Midweek and Midmonth

 Once again the forecasted rain did not show up. In fact today has been sunny and mild. Enjoying this while it lasts by going for a bit of a walk today. Tomorrow, may not be as nice and you need to take advantage when you can.

The one good thing I can think of bad weather helping is that I get to stay home and work on organizing and beginning to get ahead on making some of my homemade cleaners.

Spray bottles at the ready. Onwards to starting to "Green Up" my household cleaners. At which point I realized there is more that I will need to purchase to make a full set of cleaning supplies.

So today I managed to make two. A window cleaner, and a cleaner to rid the tub and sink of soap scum.

The window cleaner is water, vinegar in equal measure along with a bit of dish soap. 

The soap scum cleaner is just vinegar and a bit of water. 

What do I need to purchase to finish off my cleaning supplies? I need to purchase Borax, liquid Castille Soap, some tea tree oil, lavender oil, and more baking soda. I also need small jars to make various pastes. I can see that this is going to be a learning experience already. Vinegar can etch tiles so I will need to be careful using any cleaners containing that when working around the tiling in the bathroom and kitchen. Still I have made a start on at least giving these greener cleaning supplies a try. 

I have even found a recipe for dishwasher soap that I may have to try out very soon. There is also one for laundry detergent, but I am leery of that one considering how hard our water is. Mind you it is better than it used to be now that we have switched sources. I will think on that one a bit more. 

It isn't that I really need to cut back on spending, more I am going to make it a game just to see how much I can save from our finances and put into our savings account. 

So meals will be stretched, more cooking from scratch, trying to remove more packaged items from my grocery lists, cleaning supplies used up and then replaced by other homemade cleaners, I am also thinking of making those makeup remover pads, and making my own skin cleansing routine. 

Simplifying is what will be happening here. One does not need expensive cleaning supplies or ingredients for a meal. I have found that purchasing grocery items in the international food aisles saves me money. Spices are in larger bags and are less expensive than the bottles or bags in the regular aisle. Rice is also less expensive, mind you I purchased the Great Value rice the last time and it really wasn't too bad in price or taste. 

As far as stretching meals, most of what I make says it will feed 6, so we will eat it the first night, transfer part of what is left into a freezer container (I use/reuse tinfoil containers for this purpose) put the meal into the large chest freezer, and the part that is left will make another meal later that week. 

This isn't doom and gloom, rather it is making sure I am using up all that I have paid for to the best of my ability and trying to keep as much of our hard saved money in our hands instead of the stores getting it.

I have heard of others using one shelf in their fridges for leftovers. If you do this can you tell me how that has worked for you. I hate having items pushed to the back of my fridge and forgotten about. 

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.