Category Archives: household managment

Cleaning products

Posted on by
My friend Jen recently left this comment on my post about cutting back.

YOU GO GIRL! You are becoming a popular subject in my circle of close friends!! Love ya! I want recipes for your bread (please) and also for the cleaning supplies. Do you use the ones from familyhomestead.com or different! I don’t know if I can stray from Tide b/c of the hubby’s construction clothes- my homemade detergent didn’t do the trick- any ideas?!!!

I am very new at this making-my-own-cleaner thing. There are a few things I have been doing for a while that I am happy. I make my own scouring powder. I use it for tons of thing. I scrub my toilets and bath tubs and sinks with it.

I make my own carpet refresher and deodorizer. I put a few drops of essential oil in some Baking soda and sprinkle it over my carpets.

I use vinegar for many things. I put about a cup of white vinegar in to a sink full of hot water and some essential oils and that is what I use to clean my bathrooms and kitchen with and mop my floors. I got a big squirt bottle and filled it about half way with vinegar and the rest of the way with water and some drops of essential oil and that is what the kids use to clean the bathrooms with. They just spray the counter tops and toilet and wipe it off. No harsh chemicals, no fake fragrances or dyes, and if the baby get the bottle and decides to sample it…no worries!

I do this for hand soap.

The next few things I am going to be working on is: laundry soap, dish soap and glass cleaner. I finally ran out of glass cleaner this week, so when I do my shopping I will be picking up some rubbing alcohol so I can make this recipe.

I have been experimenting with dish soap. So far this is what I do: Sprinkle some borax and washing soda in a sink full of hot water, then add some flakes of my bar soap. (Yes I make my own soap…that is another post). I use that for the dishes that don’t go in the dishwasher, and to wipe off the counter tops after dinner. So far I have been loving the results. I am going to try melting down the soap and adding the borax and washing soda to the hot soap, then I am going to put it in an old dish soap bottle and use it that way….we will see….like I said I am still experimenting.

Laundry soap, haven’t tried that yet but I will be soon. I have read a lot of recipes and mostly they seem to be a mixture of borax, washing soda and soap. My friend Mrs Mordecai, has a good recipe here.

Soap for my dishwasher….I have been trying a few things and I am not happy with anything. I have this obsession with sparkling glass and I have been very unsatisfied with everything I have tried.

When I buy cleaning supplies I purchase only a few things: Borax, Washing Soda, Vinegar, Rubbing Alcohol and bleach. I don’t have 50 different bottles for 50 different things. There are no harsh dangerous chemicals (excepting the bleach, and it is used sparingly) I don’t have to worry about the kids helping me clean and everything is so cheap!

Please, if any of you have any other idea share them with us!

More Cutting

Posted on by
Thank you all for your input and suggestions. I do a lot of what was suggested, and what I don’t do I will be soon!

This weekend Dadzoo and I have talked at length about ways to cut back. We are getting super serious, I am even considering (drum roll please) cutting off the DISH! This is a big thing for me, and it isn’t like we can just jump to an antenna, 7 years ago when we moved here you could even pick up local stations on the big fancy antenna we bought. So we just might be no TV. Which really wouldn’t be that bad. (Gulp)

I am quiting WW, that will save some pennies.

I am turning down the thermostat. We have plenty of blankets to huddle under at nights, and sweaters for the day. Unfortunately, we are on the yearly plan with out gas company, and that savings we won’t see until next year…I just have to keep the big picture in mind.

We are more mindful of our electricity use. Our yearly plan just adjusted, and it is 50$ more a month than last year! Ouch! I am turing off the lights, and so are the kids, we are making it a game of sorts. We just might need to get use to that more anyway, electricity may become a problem in the next few years. A few candle lit dinners and evenings might be fun.

I am going to go to a cash only system. When Dadzoo gets paid he is going to get cash for household expenses, that is what I will use for everything. When it is gone, it is gone. If there is extra left over it will go back into savings.

I am going to cut back (again) on groceries. I will be making all my cleaning products (much cheaper and healthier) and baking from scratch almost everything. That creates more work for me, but I am a home economist, that is what I do.

I hope this works out, I am praying that we can make this work and by this time next year we will have some significant debt paid off and will be on the way to our goal of self sufficiency.

Cutting Back

Posted on by

Part of living a more self sufficient life is cutting back where one can. This is an area that I haven’t been so good on.

I can always find a really good reason to buy whatever it is I feel like I need at the time.

The problem with this is that in the 10 years I have been married I have spent more than my husband had brought in. I have not been a good home economist, or a good steward of the blessing we have been given. It is a burden, especially for my husband, and I feel so bad for my poor use of the things he had provided.

Looking at our finances I have come to the conclusion that we will be paying someone for the next 50 years (not including our house) at the rate we have been going, and that is just not going to work! How can we be self sufficient if all our extra money is going to pay for so many things, things that I can’t even tell you what they were in the first place!


I recently read an article that said the only true way to recession (or depression) proof yourself was to have some land that you can provide your own food and have no debt.

If my husband were to lose his job we would be in financial ruin in the space of 4 weeks. We have little savings and much debt. Not very recession proof.

Staring in January we are cutting back, way, way back. We need to bang out some debt. I don’t know all the ways we are going to do this, and I know it will mean a lot more work for me, but I am up to it. My husband makes a really good living and it saddens me that we can’t live the way we would like to because of it. I blame myself.

What things do you do to save on money?

Our System of Government

Posted on by

The other night the punk children of the family decided to vote on whether or not they had to do their daily steward ships on weekends. Of coarse they won by a simple majority and they cheered thinking they had obtained victory. Dadzoo quickly reminded them that our home is not a Republic or a Democracy, that it is a Dictatorship and that he, Dadzoo, was the Royal Dictator.

Later as we were talking about our system of government we decided that it had to be something other than a dictatorship, being that Dadzoo’s rule was religiously backed. He is after all the head of our home by divine right. I, the honorable Queen Mother, (as I at times make the kids call me) made a call to the smarty-pants-college-boy-baby-brother of mine and asked if there was a name for the system of government that was religiously based. Without skipping a beat he said, “Oh yeah, it is called a Theocracy.”

So there you have it, my home is a Theocracy.

Nuff Said!

Summer

Posted on by

Now that the kids are back in school I have been reflecting on this past summer. I seems to, in my mind, be divided into two distinct time periods. There is the “before the vacation” and “after the vacation”.
Before the vacation was from June until about mid July. It was wonderful. The kids were relatively well behaved, the house was kept relatively clean, chores and school work were done by 11:00 and the afternoon was free time. I really felt like I had it all together.
After the vacation was a different story. We were lazy, very unproductive, the house was messy and nobody cracked open a book. The kids were irritable and I was down right ornery. Nothing seemed to work, the days were long, tiring and tedious.

I have been mulling this over the last couple of weeks, wondering what changed. Were we just getting bored? Were we craving the structure that school created?….Structure….

…Sturcture….ah-ha

The first part of the summer I had a daily schedule. We were up at 7 and there was a plan for the morning, it included chores and some school work. Everyone (including me) knew each day what was expected. The afternoon were free times where the kids could do pretty much as they pleased (within reason). They played in the wading pool, with the bunnies, with friends. Sometime they watched movies or played on the computer. I taught them how to stitch and garden, we picked sweet peas and made daisy chains.


After the vacation it all fell apart. Part of the problem is that I can home really sick and it took me a good week of rest to get feeling better (ha, as much rest as you can get with 5 little ones around). I stopped making up a schedule for the day, there was no structure. The kids didn’t know what was expected, I would just give orders as I thought of them, it would be noon and the house wasn’t picked up and the breakfast dishes still on the table. They weren’t dressed and had been sitting in front of cartoons all morning. Everybody was bored, tired and irritable.

Conclusion: I am a better mother /homemaker /wife /person when I have a schedule. It keeps me on track, I am notorious for being easily distracted. I also think it helps the kids to know what to expect and what is coming next. When I do a schedule it is very detailed, sometimes down 10 minute increments of time. Also, I think that it is a good thing for everyone to have unscheduled time.

Now that the school year has started I have started up my scheduling again. So far (I know I am only a week and a half into it, but you have to start somewhere right) everyday the kids have gotten off to school on time and un-rushed. Beds have been made, house picked up and animals taken care of. I am optimistic that this will be a good foundation for a good year. I have started to schedule the evening too (after school is free time, the kids need a good couple of hours of hard-core play time!) and so far it is working, kids are to bed on time (for the most part, punk #1 is exerting some independence on this point) dishes done, homework finished and house picked up. I has worked so well so far that I pray it will continue, it makes such a difference in our home as was illustrated to me this summer.