It is funny how inspired you can become when forced to be a little more creative in stretching the dollar. Well, at least that has been the case for me, during this financial transition. I am learning how to cut a little closer on a few more corners. 
Here are the things I have been exploring with over the last few weeks…of course I am talking to myself, as this may not work for everyone.
- You run out of dishwasher detergent…instead of rushing off to the store (because you really didn’t think ahead), you decide to explore making your own with what you have (since you don’t really have any extra money in the budget anyway). Borax, baking soda and a little Dr. Bronner’s here we come. Success!
- You have always been told to wash the cloth diapers in a cold cycle followed by a hot cycle with an extra rinse. You decide to test the possibilities of eliminating the extra rinse. Diapers come out just as clean as before. Amazing!
- The thought comes to you to eliminate the use of the dryer altogether (with very few exceptions -these diaper inserts just take forever to dry! Or how about softening those starchy towels, just a wee bit, asks the hubby). All for good stewardship and cost effectiveness. Spring is in the air out here in the Northwest and the sun is shining! Hanging the clothes outside is refreshing and speeds up the process too!
- You experiment with using colder temperatures in washing your laundry. Cold works great for most everything except whites and towels…which clean well in warm. You try combining loads together to get the most efficiency out of the washer. Why not combine our colored clothes with the babies alongwith the cloth napkins? Or how about the towels and sheets? Bingo!
- In an effort to stretch every food item, you start freezing your leftovers in order that nothing go to waste (they always just seemed to get hidden in the fridge until it was too late!). Vegi’s, meats and maybe some leftover grains are stored in a large plastic container in the fridge for the next soup concoction (right now we have quinoa, mashed potatoes, and stemmed cabbage freezing away). This should be good, I hope! Might just have to be a little more creative with the seasonings to cover the odd combination of foods.
- You start saving your peelings for some yummy stocks!
- You think of every possible way of reusing and stretching the ziploc bag and tinfoil!
- You explore with making mayonnaise and salad dressings the old fashioned way!
It has been a lot of fun getting the most out of every dollar…striving to be faithful with what God has entrusted to us.
Any creative ideas you have stumbled upon lately?
Join in the fun at Frugal Fridays!
Note: I have one more post (possibly more in the future) in the Making it Yourself series…but it will have to wait till next week. Keep listening…or reading, I should say.
I have a retractable single clothesline screwed next to our back patio door. It’s about ten feet long, and the housing blends into our siding color. I think I paid 75 cents for it at a garage sale. My hubbie borrowed an auger and drilled a hole for a short length of PVC pipe to hold a metal closet rod “pole.” The rod conveniently had a small hole near one end for the line to hook onto. I removed it when not in use and the pipe was nearly invisible. It worked great for many years, eventually bowing due to hanging heavy bed coverings. We then replaced it with a steel clothesline rod.
I also have a small five-line retractable line that is mounted in our laundry room above the washer & dryer. It is up permanently and always has something hanging on it. Our laundry room is longer than it is wide and we don’t have cabinets, so this works for us.
Another laundry tip to save on small loads of gentle or delicate cycle items–use mesh laundry bags. I have four or five of these in various sizes and I use them for anything delicate: stuffed animals, velcro bibs, woven belts, tutus w/tulle, baby socks that the washer “eats,” etc. I found a bunch of those bags at yet another garage sale, but I’ve seen them at Wal-Mart too.
About half of my clothes and my dh’s are dry clean only. His jeans, khakis go in the dryer, along w/underwear, socks and t-shirts. The rest go on drying racks. I have a few of those! (I personally like the plastic coated ones)
I haven’t had my clothes hung on a line in 20 plus years. We own our own home, and a clothes line just never did the backyard justice. I will have a few drying racks on our back deck (off our bedroom), and bring them in if we get company.
Towels, sheets, and underwear ALWAYS get washed separately, and in hot water, and all get bleached added to kill bacteria. Everything else (that isn’t dry clean only) gets washed in wash/cold water.
My goal is to not put more than 50% of our laundry (family of 6) in the dryer. In the winter I have 2 big drying racks I keep up near the wood stove. In the summer I hang out side. It is a little more work, but it feels good! I do hang more of our things in the summer (I run the dryer once for about every 3 loads in the washer). If I just had more rack space in the house! When we rented we had a wonderful basement and my hubby hung lines across it… I hung a TON!!!!!
HEather
Most people gasp when they hear that I wash all colors together in cold water
but almost all of our clothes are either from the thrift store or 5+ years old (or both!) so I’m not too concerned about them.
We live in an apartment with no outside place to dry clothes, but we have vaulted ceilings, so we hung up our own clothesline with pulleys.
As a single person, I began to realize that since my clothes were not new and were often bought used, that I could wash all my clothes together in hot or cold with no bad results. This helped me since I didn’t want to wait the amount of time it took to get two or three different kind of loads together. Now that I’m married, I do most of my washing in mixed loads of warm water. I do have to be careful of the occasional new thing that is purchased to make sure that it is color fast or not of special materials (like wool) that need special treatment, but overall I save time and money by not being fastidious with separating colors. I also am forced to use a laudromat, so that’s part of my issue. This may not work for when I have a large family (since I won’t be able to color test each new clothing item that comes in), but hopefully by then I will have my own washer and dryer and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of laundry to seperate!
Oh, btw…the warm water is for killing dust mites!
I vary from cold to hot depending on what I’m washing. I have chronic allergies, so bedding and PJs get washed in warm water. I always do towels in hot…not sure why, I guess it’s psychological.
I wish I had a clothesline! I just love the smell of sun-dried laundry. I heard a funny piece of news on the radio this morning. Apparently, they’re trying to pass a law that says no one can tell you what you can put up in your yard. That means, no condo board can tell its members ‘no clotheslines.’
I actually don’t have a clothsline outside as we have no way of hanging it on our small back deck. I have a metal rack and then I hang shirts and towels on our back metal fence.
Inside I have hung clotheslines in our bathroom and in our hallway. Lots of fun! Just have to be careful what’s hanging when people come over!
Great post! We’ve got a courtyard that actually came with a big pipe railing with hooks pre-installed on it (and the wall of the shed forming the wall across from it) for running a clothesline. You can guess what is on my Home Depot list for this weekend!
I’ve done my laundry in three basic steps for years: whites/lights, darks, and linens (bed sheets and towels). I separated my daughter’s baby clothes out for a while when she was first born but found she didn’t have enough clothing if I waited til laundry day – besides, I use the same detergent for everyone anyway. 6 years later and a new baby, and I just kept going.
I do stick bibs in with the linens load, however, because I don’t like the idea of a bib coming loose (if it is a Velcro closure one) and sticking to/pulling clothing material.
Almost all kinds of clothes, sheets, and towels can wash well together. It may not be the recommended, but I’ve never noticed a difference in the cleanliness or color.
I sort laundry solely by color, so white towels, sheets, and clothes all go together. This definitely cuts way down on the number of loads per week, and regulates the time in the dryer — instead of a load of jeans or towels taking forever, all the loads take about the same time.
Since I use the laundromat, doing laundry this way is more convenient and has cut our laundry budget about in half… Yay!
I just love visitin your blog it is so cheerful and helpful!
These are some great ideas… you sound like a mama after my own heart!!
~Kristy @ Homemaker’s Cottage
=) I love the first idea; I’ve often come up with an ingenious substitution because I hate the idea of running out to the store for “just one thing”
I had to laugh, though, because you’re right. If I’d planned ahead, it never would have happened!
Also, I just determined to make all our own salad dressings, as well, especially when I saw how simple it is. Do you know if the homemade mayonnaise spoils quickly?
Sarah, glad to hear you are inspired to make your own salad dressings. I found that our homemade mayo lasts a good while, but I use the one batch in my recipe in about 2-3 weeks, so I haven’t experienced it going bad yet.