233. Make Your Own Gift Wrap

There are a couple of ways to make your own gift wrap. First, you could use newsprint; although this can make a mess when handling, it can look fantastic. Another way is to use colored paper and to decorate it. You could also use colored plastic wrap and some ribbon to tie it off. There is, also, the option of using paper bags, decorated. Or reusing gift bags that you are given.

Happy gifting!

Until next time.

232. Homemade Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Natural/Homemade Cleaners are the best way to save money and keep chemicals out of your home. Vinegar is one of the best natural cleaners around and I usually use it with baking soda for general cleaning; however this is a little more heavy duty to clean the toilet.

1/2 cup borax

1 cup white vinegar, distilled

add 10-20 drops of essential oil if you want a nice smell to go along with your clean bowl!

Combine the borax and vinegar, with the essential oil and allow to sit in the toilet bowl for at least an hour. After the hour, use a toilet brush to scrub the toilet bowl clean.

**For tougher stains, create a paste and apply directly onto the stains.

Happy cleaning!

Until next time!

231. Turn off Power Strips

There is one way to reduce your energy consumption. It takes a little bit of planning, but if you can work it out. Set up your power strips so that things which can be actually turned off when not in use are plugged into a power strip with a power switch. Then, make sure that you turn off your power strips after every use.

Those power vampires can be huge users. Those items, like TVs, which are drawing waiting energy, add up pretty quickly.

Happy reducing!

Until later.

230. Make Your Own Dish Washing Detergent

Making your own dish washing detergent is actually very simple. We had almost given up on being able to use our dish washer. We tried to use our regular detergent products, with terrible results. I began searching out a variety of home-made cleaning product ideas. I tried a couple of them, with mixed results. Here is what I found to work extremely well, especially with our "VERY" hard well-water:

1 cup of Borax
1 cup of Washing Soda
1 cup of "Lemi Shine" detergent booster
1/2 cup of Kosher Coarse Salt

Mix all ingredients together, I store mine in a glass jar.
       - NOTE: you have to be careful and allow the "Lemi Shine" to dry out a little before you close it up, or you will end up with a detergent 'brick'.

Use 1 Tablespoon per load

Add 1 cup of vinegar to a bowl in the top rack (to act as a rinse agent)

This ends up costing less than a nickle per load - much less than any other detergent I have found.

This recipe has made our dishwasher usable again!

All of our dishes are now very clean, and they do not have the hard water residue we had previously run into.

It has definitely been a while!

After a year and a half a lot has happened. First, we purchased a Geodesic Dome home in the county, that needs some love. Second, one kid is now in college. Third, I have gone back to work.

All of these things lead to way less time to blog and way more money being spent. We are in a place now where we need to spend less and find more time to get creative. After much consideration, I decided to readdress my money saving venture.

There are a number of these ideas that are still working for us and that we still do all of the time. Some we have let slide and we have found some new ones. I will try to share these new ideas one at a time until I reach 365! They may not be every day, but I will continue to include new ideas to put some money back into your pocket!

Thank you for continuing on this journey with me!

Until the next post!