DIY Laundry Detergent

    A few weeks ago I made my own laundry detergent and I have to say I have been pretty happy with it. I love that it is all natural, plus it's super cheap. The only thing is I need to find an all natural stain remover for heavy stains because some are hard to get out of baby clothes. I would love any suggestions.
Here's the recipe I used for our laundry detergent
1 4 lb 12 oz box Borax

4 16oz boxes Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

1  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
2 bars of Dr. Bronner's lavender soap
Pour all ingredients into a large container, grate soap, and mix. Super easy, luckily when I was grating soap my husband was home and took over doing one, which was nice since you get a bit of an arm workout:)

Being Frugal and a Vitamix

     If you've been reading my blog, I'm sure you've read about our house and how tiny it is, but with this market we are stuck here for a while. So since we know we will have to be here for a while longer we decided in the fall Jack will most likely go to school full time and work part time. That means that we will need to be more frugal and save as much as we can . So I've been trying to do what I can now and decided I will start posting about what we are doing to save money and live a more simple, green life. Some upcoming posts will include: how to make your own laundry detergent, baby wash, shopping, gardening, and more. By the way one thing we did to help us save is join Costco (not really sure how much you save, but since I don't enjoy grocery shopping, now I don't have to do it as often).
 I was there today and they had someone making drinks with a Vitamix and now I totally want one. I know just after talking about being frugal I want a $400 blender, but I try to make juice and smoothies everyday so they kids get their fruits and veggies and they look so much easier then the juicer we have, but they are $400 which is a lot of money to spend on one. I'm debating if we should get one. Does anyone have one what do you think, is it worth it?

Saving on kids stuff

Not sure how many people do this already, but I thought I'd share so if there's not one in your neighborhood you could start one. The moms in my neighborhood have a Facebook page to share information and ask advice to parenting related things. Soon people started selling babies items and asking to buy some, so then we decided to start a page to buy and sell items in our neighborhood. It has been awesome I have been able to get my kids cheap new items we need and get rid of items we no longer need. People also sell non baby items and it's so nice that all the people live close by and you can trust them. It works like Craigslist but even better. I've also given away formula and diaper coupons I don't need. I can't tell you how much I love having a site like this and how much money it has saved me. With my first son I wanted everything new,  but once you realize how quickly they go through things you realize it's best to save whenever you can. Plus your baby never notices if their clothes or toys are new or used. If you don't have one in your neighborhood yet I'd definitely start one.

Cheap shopping trip

I went to CVS today and was so excited with how much money I saved. I came home and told my husband, but he was not nearly as impressed as I was (I think talking about coupons bores him).
So here's what I got:
3 12 packs of pepsi (Rory's christening is coming up so I'm trying to stock up on cheap pop)
Venus razor
Gillette shave gel
2 tubes of crest toothpaste
2 cartons of Edy's ice cream
A box of Edy's popsicles
All for $5.40 plus $14 in ECB for my next trip that's why I love CVS.
 Who would have thought I would find saving money so exciting? If you asked me a few years ago I probably would have just laughed because I never even thought of using coupons. If I didn't have money I would just put things on credit cards, but then I realized you really have to pay those off one day. How was I to know, they handed them out like candy in college with $10,000 limits and all I had was a part time job working a couple days a week. Now we no longer have credit card debt and I plan on it staying that way. So, now I try to find ways to save money any way we can and I actually enjoy it:)