More Frugal Friday tips!

As I work towards a more healthier and cleaner household, I will be doing a third post on cleaners. You can read my posts on Homemade Deodorant AND Detergents at their links. Today though, I want to talk about all purpose cleaning and what I have been using not only for a disinfectant but my kitchen too! I TRIED to do mostly or even 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 water, essential oil and tea tree but the vinegar was incredibly over powering and lingered! Doing some research, I realized that I only NEEDED 1/4 of a cup of vinegar (and the rest water), to 3-4 drops of tea tree oil and essential oil, and to activate the vinegar and its effectiveness, I added 2 tsp of baking soda!







For more frugal friday tips, please visit Lifes a Mom!

I have mentioned in my previous posts about my homemade recipes.

I am LOVING my homemade, all natural deoderant. Since I get my coconut oil at less than HALF price from ebay, this recipe is CHEAPER than ANY all natural deoderant on the market. We are talking PENNIES....The only change I will make next time is to add a touch of Tea Tree oil. I put all of the ingredients into a pint jar. It hardens, just like regular deoderant and the warmth of my fingers allows me to scoop it out. Here is what I do:

1/2 c baking soda
1/2 c cornstarch
enough melted coconut oil to make a paste
(you can also add your tea tree oil and/or essential oils, which can be found in many stores and is a natural antesceptic!)

BTW, I have a friend that has succcessfully only used baking soda and coconut oil and has had great success too!

If you don't know about Aluminum and the links to it and breast cancer , you can click on the link to find out more.

Pour into pint jar while it is liquid. It will eventually harden. I have been using it exclusively now for a while and have enjoyed it, greatly!

I also have done a post about Making your own laundry and dishwashing detergents!
I have more to add to it (Yippee!)

All Natural Fabric softner!
Add 1 cup of Vinegar
It is all natural and works great!

Here is another one for BOTH top Loading and front loading washing machines:

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine- best value

4 Cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

For More Frugal friday tips, you can go to Life as Mom.

FREE Audio!

Our children LOVE audio dramatized stories. Just love them. Particularly Bible and history. I have bought many cd's for our children. Well over at my Homeschooling 4 Free site, I have many, many links, including audio links. I knew that our oldest loved listening to old time audio with Sherlock Holmes. So I was looking through the list. I had JUST bought a set of MP3 cd's from someone we know and love in the homeschool market. I paid $30. I was looking through the list, only to find out that These audios! also included the SAME stories that I just paid $30 for! When you click on this link, you will find literally hundreds of links. Scroll down to "You Were There". You can download 5 MP3 stories for FREE my friends. FREE! Not only that, there are MORE stories on the downloads, then on the cd's I bought. I am still scrolling through them, but they are too good not to mention. I hope, if you haven't been already, to visit over to my Homeschooling 4 Free site and take a look over there. I hope it is a blessing to all.

For more Ideas on Frugal Friday, make sure you visit Crystal, at Biblical Womanhood!

Get Paid for your Books!

Do you have books laying around and you don't have time for a yard sale? What if I told you that not only could you get paid? At Cash 4 Books, not only will they buy your books from you but pay for the shipping! What a fabulous deal and it is all right at your computer! No fussing over a yard sale!

Also if you are homeschooling or considering homeschooling, did you know you can do it for FREE without buying THOUSANDS of dollars worth of needless curriculum? Well you can!! If you go HERE, you will find literally hundreds and hundreds of links that will facilitate not only frugality but helping to educate your children at home! Share it with your friends!

Another Frugal Friday tip!

I have been experimenting with making my own detergents for dishwashers and laundry. The dishwasher detergent ranges about .01 per batch. The laundry detergent is around .65-.71 per gallon, depending on how much I can get my Ivory soap for. Here is what I have for the recipes:

Recipe for Dishwasher Soap
Just as good for dishwasher and easier to store:
1 cup baking soda
1 cup borax
2-3 tablespoons unsweetened lemondade (.10 pkt)

Use about 2 tablespoons per wash, this left no residue.
Also, optional is to add 1 tbsp of vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Cost = Around a penny per load


Homemade Laundry Liquid Laundry Detergent
1 bar Ivory
½ cup washing soda (Arm and Hammer is what I found)
½ cup borax powder

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

For more Frugal Friday tips, make sure you head over to Biblical Womanhood for more tips!

Here is my Frugal Friday tip!!

Tonight I wanted to make chicken nuggets, homemade. I had already prepared and frozen my chicken, which were cut into strips with 2 tbsp of melted butter and 2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce. When I looked around, I was out of bread crumbs. So what did I do?

I took some homemade wheat bread that was a little dry and I sliced it. I sprinkled a little olive oil over the top with some italian seasoning. I set the oven on broil and baked them til they were "toasty". I then put them in the blender and "walla!". I then mixed 1/2 c parmesean and 1-1 1/2 c bread crumbs together and baked at 450 for 10 minutes. You know what, my family (and I) enjoyed the flavor so much more. It was so good! Also, you can cut the slices into cubes for homemade croutons.

This is my frugal Friday tip for today. Don't forget to see more ideas over at Biblical Womanhood.

My Frugal Friday tip is simple: Homeschooling for free and using the internet. You know when the internet first came out there wasn't alot to offer. Now there is EVERYTHING for homeschooling. I have quite a few friends that are homeschooling for Free using the resources solely that they found online!!!! Well to help aid in this department, a while ago I established Homeschooling For Free. I continue to update it DAILY and have many more additions to make. It is a VERY exhaustive, comprehensive list. If you do go there and use it, I ask you to do me a favor:
1. Leave a comment. I like to see who has been and what their comments are. Out of respect for my time and effort, I ask that you leave a comment.
2. Link my blog on your blog! What a wonderful way to show this resource to your friends and family!
3. Spread the Word! There is literally something for everyone! My mom, who works in a corporate office uses it...Why? Because she teaches children's church and uses some of that!

For more frugal ideas, visit Crystal over at Biblical Womanhood Online.

Today's Frugal Friday is my tip for Spraying your pans. The aeresols in the store have harmful chemicals and alcohol in them,are diluted and expensive at best. My solution to this is the MISTO:
With this, you just pour in your Olive oil, pump and spray! No additives or chemicals! It not only is all natural but it saves you money. I bought mine at Bed Bath and beyond for 9.99 and with a 20% off coupon that comes all the time, it will cost about 7.99. The savings are TERRIFIC! (I buy my olive oil at Sam's, because I only use it to cook with)

For more Frugal Friday tips, check out Crystal at Biblical Womanhood.

Frugal Fridays!

I was reading over at my friends at Kudzu Grows about the uses she has for her Christmas Cards. I love her idea and just saw a fabulous one from a creative mom on my wonderful Yahoo group (SHS), that we will be adapting. You take the old Christmas cards, that have the nativity scene on it and cut off the front of the card. You create a booklet and have the children either dictate, or do a written narration about the Christmas story. Make sure you date it for the future.

Another one, is don't throw out that dried/hard bread! You sprinkle butter on it and put it on a cookie sheet and in the oven on broil (make sure you watch it). With tenders, you can dip them in butter. You take the bread and put it in the blender for crumbs. You then add italian seasoning to the crumbs. Now take the tenders from the butter and roll them in the crumbs and walla! There are many tremendous uses for these crumbs, but this is one that we use all the time.

Also I wrote in THIS post, about using different items in pancakes. We try to have breakast about twice a week for dinner to cut on the budget. We had Carrot Cake Pancakes and they were fabulous! muffins that we used the left over diced apples in muffins from this ebook over at Biblical Womanhood. I also look forward to more recipes from this book. We are using the muffins for our 30 days of Joyor Secret Santa for those around us. We are putting the muffins in a basket and making a "Holiday Muffin in a Jar" to go in there. You can click on the link to learn more.

You can see more Frugal Friday tips over at Biblical Womanhood