Homemade Household Cleaners!! *part II*

This is part 2 on my topic of homemade household cleaners, if you haven't read part one yet, I recommend doing so... it will help. :-)
 I am going to start off by saying that every one of these recipes can be adjusted according to preference, it took me a while to find the ones that work for me. It helps to have a basic understanding of what each ingredient is and how they work.


DISH WASHING DETERGENT
1 part Borax
1 part Washing Soda or Baking Soda
Mix the borax and washing soda (or baking soda if you would prefer to use it) and store in a container away from moisture. Use 2 Tbsp. of the mixture per load.


SPOT-FREE DISHES
Vinegar
Pour vinegar where you would normally put your rinse agent in your dishwasher. It will leave your dishes sparkling for a fraction of the price of Jet-Dry!


FABRIC SOFTENER
1 C. Baking Soda
6 C. Water
6 C. Vinegar
In a large bucket or container, mix the baking soda with one cup of water until dissolved. (it won't completely dissolve, but try your best). Then, slowly add the vinegar and stir until foam goes down. Add remaining five cups water and mix well. Add any scent you like (I love lavender in mine). Use 1/2 cup per load.


DRYER SHEETS
Cut up an old t-shirt. Fill a spray bottle with fabric softener, and spray a t-shirt rag with the softener to toss in the dryer. It's re-usable dryer sheets!


CARPET POWDER
Fill an empty carpet powder bottle or clean parmesan cheese bottle with baking soda, add a few drops of essential oil and shake well to mix. Sprinkle on the carpet about 15 minutes before vacuuming. It will freshen the air even without the essential oil, also.


WOOD POLISH
1/4 C. Vinegar
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil or Jojoba Oil
Olive oil is usually cheaper than Jojoba oil and easier to find. But olive oil, while it works great, will go rancid unlike jojoba oil. If you use olive oil, be sure and only make small amounts and use it quickly.
Just mix the ingredients together, rub it on the wood with a rag and use another rag to wipe off the excess oil. If you like, you can add lemon essential oil (or any other kind you want)


ALL-PURPOSE CLEANER
1/4 C. Ammonia or Vinegar
1 gallon Water
Mix ingredients together, add a scent if you like and fill your spray bottle. This is great for almost any surface, it disinfects and cleans.


FLOOR CLEANER
1/4 C. Ammonia or Vinegar
1 gallon Hot Water
Mix and use this to mop the floor. It works great! You may also add up to a cup of the ammonia or vinegar if it is tile or vinyl floors - but only use 1/4 cup on wood floors.


LAUNDRY DETERGENT
This is my recipe for liquid laundry detergent. There is also a way to make the powdered kind, which is a little easier to make and not quite as messy, but I have not tried it yet. As soon as I make a batch of the powdered kind that works well, I will post it.
1/3 bar Fels Napta Soap, grated
1C. Borax
1/2 - 1 C. Washing Soda (adjust it to your preference)
2 gallons Water
For this, you will need a large bucket or container that will hold at least 2 gallons. In a large pot, heat 6 cups of water, then add the grated soap. Mix until all of the soap is melted. Then add the borax and mix well. Repeat with the washing soda. Stir until everything is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and pour into your container along with 4 cups of hot water. Stir well then add the remaining 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let it cool completely before adding any essential oils and use about 1/2 C. per load.
** Note - this is a messy soap, but I find it easier to keep my detergent in a bucket and scoop as needed. Also, it will gel and will not look like your typical laundry detergent from the store, but I promise it works like a charm!

These are the only recipes for today. I will be posting another on homemade household cleaners and the different uses for each of the basic ingredients. Though it will be soon, I still need to work on some of the other recipes that aren't quite perfected yet, including the powdered form of the laundry detergent. But keep checking by, there are many more posts to come!

Homemade Household Cleaners!!

Today the topic is homemade household cleaners!! I have loads of things to talk about on this particular subject, so I will split it up into 2 different posts. Take notes folks, you will be glad you did!

First off, I want to talk a little about why you should take the little extra time to make your own cleaning supplies. Let me start off by asking, How many plastic spray bottles and empty laundry soap bottles do you throw away each month? Or any other plastic bottle for that matter, it's probably a lot. Between dish soap, carpet powder, windex, and pine sol we go through a lot of plastic!

Well, most of the ingredients you buy to make your own cleaners come in a cardboard box, and they last a whole lot longer, therefore you buy and throw away a lot less plastic. This means less plastic in our landfills and less oil consumption!

It gets even better... the pre-made cleaners you see on the store shelves are loaded with chemicals and toxins which are harmful to your health and our planet. As I mentioned in my first post, these pollutants end up in our sewage, and inevitably in our groundwater and the earth. All of the ingredients we use for the homemade cleaners are natural and pollutant-free. I do use ammonia for a couple of things, although it is toxic and comes in a plastic bottle. I use one gallon of ammonia about every 2 months, but it is completely optional. There are other things you can use instead of ammonia that are non-toxic.

Now, with all of that being said, I want to take a minute to talk about the costs of making your own cleaners.

Making your own is quite a bit cheaper than buying store bought cleaners (even generic brands), and here is a little math I did on a few products just to show you how much money you will save;

Laundry Soap - It costs me $1.50 to make 2 gallons of liquid laundry detergent

Dish washing Detergent - It costs me $1.00 to make 20 dishwasher loads worth of detergent

Fabric Softener - It costs me $1.05 to make a one gallon batch of softener

These cleaners work just as well - and usually better - than your typical pre-made cleaners, and with the money you will pay, you can't afford not to give it a try!

Alright, I need to go over the ingredients you will be using and where you can find them.

1. Vinegar - You can find vinegar just about anywhere, dollar stores are usually cheaper than grocery stores. You will need to buy the largest container of it (I buy it by the gallon) and of all of the ingredients, you will probably use more vinegar than anything else.

2. Baking Soda - Again, you can find this almost anywhere. Buy the big box of it, it'll cost about $3.

3. Borax - This is an all-natural water softener, it has a ton of other uses as well. You can find this just about anywhere, usually found in the laundry aisle and usually on the bottom shelf. The main brand that you will likely see is 20 Mule Team Borax and it costs about $3 for a pretty big box of it.

4. Washing Soda - This one is a little harder to find. It is sodium carbonate - or, soda ash. The main brand that you will likely see for washing soda is Arm & Hammer. I find it at Ace Hardware, and it is found at some grocery stores and hardware stores. This costs about $3 for a box of it.

5. Fels Napta Soap - Like the washing soda, this one is harder to find too. I buy mine at the same place I buy washing soda, and you will probably find it in the same place you find the washing soda as well. It's an all-natural laundry soap that smells fantastic! It costs about $1.29 a bar, and it only takes 1/3 to 1/2 of the bar for 2 gallons of detergent.

6. Hydrogen Peroxide - I don't use this as much, but it is great for de-sanitizing and cleaning out stains. It's good for a few other uses as well and it'll cost about $1-2 for a bottle of it (get the bigger bottle)

7. Essential Oils -These are completely optional and are a little pricey, depending on the scent you get. A few drops of the stuff goes a long way. You can also use things like lemon juice, or soak some herbs like peppermint, lemon balm or lavender (all of which you can find in bulk at your local health food store, pretty cheap I might add) to hot water, let cool, strain and add to your cleaner to make it smell pretty. Be creative!

That's about all on the ingredients.
The last thing I am going to talk about for this post are a few things you can use these individual ingredients for, and tomorrow, I will be posting some recipes :)

Vinegar, though it does smell pretty bad, actually freshens the air. Once it dries you can't smell it at all. Place a bowl of vinegar on the counter to freshen the air.

Soak a dirty sponge in vinegar to bring it new life!

Use vinegar in a spray bottle to clean windows.

Soak a carpet stain in vinegar to help remove it. Add vinegar to your carpet shampooer - about 1 cup - for great results.

Sprinkle baking soda in your drains, then follow with a little vinegar. It helps keep the drains clean and fresh. Let sit for about 30 minutes then rinse with hot water. Repeat weekly.

Run an empty cycle in your dishwasher about once a month with just borax to help keep it clean.

Add a scoop of borax to your dishwater or laundry to soften up the water.

Keep a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the shower and spray the walls and tub each time you shower to kill bacteria and mildew. Also use it around the house as a surface disinfectant.

Mix baking soda and water to make a paste and use it to clean tiles, sinks, toilets and much much more.

There are so many uses for these ingredients, tomorrow I will tell you plenty of recipes to get you started. Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I hope you give it a shot! I assure you, you'll be glad you did!

Have a fantastic day!

A Note On Vanilla Extract

In my last blog, I brought up the subject of food and all of the things you can make yourself. Why? Well, to save money, of course! Along with saving money, making your own is  healthier, tastier and better on our environment. But before I get into a long lecture about saving our planet, I should probably go ahead and talk about today's topic - vanilla extract.

I am sure you have gone to the grocery store and bought vanilla extract from time to time. Even if you don't bake often, I'm sure you've at least bought some vanilla around the holidays when we stuff our bellies with delicious cookies, pies and the like. Vanilla extract (the real stuff, not imitation) runs around 4-8 dollars for an itty bitty teeny tiny bottle of the stuff. Even the imitation vanilla is high, as horrible as that stuff is.
But no longer do you have to deny yourself the deliciousness of the vanilla bean! Making vanilla extract is extremely simple and inexpensive, and it yields stellar results!

Firstly, we'll discuss the ingredients.
One thing I have learned is to be careful where I buy things. For instance, if you go to your local grocery store you might pay around $8-10 for about 3 or 4 vanilla beans. Ouch! Don't buy them there! Here is what I did, I went to Ebay, typed in vanilla beans and found a wide array of results. Yes, you can order vanilla beans from Ebay.
Food Connoisseurs would argue about the origin of the bean, for example, Madagascar vanilla beans are better than , say Tahitian vanilla beans. But, vanilla beans of any type would work. I pay about $4 for a dozen Tahitian beans off of Ebay - shipping included - they come fresh, juicy and sealed airtight, and they make outstanding vanilla extract.

The next ingredient you need is bourbon. Now, this ingredient has a greater demand for quality than the vanilla beans. All you'll need is a pint (for 6 of the vanilla beans) and it doesn't have to be top of the line bourbon. But, of course, with the bourbon quality does make a difference, so buy the best you can afford. Even with the 'good stuff' a pint won't cost too much.

And... well, that's it. Bourbon and vanilla beans. I told you it was easy. So, now you get a pint jar and make sure it is clean. Get 6 vanilla beans and, with a knife, cut all along the length of the pod, from end to end, to open it up (like a pea pod) to release all of those magnificent little beans inside. Place it in the jar, fill it up with bourbon, screw the lid on tight and wait. Yup, that's it! Put it in a dark place, like in a cupboard, and wait about a month (the longer you wait the better it will be, like good wine). And tada!! You have yourself some gourmet vanilla extract that cost you a fraction of the price!

Let's do the math...

Let's say you spend $10 for bourbon (I buy the $5 stuff), then you'll only need 6 of the vanilla beans (it costs $4 a dozen), that's an investment of $12. Now, a pint is 16 oz. and the typical bottle of vanilla from the grocery store is 1 oz. That's a whopping 75 cents per ounce of the homemade extract!

So, compare $4-8 an ounce to 75 cents an ounce and you tell me which one sounds better! The homemade stuff is free of all the chemicals you might find in the store bought stuff, and that means less toxins for our planet and ourselves. Even eliminating small amounts of toxins makes a difference. Always remember that the small things DO matter!

Now, I'll end this with a note on the leftover vanilla beans.
Sure, you can double up your batch of extract and give some out as gifts. Or, you can keep the beans around for other uses. Like, for example, if you cut open the pods, scrape out the beans and mix them with a few cups of sugar, let them sit for a week or two, you'll have the most delicious vanilla sugar you have ever tasted. The sugar can be used in place of regular sugar in any way you desire. Be creative! Just remember to store the beans in an airtight container and away from light.

Well, That's all for this post. Keep yourself updated and check back often for new blogs!

All Of The Wonderful Reasons To Make It Yourself

There was a day when you had to make everything yourself, you couldn't just go buy everything from Walmart. You had to churn your own butter, make your own clothes, and there was no such thing as 'instant mashed potatoes'. That's right, you had to peel, cut, boil and mash the potatoes all by yourself! GASP!!
Then came the 50's and 60's when processed and convenience foods became a staple in every kitchen. If you ask me, we can credit much of the disease we have today to all the processed food from that era.. but that's just an opinion of my own.
The point is, that in our pursuit of laziness (I guess most people call it convenience), industry has induced severe injuries to our planet. The pollutants in the products on store shelves today are unreal. The chemicals and pollutants are in everything from household cleaners, to hygiene products, to toys that break after one use and end up in another massive landfill. All of these toxins end up in sewage, and inevitably in our groundwater and in the earth. I didn't even mention our depleting atmosphere, but you know all about that already so we'll leave that one for another day.
Well, after a long hard look at my daily life and the waste that me and my family produced each week, I decided to find some solutions. I went through a period of time when I wanted to 'upcycle' everything! I discovered that just about anything can be turned into something new and useful. But after a while I thought I should find more ways to keep the unwanted trash from accumulating. I started one day by making my own cleaners. After some time with a cup of coffee and Google, I found all sorts of recipes made from natural ingredients that were actually a fraction of the price of store bought cleaners! These are so easy to make and can be adjusted to fit into any one's lifestyle, not to mention this dramatically reduces the amount of plastic containers a household will go through. But that's another blog... check back for that one, you won't want to miss it!
Then one day.. BAM.. no more food stamps. It seems as though even though we are poor and struggle to pay our bills, we no longer qualify to receive them. Bummer. Well, after a long, hard look at our budget we decided that $50 a week is what we can comfortably count on to feed out family of four. Rough, huh? Oh yea, but guess what?!?! I do it!! That's because I am super-mom!!! I'm sure that in a few years my kids will label me as tight-wad mom, but you and I know the truth.
I learned right away that giving up convenience foods was something that I had to embrace, so after a moment of silence - and maybe a tear or two - I went to work. Here are a few examples of some of the foods you can make yourself that will not only save you money, but will help the planet as well as your health;
Bread crumbs, pie crusts, rolls, vanilla extract, spaghetti sauce... and the list just goes on and on and on. So the next time you are cooking dinner, look at each ingredient and ask yourself... 'can I make this?', and I bet the answer is probably 'yes'. Most of the time, making something from scratch isn't near as difficult as you may think, the results are worth it, and everybody knows that homemade is always better!
As you begin making your own products, whether it be food or household products, it will become a part of your daily life as it has mine. I can't imagine living any other way, even when I can afford to buy convenience products, it doesn't make sense to me to do it. There are so many benefits of doing what I refer to as 'going back to the basics', that you can't afford not to give it a try!
I will continue to post blogs touching on topics like how to save big money on groceries, how to make all the wonderful things I've been telling you about, and many many more tips on saving money and going green! Keep yourself updated and always take a minute out of your day to be creative. :)