love to hang some curtain panels on the sides of my shutters.

 My hubby is still out there moving things around so who knows what I'll find in the morning. Some more tweaking for sure but a nice spot in the chair for me to read to Quinn or to read the mail. Here's to new beginnings.
                         Linking to: Funky Junk Interiors
                                             The Tablescaper
                                             Between Naps on the Porch

http://astrollthrulife.blogspot.com/