This week went really well for my stay at home life. I’m happy to say that the home got clean, the housework wasn’t a chore, but more like satisfying work. We have containers to start recycling, but I need to get into a habit about breaking down the tins and identifying what can be recycled and what can’t. This is going to be a growing pain for me but well worth it.
Master is happier for the clean house and my focus on his care and needs this week has been great. I think he had to confirm that my internet work is second to my housework, as it should be.
Simple living ideas are building too. I went to the store today for groceries and bought the items to make my own laundry powder. It will be way cheaper and will make me feel good with my simple living goals. It’s a relativly easy recipe.
Concentrated Laundry Powder
2 cups Soap Flakes or Natural Soap, grated ($8.49 for 1 lb flakes. I grated my own natural castile soap $5.96 for 4-4oz bars(I used 2.5 bars to make the 2 cups = $3.73 this batch))
1 cup Borax ($6.67 for 76 oz = $0.91 this batch)
1 cup Washing Soda ($3.49 for 55 oz = $0.55 this batch (amazingly this is what the primary ingredient of Oxy Clean is, rip off right there)
Mix all this together and store in a sealed container. Add 2 Tablespoons per load. This does not sud up, but that’s normal and alright. You can choose different scented natural soaps for different scent combinations.
This soap should last us about 6 months. It may seem small, but I have enough in supply in stock for 3 more batches. It makes me feel good to go back to simplicity too and use original washing powders. It means less chemicals on my clothing. I even bought a bottle of blueing to try instead of bleach when I need it. I feel like I’m doing laundry like my great grandmother did. It’s a good feeling.
I have plans to try other natural cleaning items too as I use up the chemical stuff I have under the sink. It’s amazing how cheap baking soda, vinegar and ammonia and bleach are compared to the chemical stuff in the cleaning aisle. I will save Master money while I’m home. That should be one of my goals, to save him money and budget wisely with the household items.
Anyone else have any simple living tips that I can learn from?
–luna
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That sounds great, Luna. I do have two suggestions.
1) Soap nuts are a great natural laundry product. They clean and soften fabrics and are unscented and economical.
2) Sometimes homemade products aren’t actually cheaper. I’ve made several mistakes while trying to save money and live a greener life. It pays to do the math first.
Good luck!
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Good point, and I did look into soap nuts and will try them at some point. I wanted a starting line and this gave me a chance to try making the laundry powder myself. If it isn’t so great I plan to try the soap nuts.
I did the math on this laundry soap and it was saving me over $15 for 64 loads from the stuff I was buying. Next hurdle will be to see if I’m allergic to it.
kitten is not sure if you have a garden or not but now is a great time of year to start to plant a vegetable and herb garden, even if you have no garden then herbs planted in pots under a kitchen window are natures own air freshners and you only take what you want at the time, and they continue to grow.
Potatoes, strawberries, carrots, beans, the list is endless, and the cost of seeds as opposed to the ‘finished product’ is great Add some flower seeds as well and fresh flowers in a house is a wonderful touch * lol and some of them can be used for play time as well * Eventually if you go down the route of making your own soaps the flowers and herbs can be used as sent for these as well
sorry, just a suggestion, not sure how practical it would be for you
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I’d have to do window gardens and the hard part about that would be the cats, they can’t keep their paws out of the dirt! I want an herb garden for sure, we’ll have to see what Master says when I have been good for awhile longer.
one tip i’ve found invaluable: white, or clear vinegar. You can buy white malt vinegar very cheaply (i.e. don’t pay through the nose for wine or cider vinegar, not unless you want it as a salad dressing!), and you can use it in a number of ways, if you can stand the smell (which soon dissipates). I combine it with a proprietary cleaner that is available in the UK called stardrops, i have no idea if that is available in the USA. half and half. Its used to clean everything except the toilet, i have bleach for that, and for the kitchen/bathroom floor. Otherwise, its vinegar and stardrops. I sometimes use ammonia to do hard scrubbing like cleaning out the oven, but that’s rare. (I use it more often to kill slugs to be honest with you!). Final tip with regard to vinegar is to do with laundry: 1) fill the conditioner drawer with vinegar and run the machine on empty. It helps to clean out all the gunk that can accumulate with normal washing powder/gel/packets/whatever you use and prolongs the life of the machine. 2) you can use it instead of regular conditioner, not on towels (cos it’ll stop the towels from absorbing water as well once dry, which is what you want!) but for everything else, its a lovely softener. I pour into an old conditioner bottle, put in a teaspoon of bicarb (watch it cos it will fizz up) and shake in a few drops of an essential oil, makes it smell lovely. Works very well – haven’t bought conditioner in a couple of years now.
There’s a website with loads of tips on all this kind of stuff, i can’t remember if i gave you the link before, privately?
good luck!
keth
xx
Yes you did send it to me privately
Thanks for the other tips!
Is there any particular vegetable that you use alot of? Like, for us, if I had to pick just one or two, I’d say tomatoes and green beans. I know you’re limited on garden space and with the cats you can’t have it indoors (I can’t either), but if there were just one or two that you would use, some things grow really well in a large pot. I’ve seen people who live in apt. buildings with one potted tomato plant right by their front door.
I do the liquid laundry soap and save even more by not using a special soap (which was your biggest expense in your recipe up there). I save the leftover soap bits from regular bar soap – (Master has to have a new bar of soap once it’s reached a certain “too small” size) and I dissolve those bits(I need a total of about a half a bar) in water when I’m making the laundry soap. Otherwise, the ingredients are the same and I get a 5 gallon bucket of detergent. The only problem I’m having right now is needing to find something to cut the smell on Master’s work socks. He has those super-thick wool socks that absorb a lot of foot odor and sweat and this detergent just isn’t getting them odor-free. I’m wondering if the vinegar addition that keth mentioned might work there.
two things that sprang to mind as a result of kaya’s post: cherry tomatoes, or strawberries. You can grow both (and a few other veg, probably), in hanging baskets – which the cats wouldn’t be able to get to – if you’re allowed to put them up. If you want to do cherry tomatoes there, look for a bush cherry tomato variety, in the UK, tumbling tom would be a good one, you can get two or three to a basket, depending on the size of the basket – plant them so the main stem angles out over the edge of the basket and then your cherry tomatoes will grow rather like grapes.
you can also plant a basil plant in there as well – couple of reasons.. 1) keeps away nasties 2) tomato and basil.. nomnomnom! I’d also agree with the flowers thing – and, even better, some flowers are edible! You’d have to check what’s edible for you in the USA, but i’m sure there’s a list somewhere on the ‘net.
secondly: socks and smell. I’ve found the gloop (i make the washing powder version) doesn’t get mud out of jeans from walking the dog, so i’ve had to revert back to commercial powder for now, i need to get some napisan – or the uk non-branded equivalent – to see if that helps, but i’m a bit buried atm in other stuff. kaya, try putting a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda in with the washing powder/gloop when you put it in the machine, because i’ve got a bowl of bicarb in the fridge more or less permanently to remove odours, so that might help. and yes, use the vinegar solution too. Surprisingly the clothes don’t smell of vinegar when they come out of the machine (or if they do your machine has problems!). Let me know how you get on with that!
Luna, the other thing with all these tips: again, if you’re like me – don’t try to run before you can walk! Do things slowly, bit at a time. I know i get all enthusiastic about something and take on too much and then i just get all despondent cos its not working how i want it to.. so do a little bit often. Buy one packet of seeds and some compost and a tub and get that sowed. Maybe some herbs you like a lot, basil grows well indoors, so does cilantro (but if you want to grow cilantro, look for seeds marked LEAF cilantro – cilantro has a habit of going to seed quickly, when the leaves are no longer good, and buying leaf cilantro is a more expensive type, but its slower to go to seed. if its not marked leaf cilantro then its almost certainly seed cilantro). oh, and about the cats. (this is for you too kaya): you can buy dried lion poop on the net. you put that on the surface of your pots. the smell keeps the cats away. They actually recommend it for gardens where neighbourhood cats are using it to mark territory, poop n that, but it should work for pots as well… no idea how much though, sorry! You might also try growing a “sacrificial” pot of catmint (somewhere where they can’t get to it, initially), and periodically putting that out for them to rip to bits – you’d have to successionally sow that one though.
good luck! (and sorry for the length)
keth
xx
Dried lion poop? LOL. Yum!
I want to try the hanging tomato plant this year, too. But luna, if you do go for a grape tomato plant and you won’t eat a bazillion of them? One, maybe two plants, would be plenty. They produce like *crazy*. The first year I did tomatoes, I planted like 3 cherry and 3 grape and had tomatoes coming out my ears!
My dad always plants onions with the tomatoes, he seems to think that keeps pests away, too.
I’ll try the baking soda in the wash, keth. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that!
Definitely going to do an herb garden, I love fresh herbs when he allows me to buy them at the grocery, but definitely think I can find space to put them in the kitchen up high somewhere. I have a catnip plant and I put it down for the cats to nibble on and I haven’t gotten them to do it yet. The love the dried stuff, but for some reason the plant isn’t attracting them.
I don’t mind the length, I love getting tips and conversation!
The veggies I love aren’t so easy to grow indoors. I eat broccoli and zucchini like it’s going out of style. I could most definitely grow edamame since it’s in fields all over Iowa ;P The only tomatoes I like are processed in some way. I don’t like fresh tomatoes. I’d have to learn canning before I’d venture into growing them.
I’m going to buy cheaper soap when I can. I hate that I can’t use Ivory which is cheaper than anything but I’m allergic to it, which makes me wonder if I might be allergic to the homemade powder. We’ll have to see. I’m going to do some towels with it first.
I read to use vinegar as a fabric softener in the final rinse. Good luck getting the odors out!