CraftyMamaMia's Frugal Living Tips

Welcome to this weeks edition of Frugal Living Tips.
Tip #1
Energy Saving Bulbs will help you save money on your electric bill, plus they last 5 years instead of a few months. You can read more about them here.
Tip #2
Making your own Laundry detergent is much cheaper than store bought, I want to share some recipes.

Laundry Detergent
Not suitable for Cloth Diapers
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda (NOT Baking Soda)
1/2 Bar Fels Natha Laundry Bar (grated with a cheese grater)

Mix the 3 ingredients, and use 1/8 cup per load

Laundry Detergent for Cloth Diapers
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda (NOT baking soda)

Mix the 2 ingredients, Use 1/8 cup AND a squirt of Dawn (plain original Dawn dish Detergent) per load of Diapers.
Instead of Fabric softener use White vinegar, you do not want to use fabric softener on cloth diapers, residue will build up causing the diapers to stink and leak. (If this happens to you, don't despair, you can strip your diapers by washing them once with detergent and then 2-3 times in hot water with no detergent)

Not sure how to wash Cloth Diapers?
I put wet and soiled diapers in a "dry pail" (a dry pail is a trash can with lid and a waterproof liner, no water. also make sure to dump solid poop in the toilet) every 2-3 days I dump them all into the washer (liner too, after it is empty) and I do a cold rinse, then 1 hot wash with detergent, and 1 more cold rinse with vinegar.
If you have stains, hang them outside in the sun or in front of a sunny window to dry, the sun will bleach out the stains.
To save yourself more money hang them to dry, either inside or outside. I have a line inside and outside, plus a drying rack. I don't particularly like the smell of clothes after drying outside, so I only use the outside line for sunning my diapers to remove stains. I have my clothes line going through my bed room. I try to hang every load of laundry unless dry clothes are urgent.

CraftyMamaMia's Frugal Living Tips

What is Frugal living you ask? When you live frugally, you spend less money than you make each month. Resulting in saving money to pay off debt, build a house or maybe even retire early. Over year ago my husband and I did not know how to manage money. Our bills were always late, we spent way to much on groceries and other unnecessary items , etc. Now we have been living frugally and I am proud to say we have no debt, we have 4 acres and a mobile home, and a car, it is all paid off, our bills are now 1/2 of what my husband makes in one month. We are now saving to build an eco-friendly home on our land.

Tip #1
You can save money on the electric bill by unplugging everything when not in use, especially big appliances. They still use electricity when they are completely off, about 40% of what they use while on.

Tip #2


A BIG money saver is switching your home to all cloth, get rid of disposable. If you have a baby in diapers using cloth can save you over $2,000, cloth wipes too. It is not much different than using disposables, except for having to wash them. (Oh my, you might have to smell poop!) If you have sewing abilities you can save yourself even more money by making your own diapers. (I made the diaper in the picture above)

Tip # 3
Using cloth wipes instead of toilet paper for the whole family can be very beneficial too. Much softer than the cheap toilet paper, plus better for the environment and your wallet.
Cloth Menstrual pads, cloth napkins, towels instead of paper towels. There are so many things that people buy these days just to use for a few minutes and throw directly in the trash because they are too busy/lazy to do an extra load of laundry each week.