Home Cleaning Contemplations

    I have been thinking of ways to make my home run smoother. Now Home organization is something that you can find all over the web and in magazines. But I have to say who in their right mind would drop $45+ on a decorative storage container? So I am working on beautiful and creative ways to make my home run smoothly with out breaking the bank. And in that process I am looking at all areas of my home. The one I am having the hardest time is in cleaning products.

    I have a few problems as far as cleaning products go. I am sure I am not the only one to have these problems. One is I have a million cleaning products.  They take up all the space under my sink. A whole shelf in my laundry room and a good amount of space in my garage for stock up when clearance hits at target. That is simply a lot of space taken up in the name of cleaning and money savings. I also don't like all the chemicals in the products. And this becomes more obvious and irritating in the Fall/Winter months when your home is more closed up and you cant air it out all day. Then I find my self with Sinus irritation and headaches so I want to stop that. Now I have tried the Green cleaners in the stores. I find I have three problems with them. They are expensive, tend to not work well and don't come in fragrances that I love. And for me Fragrance is a HUGE deal. I am a lover of fragrance in all forms and fragrance free products bring my spirits down.

   I have tried to make my own cleaners for home, including laundry soap. And They work well. In the case of cleaners much better than the green cleaners form the store. The only problem is I miss the fragrance in store bought ones. So I am going to look in to perfume oils for soap making and playing with adding some to homemade cleaners to find that happy medium. If I can make that work then I can whittle my cleaning stash down from 3 places to Vinegar, Amonia, dish soap and baking soda. I would save soooo much space and improve my air quality and pocket book.

 What do you do to keep your cleaning supply's form taking over your home?  

mmmm garden veggie soup

     Hello again. Today my weather is a bit cloudy but not going to rain. Whooo hoo. Well yesterday I took he kids to the nature trail and then to the park. We ate our picnic lunch in the back of the car at the duck pond. Darn geese attack you for food if they can reach you so I just opened the back of the Xterra and laid out the blanket there and we ate. Baby loved looking at the animals through the window from the safety of the car LOL.

    I think today I am going to do something similar. Right now I am making up some garden veggie soup. I have all the ingredients and it is low calorie since I am trying to loose weight. Were I live we have a chain of stores called Fresh and Easy. If you have one near by I recommend going there. With the card you get points for your purchases you cash in for cash to spend at the store. And the biggest reason I love them in not only are they priced well BUT they are big about clearance. They have a dedicated section for both fresh and dry goods. I go their first thing in the morning and head straight for the clearance were I get meat and produce marked down. For example I purchased 2 whole chicken at 1.95 a piece. And each one provides us 2 meals a piece. that feeds a family of 4 for $1 a day. Can't beat that.

     The veggies I am using also come from Fresh and Easy. The recipe comes from sparkrecipes.com. under WW garden vegetable soup. I got green beans for .63 a pack. And cabbage for .33 and carrots for .58 a sack and canned tomatoes for .50. All the other ingredients I already had. SO this soup is only costing me about 1.50 to make and it will feed my children and I lunch for 2-3 days. Oh I love saving money LOL.


                                                   xoxo
                                                    La Chica Frugal  

frugal fun day 1

           So it looks like the rain will be gone for the day today and I need to get the kids out of the house before we all go nuts. I am also working on loosing weight so I am going to go walking with them. Either to the park or to the nature trail that follows the river. I think I will pack a picnic to keep my eating on the straight and narrow and to prevent the sad eyed requests to McDonald's. I have a pantry brimming with food so I need to use that for our picnic lunch.

           We have 2 cucumbers in the fridge that need to be used So I am going to cut up some cucumber spears with lime and salt and chile powder sprinkled on top. We have some canned fruit to use up so that will be coming also. Then I will make some sandwiches. Almond butter and jelly. Or peanut butter for the kids. To drink I will take water. Use what I have first. And stay on my eating plan.

                                    xoxo
                                         la chica frugal

Uggggg kids on Vacation what to do.......

     I have to admit when it comes to my budget my kids are my down fall. I will happily buy a ton of things for them and take them to a million places. But I have not purchased a back up pair of eye glasses for my self in 3 years. Now mind you I am already weak when it comes to them but throw in 10 days of no school and RAIN!!!!! Now what am I going to do? Get down and dirty with Google that's what. We all have a ton of resources at our disposal that we don't know about or think of. How many times have you saw something and thought "hmmm I want to do that some time "? For me too many times. So I am going to start a page in my Household Binder under "fun things to do".

Here are a few things I have found so far with the way I plan to have them organized.

Toy Library                      Activities and toys for kids to play with and check out     M/T      Free
Library                             Books and story times                                                        M-F      Free
Fire fighters Museum       Antiques and current fire fighting history                        Th-Sat    Free
Duck pond                       Fun feeding the ducks and picnic                                     Always     Free
Nature trail                       great trail to walk about and check out nature on river    Always   Free
West Wood hills               Hiking and Indian history with adjoined museum          Always     Free
Parque Fantastico             Innovative children's park with learning fixtures               Always   Free
Train town                        Small theme park with rides and a small train too          F-Sun       $20
Train Museum                  Self explanatory                                                               Always     $5
Jelly Belly Factory           Tour of the world renowned Factory                              M-S          Free
Yountville cross roads      Nature area at the creeks before Napa River                   Always    Free



These are a few I found will add more as I find them but so far that is not a bad list of free things to do. You just need to look. I also think looking in to things before the kids start in on the I am board rant makes a huge difference between going to an educational free place or the Life sucking Chucky cheese. LOL


                                            xoxo
                                               La chica Frugal

    

Organizing my priorities update

So I have taken a bigger look at my priorities and am going to try to make my life and budget fit these.
Here are my priorities listed from most important to least. That means that if Money is extremely tight I start cutting from the bottom.


#1 Having a parent with my children during waking hours. ( I normally work nights so I am continuing the quest for night time work)



#2 Keeping a clean, inviting home while also being as green as possible. (This is one of those things that is actually easy to do in theory)


#3 Entertaining my children in a way that grows their mind and builds fond memories.


#4 Looking classically stylish


#5 Taking care of my self physically and mentally (Harder to do in reality than in theory. Not because of money but because of time so we will see)

Next I need to come up with a budget that fits these in....


                                             see you soon
                                                    la chica frugal
                                                    

                                                      

Adventures in money savings

  Some times I get these moments of genius. Generally while in the shower as that is the only time I can drown out the sound of children. And I was of all things thinking about laundry soap. I had been using Xtra laundry soap from CVS because it generally was on sale at least once a month for 1.49. And it smells great which is a plus to me. But suddenly the sales dried up and I ran out of my stock pile of 1.49 detergent. I am using up my dry soap. Foca which can be purchased at walmart in my area for a huge bag around 7.00. Smells great,works well but I have to be careful because it sometimes does not break down all the way in cold water. And well I discovered that my cold water intake was not working and that only hot water was pumping in. And since I could see my fun money pumping out of my wallet at the same rate I switched tubes and now only get cold water and that is fine with me. But I digress.

               So any way back to the shower. I was thinking about how I could get Cheap and works well laundry soap that smells good. I purchased a bottle of Awesome (brand name not opinion) form the Dollar Tree and it worked fine but smelled like nothing. So I decided I would check my favorite place for money saving ideas.You tube. Well while looking for ways to fragrance laundry soap I came upon how to make laundry soap. Now I have always had the idea in the back of my mind but normally I had a pile of laundry soap and needed to wait to use it up and well by the time I did I totally forgot about my intended project. So now the stars lined up and I went out to purchase what I needed.

Box of washing soda (note not baking soda look in the laundry isle) 2.99 Walmart
Box of borax                                                                                         2.99 Target ( walmart was more)
Bar of soap (2 cups) Fels Naptha, Zote, Ivory what ever                       .97 walmart (zote for me)


Now the recipe I am going to use calls for

                             1c washing soda
                             1 c borax
                             2 cups grated soap
                             5 gallons water ( 1 gallon boiled to mix the ingredients the rest cold water is fine

I will make it and tell you how it turns out.

                                            xoxo
                                                 la chica frugal

Eating more lunch at home So going to do more of it now

   
      So I am a Bzzagent and I got a invite to this campaign for Orowheat Healthfulls bread. Now I have been eating wheat bread for a while for the health benefits. But I have to say I miss the softness of other breads. So I find myself not making as many lunches at home. But I tried this bread when they sent me my bzz pack. A free coupon for the bread and money off coupons for friends so they can try it too. OMG is it good. Soft and only 80 calories!!! That is huge because most wheat bread is more like 120 a slice and that is 80 calories a sandwich saved!!! that means flavored mayo people!!! LOL either way now that I found a good bread I am going to work on eating for lunch at home. Today I am going to make a Turkey sandwich with cheddar, lettuce, tomato and Buffalo wing mayo. MMM I will probably have a salad on the side to feel less guilty about the buffalo mayo LOL.


                       See you all later
                                   la chica frugal

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