Clean House, Clean Planet Recipes

Natural, homemade cleaners, as recommended by Karen Logan:

Earth Scrub
16(or 22) oz bottle:
Mix 1 2/3 (2) cups  baking soda with 1/2 cup Dr. Bronner's in a bowl. 
Add 1/2 (2/3) cup of water. 
Add 2 Tbsp vinegar.
Stir until the lumps are gone.  If it pours into the bottle easily, it is the right consistancy - if not, add a little more water. 
Shake well before using.

Use for tub, sink, toilet, garbage cans. 
Can be used to deckscrub linolium floor - squirt on floor and scrub.  Let sit and then scrub again.  Dry wipe with towels.  Spray with vinegar and wipe/mop again.

Earth Shaker: Kitchen Cleanser
Fill Shaker 1/2 full with baking soda
Add 15-20 drops essential oil and stir
Fill shaker to the top with baking soda
Put top on and shake

Bubble Juice:
1 1/2 cups water
3 Tbsp or more dishsoap

Sleep it Off: Oven Cleaner
Mix 1/4 cup salt and 3/4 cup baking soda in a bowl and put into a shaker bottle.
Spray Sal Sud's spray in oven and then shake soda/salt mixture on.
Spray again with Sal Sud's spray.
Make a paste with soda/salt mix and 1/4 cup water and spread on sides/top of oven.
Let sit over night.
Scrape or scrub off and wipe down with Sal Sud's spray. 
Spray with vinegar to dissolve residue.

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Sal Sud's Spray: from Dr. Bronner website
Fill 1 quart spray bottle nearly to the top with water
Add 1 Tbsp Sal Sud's

Financial Peace - I'm Ready to be Wierd! (Part 2)

The wierdness has begun! We just completed our first week of our re-launch in our Financial Peace Planner. I did well with my goals. I prayed every day to be a good steward of our money. We did the Cub Scout activities and had a couple of nice dinners together. I did not exercise - I ended up coming down with a cold after getting my flu shot. I finished Chapter 2 by Sunday.

Chapter 2 asks many questions:

1. Do you have stuffitis? Surprisingly, no. Things like getting rid of extras, buying brand names and top of the line purchases left our way of thinking a couple years ago! We do, however, tend to spend a little bit more on something that we REALLY want.


2. Are you using money to camoflage your feelings? Another somewhat surprising no. This is another line of thinking that has almost died in our past. Sure, it would be nice to go on a shopping spree. But I'd much rather have heat in the winter, gas in my tank and food in the fridge.


3. Are you vulnerable to get-rich-quick- schemes and bad investments? Not any more! I fell for Mary Kay, hook, line and sinker. I'd rather get rich slow than dump money into MLMs and other schemes and get nowhere but further into debt.


4. Are you a lazy money manager? Yes, and I'm trying to get better. I used to let my husband have total control over the finances. He's such a pleaser though, that when I asked if we could afford something, he would mentally tabulate which bills we could put off, so we could get what I wanted. THAT wasn't what I was asking for! So, we are trying to work together as a team, and discuss our finances weekly.


5. What would you do with $1,000,000? a. Give 10% to our church, b. Pay off all our existing debts, c. Set up college funds for our kids, d. Set up a retirement fund for us, and e. Have some fun - buy a house, travel, etc.

We were also challenged to set a date that we will have a $1,000 emergency fund established. My Wonderful Husband thinks we can have it done ny December 22, 2008. So that's what we're working for!

Our Weekly Goals

• Spiritual - Continue to pray daily for financial wisdom.


• Relational - Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving with our families.


• Physical - Work out at least 3x a week.


• Mental - Read Chapter 3 by Saturday, 11/29.

I'M READY TO BE WIERD!!!

Financial Peace - I'm Ready to be Weird!

My husband and I are getting ready to re-start Financial Peace baby steps. We recently paid off many, many thousands of dollars in debt and only have about $4,000 left! Problem is, the end is in sight and we are slacking off a bit.

I kind of gave myself, and him, a kick in the pants when I started mapping out all the things that we want to do within the next 10-15 years. I realized that we need to kick it into gear if we ever want to have these amazing experiences:

• Go to Disney World twice - next winter and when our youngest is 5 (probably in 6 years).
• Go to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary - in 2011.
• Buy a new, somewhat larger, house within the next 5 years.
• Go to Europe for our 25th anniversary.
• Pay for 4(?) college educations.

And of course, save up a nice chunk of cash for retirement. I really want to be those people who live VERY modestly now and just have tons of money in savings for the emergencies and the fun. That means that WE NEED TO QUIT PISSING OUR MONEY AWAY NOW!!!

So, I hauled out the dusty Financial Peace planner, erased all my marks from before and we're back at it. One chapter per week, until we're done.

This week's goals:

• Spiritual - Pray EVERY day for help with finances.
• Relational - Continue to work on Boy Scout Activities and have at least one nice meal per week, all together.
• Physical - Exercise 30 minutes per day, 5 days a week - taking Wednesdays and Sundays off.
• Mental - Finish reading Financial Peace, chapter 2 by next Saturday 11/22/2008.

I really want this! We have been paying for our credit mistakes for the past 10 years and I am sick of having debt hanging over my head!

So, in the words of the awesome Dave Ramsey, "Call me weird - Just don't call me broke!"

I'm ready to be weird!

Old School???

I find myself gravitating toward "old school" stuff and methods. Just a few weeks ago, I was called old-fashioned (I'm only in my late 20s!) because my kids were playing with View Finders and I use cloth diapers. I think that this regression, if you will, has been amplified by my want and need to help conserve our environment.

I firmly believe that kids enjoy toys that don't make noise more than the toys that do. In fact, I see my kids playing with matchbox cars, wooden trains, puzzles, dolls and stuffed animals much more often and for longer periods of time than any of their flashing/beeping/singing/jumping/shaking toys. I think that my kids imaginations are stimulated much more when they are making up the stories as they go. I am even a big fan of Leap Frog toys, but even those guide and limit the imaginations!

I also am making more foods and snacks from scratch. Not only is it a big money saver, its more nutritious and natural. Our bodies weren't made to process preservatives!

Of course, I use cloth diapers and wipes. I bought several dozen cloth napkins from garage sales and I made my own dryer sheets! I even cut my paper towel consumption immensely. I use rags for everything!

I do, obviously enjoy technology. I have my snazzy new phone and high speed Internet and Netflix. But I also don't have caller ID or call waiting on my land line, and, I don't have cable. That's right, I get to choose from 4 channels. You know what, it does cut down my couch potato time, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm definitely trying to live life outside of the box, whether it be the cable box, the caller ID box or the Hamburger Helper box.

I Think I'm Becoming a Tree Hugger...and a Penny Pincher

It happened almost by accident a few months ago, right after my baby was born. I used to say that I cared about the earth. I recycled pop cans (10¢ per can is very motivating) , made my deposit in the Paper Gator at church, didn't litter. I KNEW I wasn't frugal. I also KNEW that my wonderful husband and I needed to change our spending habits if we were ever going to be able to survive on one income.

We had already done things like getting rid of the extras - cable, extra stuff on our phones, using cold water in the laundry, etc. Then I read 2 books about frugality: Miserly Moms, which is pretty good; and The Complete Tightwad Gazette, which is a little old (pretty much ignore anything she says about computers, the rest is like gold), but VERY good. That's when I started to realize how I wasteful I really was. I realized that anything that you use only once - dryer sheets, napkins, paper plates and cups, plastic silverware, paper towels, diapers, wipes, etc. - and throw away is like throwing away money. It is also SO bad for the environment. These things are taking up space in landfills and they take so many natural resources to produce:

• The average family washes about 8 loads of laundry per week. Dryer sheets cost $3 per box of 80, average. Yeah, that's only $14 per year, but chances are, you'll be doing laundry for the better part of at least 50 years. That's $700 that you're throwing away in your adult lifetime!
• The average family uses about 40 paper napkins per week. Napkins cost $3 per pack of 120, average. Yeah, that's only $50 per year, but chances are, you'll be eating for the better part of at least 50 years. That's $2,500 that you're throwing away in your adult lifetime!
• The average baby uses about 6,000 disposable diapers from birth to age 3. Disposables cost 32¢ per diaper, average. That's $1,920 in diapers for 1 kid! You can get into cloth diapers and wipes for $300, for the basics, to $800, for all the cutsies and extras. I spent $500 to get my baby into cloth and my toddler into trainers.

It is cheaper and healthier to make almost any convenience food that you can find:

• Love those baby-cut carrots and other pre-cut veggies and fruits? They cost 1.5 to 2 times as much (or more!) than if you buy them and cut them yourself!
• Lunchable can be as cheap as $2. You can make your own for less than half the cost. You can also control the quality and nutrition when you make your own.
• Baby food is another convenience food trap. You think that you NEED it to feed your baby. Doesn't it make you a little nervous that baby food has a 2 year shelf life?
• What about all the extra packaging that you are paying for and using when you buy those 100 calorie packs? Pre-made baby bottles? Individual pudding, applesauce and jello? Water bottles? Where does that go?

The thing we all need to realize is what and where 'away' is. When we throw stuff 'away' it doesn't just disappear. It goes to the landfills. I've got news for you...those landfills are getting full. I watched the Bonnie Hunt Show this week with 2 guys who made a raft from 15,000 plastic water bottles and sailed from California to Hawaii to raise awareness about the harm plastic is causing in our environment. Check out this website and see what you can do to reduce or eliminate the amount of plastics YOU use.

"The earth is our ship, an ark for everything that lives. It is the only vessel available to carry humans through the ocean of space, and it is rapidly becoming unseaworthy." ~ Serve God, Save the Planet, J. Matthew Sleeth, MD