The World According to Mommy

I was emailing back and forth with a friend earlier today about the different things each of us are doing to save money and to try to be more environmentally friendly at the same time. I thought I'd share just some of the things that I do. Maybe you will find an idea you like and hopefully save some money by trying it out!

1. I make my own laundry detergent. I use something different for cloth diapers, but the recipe for regular laundry calls for 1 cup Borax, 1 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda, and 1 bar Kirk’s castile soap. (I got the Borax at Walmart, the washing soda at Drugstore.com, and the castile soap at Whole Foods, although other people were able to find all these ingredients at their local grocery store or Walmart. No such luck where I live.) I cut up the soap into strips, then pulverized it into tiny little balls using my food processer (you can also just shave it using a cheese grater.) You then just mix everything together in a tub or Ziploc bag (I used an old laundry detergent tub.) Depending on how hard or soft your water is, as well as how big a load of laundry you are doing, you use anywhere from 1-2 tablespoons to 1/3 cup. Since most of our loads are pretty big, I use just under 1/3 cup, and it works perfectly. I wash all of our laundry on cold (except diapers), but at the very beginning of the cycle, before I put the clothes in, I turn it to hot, then add the detergent. The hot water helps dissolve the soap bits. I leave the water running on hot for about one minute, then turn it back to cold, add my clothes, then walk away. (Using cold water instead of warm saves electricity, and thus money, and does just as good a job at getting the clothes clean.)

2. I make my own dishwasher detergent. I use 1 tablespoon Borax and 1 tablespoon Arm and Hammer Washing Soda. I also do an additional 2 tablespoons in the little pre-wash compartment in the dishwasher. This works great too!

3. I make my own general household cleaners. For general cleaning, like around the kitchen and bathroom, I use 50/50 vinegar and water. I buy my vinegar from Sam’s Club, and I big bottle of it is really inexpensive. I still have a bunch of regular cleaning supplies that I’m working through, but as soon as I finish those off, I hope to only use these more inexpensive and environmentally friendly cleaners. For floor cleaner I use 1 gallon hot water, 1/8 cup vinegar, and 1/8 cup Dr. Bronner’s soap.

4. I make my own personal cleaning products. I use the Dr. Bronner’s as a body wash for myself, as well as for Nate (although it’s not tear-free, so you have to be really careful about not getting it into his eyes; as poor Nate can attest, there have been a few times that I’ve not been so careful). I use it mixed with water and a little Burt’s Bees baby oil as a solution for Nate’s cloth wipes. I also use it mixed with some water as hand soap. It’s called Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap because it has so many different uses. You can apparently brush your teeth with it, too. The only thing I don’t recommend is using it to wash your hair. It lists that as one of its uses, but let me tell you from personal experience that it doesn’t work very well. Also, don’t use the peppermint soap as a body wash, because I’ve heard that it can burn certain private areas.

These are some of the things that I’ve had success with. I’ve found that they are all much more inexpensive than the soaps and cleaners you can buy at the store, plus all the ingredients are environmentally friendly, and in the case of Dr. Bronner’s, also organic and fair trade.

Happy cleaning!

At the beginning of this month I started keeping track of all my spending. I have categories for just about everything, and whenever I come home after spending money, I break out the receipt from my purchases and enter it onto my handy-dandy Excel spreadsheet.

I was just entering my grocery store trip onto the spreadsheet, and apparently, according to Mr. Excel, I only have $31.89 left in the grocery budget for this month. The last I checked today was the 10th. That means I have....oh, I don't know, quite a few more days left in the month.

When figuring out our budget I assigned us $400 per month for groceries (just for food, no other toiletry or household items; I have a separate line item for those). I sort of picked this number randomly, but I thought surely 2.5 people could make do with $400 to spend for food. Now granted, this does include Nate's formula, which isn't cheap, about $25 a can. He goes through probably one can every five or six days, so I would say probably five cans a month. That's $125 per month. That's a big chunk of the grocery budget, but I think it's definitely doable. Well, we'll see if it's doable come the end of the month.

I think I'm pretty much stocked up on meat after going to Sam's the other day and then the trip to the grocery store today, so we should be good there. And I think I have a can or two of formula in the pantry, so maybe I'll only have to buy one more can before the end of the month. So that leaves milk, eggs, maybe bread, and some vegetables I'll have to buy over the rest of this month.

Oh, man. I think I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I’m definitely going to blow the grocery budget this month, but I really want to try and see if I can make it work. We have a huge pantry which is filled with all kinds of things, so maybe I’ll just have to get some creative juices flowing and plan our meals around what we already have.

At the end of this month I may have to reevaluate the amount I budgeted for groceries. $400 may just not be enough. But I really hope I can make it work, because if I do end up increasing it, then I’ll have to take money from somewhere else in the budget to cover it, and there’s really not a whole lot of wiggle room. I guess I could try to convince Matt that we should pull a Sheryl Crow and only use one square of toilet paper at each, well…sitting. This would definitely save us money, and we could use that extra money to buy more groceries. Although, if we buy more food, and eat more food, won’t we probably need more toilet paper? Ahh…the dilemma.

I went to the grocery store today and saved $25.42 using coupons, which was just under 17% of my total. Not too bad, I guess. This brings my total coupon savings to $62.18.

They also had a great deal on T-bone steaks, so that's what we had for dinner tonight. I'm not sure if I can claim membership in the trying-to-be-frugal club if we're eating steaks for dinner. But man were they good!

This weekend reminded me of a few things that happened not too long ago, but things that I have thought about off and on since they happened.

A few months ago I went out to dinner with some friends. I ended up sitting next to a woman who I know, but she is really more of an acquaintance, a good friend of one of my good friends. This woman is a mother herself, and I hadn't seen her since Nate was born, so she was asking me about him. She asked me if I had gone back to work, and I said, "No, I'm staying home with him." She then said, disapprovingly, "Well, just make sure you have some hobbies so that it doesn't become all about the baby."

I didn't quite know what to say. First of all, because of what she said and the way in which she said it, but also, I didn't really feel like getting into some debate over the merits of staying home with my son. However, looking back, I really should have said something. I think I ended up sputtering some nonsense like, "Oh no, I definitely have hobbies."

I should have said a lot more. Maybe something like this:

“This is now my job, raising my son, and if this is the work I've chosen to do, shouldn't it be all about the baby? Of course I have other interests outside of Nate, and I do pursue those interests, but I don't do so in some sort of spiteful, ‘You're not going to control me, I'm going to have my own life’ kind of way.”

I definitely believe I have balance in my life, but speaking with this woman, I got the impression that she looked down on me, in a way felt sorry for me, because of all that I am surely sacrificing. I feel sad for her that even she, as a mother, can't imagine that there could possibly be so much joy and so much satisfaction that it makes all the sacrifices meaningless.

Maybe this wouldn't have gotten me so riled up and stuck with me this long if I hadn’t had a similar experience just a week before. Again, I was out with a group of girlfriends (a completely different group), and one of the girls was speaking with a man who wasn't with our group. She went around the whole table introducing each girl and what kind of work she did. She started with the girl to my left, and said, "This is Sally, she's an accountant. This is Betty, she's a teacher.", and on, and on, all around the table. She then got to the girl who was to my right, and after introducing her, she stopped. She didn't introduce me. I have no doubt that it was because she didn't know what to say about me. All the rest of the girls had careers outside the home, something by which they could be defined, but what did I have? She probably didn't know what to say. "And this is Courtney. She's just a mom."

I don't think my friend meant anything by leaving me out of the group, but it was just kind of awkward. At least one other person noticed the omission, because one of the girls sitting next to me said, sort of under her breath, “And you have the most important job!” Yeah, thanks.

So here’s to being just a mommy…and loving every minute of it.

The Frugal Zeitgeist has a great article today about overconsumption and the need we all have to sustain this more, more, more lifestyle most of us lead.

Reading this helped set my mind straight after I watched about 10 minutes of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" on Bravo last night. All I can say about that show is "Wow."

The grass may be greener, but you have no idea how high their water bill is.

I am going to try to remember this the next time Mr. Envy rears his ugly head.

...going to Sam's Club on an empty stomach is disastrous.

Although I avoided disaster, mostly, by having an inner monologue that went something like this "Keep going, keep going, don't stop to look at those! Keep going!!"

You know you're really hungry when you pass a giant container of Cheese Puffs, a container large enough to comfortably house Nate and a few of his toys, and start salivating and wondering how you are going to convince your husband when you get home that that darned Sam's Club sold you an open container of Cheese Puffs that was apparently missing quite a few puffs. But I passed the Cheese Puffs, and I made sure to do it quickly before one jumped into my cart and begged to be taken home with me.

And then...the Twinkies. A box of 24 individually wrapped bites of perfection. If heaven is a cake, and I think it might be, it is most definitely a Twinkie. But no, I passed the Twinkies, but only after some heavy-duty scolding from my inner good girl.

So I made it through the store with just a few things that weren't on my list (string cheese and French bread), and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then as I was checking out I saw that two things I was buying, a large bag of frozen chicken breasts and a 10 pack of Kleenex, cost the exact same. How about that. That is either the world's best Kleenex or some pretty sketchy chicken. Stay tuned to find out which it is!

Being a mother, I, of course, want my child to be the best. Doesn't every mother? And every father? But in order to be the best, and to know you're the best, you have to have something to which you can compare yourself. However, when it comes to babies, comparing one against another is just asking for trouble.

When I see a baby who has reached certain milestones before Nate or who may be more advanced than Nate I catch myself thinking "Why can't Nate do that yet?" That is not a good place to be. I think we could easily go down the slippery slope of pushing him to achieve these milestones before he may be developmentally ready. Do we think that his averageness in certain areas is a reflection on us as parents? (I thought I had just invented a word until the online dictionary at Merriam-Webster proved me wrong!) Yes, all babies are different...yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think we all secretly want to be the parents uttering this phrase, because this means that our kid is the one that's being used as the example, as the ideal.

However, I know that there have been occasions where I have felt a little twinge of superiority when talking with other parents about their children. "Oh, your son is 10 months old and only has two teeth? Well, my son had four teeth when he was only seven months old." "Oh, your daughter is six months old and can't sit up by herself yet? Well, my son started sitting up the day before he turned six months old." What is served by my feeling of superiority because my kid has more teeth than yours? My sense that I'm a better parent than you, a better person than you? A belief that I've produced such a wonderful creature who can make his teeth sprout faster than yours? I have no idea, but it's not pretty.

I can only hope that going forward I can both embrace Nate for the cute little thing that he is, without pushing him too hard to do something or be someone just to make me feel better about myself, but also at the same time not judge others based on some ridiculous notion that we are what our babies achieve. Because really, if that were the case, what would it say about me that my son would rather eat leaves than my homemade mashed potatoes?

So exciting! Mostly for me, maybe not so much for you....mainly because I finally figured out how to do this (and of course it turned out to be something incredibly simple)!

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Yesterday I found out that I won the cloth diaper giveaway from Almost Frugal! So excited! Everyone knows how much I love my cloth diapers, so I'm so happy to have more to add to my stash!