Frugal and Old-Fashioned

There are some things we do in our household that are frugal, old-fashioned, or both.  They're things that have worked for us over the years and, stacked up against doing some things the modern way, this is what we prefer.  This is only a sampling of the many things that we do that may be considered old-fashioned or frugal.  We're frugal, not cheap - there's a difference.  Frugal is saving money.  Cheap is refusing to spend money.  Big difference.  Old-fashioned sometimes means using the elbow grease most people don't seem to have on hand these days.  (Some of you who follow my Facebook page have already gotten a glimpse of this post.)

Here we go:

• We make our own laundry detergent.  I use castille soap, Borax, and washing soda to make liquid laundry detergent.  I make a five gallon bucket at a time, usually every 2 - 3 months.  This cleans all of the household laundry.  I cannot bring myself to spend $12+ on a bottle of chemically-laden laundry detergent.  It's mostly water, anyway and my home made version cleans our clothes just as well as a commercial detergent.
• We hand wash dishes.  We don't even own a dishwasher.  We used to have one, but I was tired of having to 'pre-wash' dishes, or 're-wash' ones the dishwasher didn't clean.  It was noisy and used water and electricity. When that one died, I wasn't going to spend at least $1,500 on a decent dishwasher, which still recommended that the dishes be 'pre-washed'.  My husband and I share the responsibility of washing the dishes every day, and we use my handmade dishcloths. 
• I line-dry clothes whenever I possibly can.   Free energy, people! Solar and wind energy at work right out at your clothesline.  I have four clotheslines and I am so happy when every single space on those lines are filled with clothes.  There's nothing like slipping under the covers that have been air-dried.  
• We have a wood stove.  We've had a wood stove for 16 years, now.  It has saved us a considerable amount of money during the winter months on heating costs.  Our main system is forced hot air using natural gas, so that uses gas + electricity.  Well, when we have a winter storm that knocks out our electricity, we are still warm and cozy with our wood stove.  We usually cut and split the wood ourselves, and have friends that are helpful in giving us felled trees, when possible.  A wood stove is perfect to use in the spring and autumn, when the damp days put a chill in the house.  
• I don't use commercial household cleaners.  I only use vinegar and Borax to clean my house.  I use a steam mop to clean my floors (we barely have any carpeting, only an area rug in a couple of rooms).  I keep a spray bottle with a mixture of water, vinegar, and a couple of drops of castille soap handy to clean counters, mirrors, and to spot clean.  Oh, and elbow grease. 
• I'm not a huge gadget person.  I don't even own a mixer.  I use a fork.  When everyone was going crazy over the fancy, brightly colored standing mixers, I just kept on using my fork.  Works wonderfully and clean up is so much easier.  Yes, I know I've said I have a steam mop, but I got it on sale and it has saved my back hugely over using a regular old mop, of which I've tried every variety.
• We compost kitchen scraps.  Instead of having a full, stinky kitchen garbage basket, we compost our kitchen waste (except for meat and dairy) into our compost pile.  This is used in our vegetable and flower gardens.  Between composting and recycling, not much trash actually goes into our kitchen garbage.  
• We fix it or wear it out, first.  Before replacing an item with a new one, we make the determination that it cannot be fixed or has been completely worn out.  My husband is my McGyver and can fix just about anything.  If he can't fix it, then we'll get a new one - but only the best quality for the best price.  I'm happy to say that there is a big box store not too far from our house and we rarely shop there.  
• We consolidate our errands.  Gasoline isn't cheap and our vehicles aren't getting any younger.  We live on the 'outskirts of town'.  So trips to the grocery store, pharmacy, gas station etc. are planned carefully so that we're not wasting time or resources going out multiple times when we can accomplish as much as possible in one trip.

So, these are the ways that doing things frugally or in the old-fashioned manner have been working for us, for a considerably long time, now.  I'd love to hear some frugal or old-fashioned tips from you in the comment section.

Back to Basics

It seems as though frugality is the buzz-word of late. Due to our economic recession, I think more people are returning to 'the simple life'. What I mean is, people are figuring out how to save money. I think convenience products that we've been paying through the nose for are really not all that inconvenient for us to make ourselves.

Now, I've always been a pretty thrifty person. We've been a mostly one income family of four for the past 15 years. When the kids were small my weekly grocery bill was $80. Now that I have two teenagers, I'm happy to say that I can do quite well on a weekly budget of $130 - $150 for groceries.

One thing I absolutely hated having to buy (seemingly constantly) is laundry detergent. As I have mentioned, I have two teenagers, one being a girl. Even though both of the kids do their own laundry, inevitably, there would be the days that I heard "I have to do laundry but we don't have any more detergent!". I was always adding water to the detergent bottles to get every last bit I could for one more load. And the empty laundry bottles kept piling up in the laundry room.

A couple of months ago I began to wonder if there was a cheaper, homemade alternative to the store brand detergents. I wanted to save on gas from running into town, also. So I found a great recipe for homemade powdered laundry detergent. I prefer the powdered because I reasoned that it's easier to measure dry powder and easier to over measure liquid detergent.

So here are the ingredients: one bar of Ivory soap, one cup of Borax laundry booster, and one cup of Super Washing Soda.

I use my Pampered Chef cheese grater to grate the Ivory soap into flakes (the smaller the flakes the better). To the flakes I add a cup each of the Borax and super washing soda. I keep the mixture in a plastic tub, on which I wrote in a Sharpie the directions for everyone. The measuring scoop we use is one from a container of ground coffee (if you're like me, your kitchen drawers are full of them). We use one scoop per large load of laundry.

Now I have to say that I do believe that our clothes are much cleaner using the homemade recipe. Our whites do seem brighter. I love the clean scent of the detergent. And being as that most of my family has extremely sensitive skin (including psoriasis), we have not had any adverse reactions to this recipe.

The only drawback I have experienced is that some of the soap flakes do not completely dissolve in the wash and get stuck to the clothing. The small flakes come off in the dryer, or I merely remove what I do see. I feel that this is a small inconvenience to me. The flakes do completely dissolve in warm and hot water, though I usually use cold temp. in most loads.

I haven't bought laundry detergent from the store since the end of last year. I don't miss it one bit. It takes me minutes to make a new batch of laundry detergent, when needed. I've haven't tallied any figures yet, but I'm sure I'm saving quite a bit of money, too.

If you're interested in making liquid homemade laundry detergent, please check out my sis Robin's post here. If you try either method, please let me know how things turned out.

I'm working on using homemade fabric softener too, but haven't had much of a chance to use it yet.

Have a blessed day!

Liane