DIY Laundry Soap

I finally did it. I had all the stuff and so I made myself do it. I thought it would be really time consuming, but not so.

You will need:

1 five gallon bucket with lid

1 bar of Ivory, Fels Naptha or Zote soap

1 cup Borax

1 cup washing soda

Other tools:

old cheese grater only to be used for soap

a long spoon or paint stirer

sauce pan (comes clean)

First you will grate your bar of soap into your sauce pan.

Then you will fill the sauce pan with water. Heat to a light boil and stir constantly as the soap dissolves. ***DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED*** It can boil over quick. Or so I am told I never left it. When the soap is dissolved set aside.

Fill your bucket with 4 1/2 gallons of HOT tap water. As hot as you can get it. Add you soap soup, your borax and washing soda. Stir until well mixed.

Leave to cool for 24 hours. I finished making mine at about 8:30 PM and it was ready to go around 10 am the next day. I know that is not 24 hours but I needed clean cloths. :) It is supposed to look like this when it is done.

Then I stirred it up well and added it to my left over laundry soap bottle. Leave room to shake it up before you use it. You will need to shake it up before each use as it gells up.

I use 2 to 3 cap fulls for each extra large load I run. This come out to 1 to 1 1/2 cups.

You probably want to know cost, huh? Well I would say probably about $7 to start, with the average 5 gallon bucket full maybe costing $2 to make. Heck I pay around $2.99 for that little bottle of all and that last only two weeks.

50 pounds of Ground Beef

Our ward cooperates with a a co-op that allows us to get some killer deals on bulk purchases through out the year. Our first bulk buy this year was ground beef. 7% fat, no hormones, fresh, YUMMY ground beef for $2.30 a pound! I bought 50 pounds!!! I figure this may last our family of 6 for 3 months. You may think , "What the heck do you do with 50 pounds of ground beef?" Well lucky for you I like to take pictures. LOL!

This is what I started with. Ten 5 pound bags.

This is what I ended with!

Ten pounds were made in to meatloaf mixes (on the right).

Five pounds were made into meatballs. (bottom shelf)

The rest was split between raw (on the left) and pre-cooked (middle).

These are great for quick dinners. Pop in the micro wave for a defrost then cook on HI for about 2 mins. pour into what ever you are making. So fast and easy.

I love my food saver!

***Now I don NOT consider my freezer food storage. It is highly perishable in a power outage or natural disaster. I do not can meat at this time because: 1 I do not know how. and 2 Hubby is not so fond of it. We do store tuna and commercially canned chicken though.***

Tasty Tuesday

Cook Books

If you are like me you collect recipes from every source. Magazines, newspapers, hand written scraps from your friends house, Internet print out, and everywhere else. LOL!

Well here is my solution: Make your own cook book.

First you will need a few things. I had most of these around my house when I made mine.

• A 3-ring binder - 3" would be great and a clear pocket on the front is handy too.



• Page protectors - easy to keep clean!



• Left over craft paper and stickers if you want



• computer paper

I made a cover for mine to match my kitchen color and added a little title.

Then I made dividers labeling the section. Hints and tips, breakfast, breads, soups and salads, main dishes, kids favorites, pasta, cookies, deserts, and cake decorating ideas.

Next start adding you recipes. I have a mix of magazine cut outs ( I LOVE pictures.),

printed out pages,

and hand written. Some of the are on odd ball scraps so I just glue them to a piece of paper first.

A couple of hints here.

If you are printing from a blog: cut and paste to word or whatever program you use. Also include the name of the blog/site you printed from. This makes for easy referencing if you need help or more information about that recipe.

When dealing with hand written recipes, be sure to write who you got the recipe from or what book you copied from.


Also a binder with an inside pocket is nice. Sometimes you want to try a recipe before you add it or you simply don't have time to add it yet.

Are you lucky enough to have a spot to stand this baby up? Make sure to label the spine.

These make great gifts. I made one for my sister one year. It had red and white checked paper and I found some cute little ant stickers. Very Cute!! You can make it so individualized it's insane!!

Remember to think about Christmas, mother's Day, and birthdays. You could even make a smaller Blank Family Recipes Favorites. Make one for each sibling ! Or you could make one for a missionary, collage student, or newly weds.

Money Monday

Christmas Cash ( Thank Sharron for putting this in my head.)

I know we just got done with that holiday, however there are less than 365 until it is here agian.  So...we must plan ahead.  A few ideas to help you do so are:

Make a per person budget.  List all those you buy for. Include Giving Trees, church Christmas events and other such carities you participate in.  Divide it out by month or by paycheck and start saving that cash now.

Make a gift wish list.  For example my one and only princess wants an American Girl doll.  Oh joy to my budget.  LOL!!  So we will see, those things are quite spendy, but my kids only get stocking from Santa and one awsome gift from Mom and Dad (this year we got a Wii plus a game per person and one family game).
So knowing this is what Girlie wants I can now keeps my eyes and ears open for any cool deals on these ouch spendy dolls.  Plus I can look at sales, clerance items, internet deals through out the year for all of those on my gift list.

Work towards a goal.  I mean literally work.  My family works at our local fair every year for our house hold that equals Christmas cash and ride money.  What can you do to earn that gift money during the year?

Gift swap. What do you make that you can swap with a friend for something they make?  I have a cousin-in-law who makes beaded jewlery.  Anouther is a scrap book wiz.  I like to make sewing crafts.  We haven't done a swap as of yet but maybe one day we would.  It is an idea.  Think about it.

DIY. Make it a home made Christmas.  Now don't fool yourself this takes planning.  Both time and money.  It can be very rewarding though.  It is also great it you have a great stash of craft supplies, fabric, canning jars and wood.  A great stash of leftovers from other projects can save tons of cash.

Well those are my ideas.  Do you have any you want to share?

Thrifty Thursday

With just a coat of paint.....

What to do with that end table the kids carved their name into? Or an old hutch in drab brown stain? Well add a coat of paint (you may have to do miner sanding first).

Here are a few wonderful examples.

Over at You paid more than me you can see a very awesome hutch that was just painted for a hip new look. Try to just look at the hutches. The rest of her site is so fabulous you will not tend to be to awful thrifty after looking at it. LOL!!!

Check out these cute night stands. A Goodwill find gone well over at jcaroline'sblog.

If you do not currently own any piece you want to redo and are in the mind to shop for some here is a great article on what to be looking for. Also remember Criags List is a great place to look just don't forget to haggle a little.

Food Storage Friday

5 Easy Steps to using your Food Storage

1.Figure out what is in your food storage.

Do you have a lot of powdered milk, wheat, rice, beans?

2.Write down a list of the meals that your Family typically eats.

Be sure to include baked good, breakfast and dinner.

3.Look for the ones that you can make simple adjustments to.

Recipes that call for milk are easy to substitute powdered milk to. Taste the same. I keep a container of reconstituted milk in my fridge for cooking purposes.

Do you bake? Try using some whole wheat flour for SOME of the white flour. Pancakes, waffles and cookies are great places to start.

Add rice to your soups, casseroles, and burritos.

4. Start conservative

You have to start out with small amounts of things like wheat. Converting over whole heartedly WILL cause major stomach problems. Take it slow.

Also look at only changing one or two recipes so you do not get overwhelmed. Next week add another and so on.

5.Look for new recipes that use more food storage items.

When looking for new recipes look for ones that have more food storage friendly ingredient lists.

Here are some GREAT food storage recipe sites:

http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/

extension.usu.edu

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/category/recipes

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/recipes/

Thrifty Thursday

Think Thrifty

Thrift Stores that is!

My friend Daphne is the queen of second hand store shopping. Goodwill is like her second home. She can find the most awesome finds. Not only the cutest dresses for her girls but every thing from hoodies to dressers. She also knows how to rock it on Craig's list. I often (think at least weekly) find myself ogling her finds.

How does she do it? I ask her this all the time. She goes often. She knows when the racks will be stocked. She is friendly with the workers. She asks questions. She also has their return policy down pat.

Recently Elizabeth and I needed some jeans. So off to Goodwill we went. I got both of us killer dark washed jeans that looked brand new and fit perfectly for $3.99 a pair. NOT BAD!! Not to mention they were name brand not walmart brand.

Parade Magazine (Sunday paper) had a article the Secrets of Secondhand Shopping. A good quick read to get the inside scoop.

Tasty Tuesday

School Lunches Part 2:

Convenience food are easy but costly.

Take fruit cups. You know those presealed little cups of fruit chunks. On average the are $2.50 for a 4 pack. Well make your own and save come cash. Plus my kids can never open those store bought ones with out a mess. LOL!! The American Homemaker did a great post about making her own fruit cups here.



I put mine in cups just like this. Mine are green though.





Make your own lunchables. My kids LOVE to stack their own mini sandwiches. I cut my meat into little circles using an old spice jar top. Mini cookie cutters would be fun too.


What are some of your frugal but tasty lunch ideas?