Homemade Disinfecting Wipes

I have to admit, most of my 'green' lifestyle changes do not come about from a desire to be more environmentally conscious. Most of them come from wanting to save money, not save the planet! Although here recently, I've had lots of thoughts on the very subject of being 'green'. God has given us this beautiful earth to take care of. His creation is immaculate and breathtaking. So, I am all for taking care of the beauty God has given!

One of the 'convenience' cleaning items that I haven't been able to get rid of has been disinfecting wipes). How great is it to just be able to grab the container and wipe down your toilets and sinks!? I use vinegar and water for most of my general cleaning but a toilet to me just needs something extra, right? So, I started doing a search on homemade disinfecting wipes and found this blog post. I decided to make up some of my own! It {almost} worked great! I cleaned my toilets, sinks and counters with my homemade wipes yesterday. I think my only problem was that it left water spots on everything. I think I may have had them too wet. I'm going to try to use them next time by squeezing the excess solition out and see how that works.

Here is what you need:




Squares of cloth - I used one of the Hubs's t-shirts & got about 16 large wipes
water
castile soap
Tea Tree Oil*
white vinegar
some kind of container

To mix mine up, I used a cup of water. I added about a tsp castile soap, 1/8 tsp tea tree oil and 1/4 cup vinegar. I think this was a pretty good amount, though I might go easier on the soap and tea tree oil (literally just 3-4 drops) and add a 1/2 cup of vinegar. I think that might help with the spots too. I'll try to update on my next batch. It took me a whole maybe 5 minutes and that includes cutting up the t-shirt!

This is a much safer and more frugal way to disinfect!

Castile soap can be pricey, but it is highly concentrated. A little goes a long way! I can see my 32 oz bottle lasting a long time. I got the 'Unscented Baby-Mild Dr Bronner's" castile soap at Target but I have heard that you can get it cheaper on Amazon, so my next bottle will be bought with my other Amazon items! I've seen a lot of different things you can use castile soap for online so I'm excited to see what else I can use it for!

* Care should be taken when handling and storing tea tree oil, as with other cleaners. It can be toxic at full strength! It's safe when diluted and has great antibacterial and antiviral properties!


(This picture annoys me... because you can tell the lid isn't closed all the way. As you can also tell, I didn't fold them up fancy. I just dumped them in. Works for me!)


On my list next is homemade swiffer pads made from burp cloths! :)

Frugal Summer Fun: Chalk Paint

So, I'm slacking in the 'fun' activity department these past few weeks! When I saw a facebook friend post about making sidewalk chalk paint on her blog, I knew we had to try it! We had everything we needed to make the paint in the pantry! We decided to just do red, yellow, green and blue. Next time I'm going to throw in a lesson in mixing colors!

Here is what you need:

Water (2 TBS), Corn Starch (2 TBS), food coloring (4-5 drops)

I was really surprised at how bright the colors were. One word of caution is that the corn starch kind of got stuck up in the sponge brushes that we were using. So an extra cup of water to rinse out every so often would be a good idea! It was so hot outside that our paint dried very quickly!

Here is Luke's rainbow and man under it:

And here is Eli making his big blob:

What are some of your frugal fun ideas for summer?

Linking up with:

Saturday $ense...

Clever, huh? Ok, maybe not.

So, are you wondering how I did with my grocery shopping? Here is my menu, so you can see what meals I had planned for this trip. I spent a total of $90.24 this week of my $100. Below is how it was all spent. I did have a pretty large expense that you'll see in the "household" section. Here are the items that we already had on hand that helped complete our meals*:

3 large chicken breast (freezer)
organic blueberries (freezer)
salsa
sour cream
Colby jack cheese
eggs
butter
flour
pasta
frozen spinach
ricotta cheese
black beans
Snacks: granola bars, Cheerios, string cheese, raisins, Annie's Bunny Grahams, crackers


Here is the breakdown of what I was able to purchase. Over all I am please with my trip. My goal is to feed my family as healthy as I can. Healthy meaning, as little junk, mostly from scratch, real foods. Our resources are somewhat slim around here as far as produce and meat goes and at this point in our lives we take advantage of WIC and that helps greatly.

WalMart

Household Items:
Dish washing Detergent ~ 2.74
Trash bags ~ 3.34
Baking Soda ~ 1.00
Vinegar (Gallon) ~ 2.32
Razor Cartridges (4) ~ 15.97 (the Hubby likes the good stuff. I get these about once every 2-3 months)

Produce:
Tangerines (6) 1.68
Apples (3#) 3.67
Ice burg Lettuce Salad 1.50
Spring Mix Organic Salad 2.78
Onions (WIC)
Bananas (WIC)
Organic Baby Carrots (WIC)
Broccoli Crown (WIC)

Pantry Items:
Sugar 2.08
Whole Wheat Tortillas 2.00
Sun Dried Tomatoes in Olive Oil 3.64
Bertolli Basil Pesto 1.98
Pasta Sauce 1.33
Community Coffee 4.50
Polaners All Fruit Grape Jelly 1.93
Sara Lee WW Bread (WIC)
Juicy Juice Apple Juice (WIC)


Dairy:
Dannon Yogurt Drinks 2.46
Oikos Organic Yogurt (4 pk) 3.98
Disney Cheese 1.78
Dried Pineapple snack (2) - 1.56
Gal 2% Milk (WIC)
16 OZ Mozzarella Cheese (WIC)
Barbers Whole Buttermilk (WIC)

Frozen:
Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrot Mix 1.58

Total: $71.77

Local Dairy

Local Honey (20 oz) 6.50
Ground Beef (primarily grass fed) 4.00
3 candies 0.90

Total $12.42

Winn Dixie

Organic Tortilla Chips 1.99
Bananas 1.67
Bimbo WW Bread 1.89

Total- $6.05

Grand Total- $90.24

So, do you have any tips for me? The only coupon I used was for the coffee. I bought Community Coffee @ $5.50 with a $1 off coupon. Because I don't buy many processed food items, I don't use many coupons. I know that I need to get back at my bread making attempts. The boys and the Hubs eat a lot of sandwiches. And even though we get a loaf on WIC, I had to buy an extra at my mid week trip (Winn Dixie). I'd love to hear any tips or thoughts on ways to cut this down!

Chicken Nachos {Non-Recipe}

This recipe is not really a recipe! There are no measurements and it is SOO simple! It's inexpensive and easy! The picture above is pre-baked.. we were hungry and I forgot to get a picture of fresh out of the oven!

Chicken Nachos

Cooked, Shredded Chicken (about 2 cups)
Tortilla Chips
Taco Seasoning
Salsa
Cheese (I like Monterrey Jack)

If I'm using shredded chicken that I've frozen, I throw it in a pan with about 1-2 TBS of butter and thaw on med-low. Once the chicken is thawed and hot, I'll add some taco seasoning (to your taste 1-2 tsp) and stir around for a minute or two. Next add in about 1 cup of salsa, you don't want it too wet. Once it's heated through, spread tortilla chips over a foil-lined sheet pan in a single layer. Layer chicken mixture on top of tortilla chips and then top with cheese. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Serve warm, right out of the oven with sour cream!

For a really quick week-night meal use a rotisserie chicken!

I usually set aside some chicken (plain) for the boys and just make theirs with only chicken and cheese. I use Marketfresh (WalMart) corn and black bean salsa that you get in the produce section.

Typically when I find bone-in chicken breast on sale, I boil it and then shred it. I can usually get 3 or 4 meals out of a large pack of 4 chicken breast. I shred the chicken and divide the chicken up into 2 cup 'servings'. The last time I did this I used one serving for chicken noodle soup and then froze two more two-cup servings. I use those for soups/chili, spaghetti, tacos and of course nachos! And don't forget the broth! Yum! After you shred your chicken throw the bones back in with some onion, garlic, carrots, celery (whatever you have on hand) and boil for another hour or so. YUMMY broth!

Oh and if you just happen to have any extra left in the pan.. this is what you do while the rest is baking..



YUM!

I'm linking up to What's Cooking Wednesday!

And Raising Homemakers, Homemaking Link-Up!

Tuesday Tip & Review

Of course just planning out your meals is the BIGGEST tip I could ever give but here is a tip that will help save a little money. Pick one ingredient from a favorite meal and use it several times. This won't always work but it does pretty often for me. For instance, this week I wanted to try Parmesan Chicken Subs. They turned out great but did take me about 40-45 minutes to prepare & cook. I used chicken tenderloins, which did help on the cook time of the chicken but I still couldn't get it done in the 25 minutes they said! Anyways, this chicken sub calls for spinach. And since you can buy spinach pretty reasonably (a little over 3 $) in large bags, I thought I'd just find another recipe that uses spinach. So, tonight we'll be having Turkey Sausage and Spinach Pasta, which calls for quite a bit of spinach. Then we will be having ham and veggie omelets later and I'm planning on saving a handful or two to throw into our omelets. Instead of the pasta and egg dishes I could have planned a spinach pizza or spinach lasagna rolls. I love spinach salads too but the Hubs prefers it cooked! It's healthy and can be put into many dishes.

From that same chicken sub meal, I also used about 1/2 cup marinara sauce. So, what do I do with the rest? Make spaghetti! The pizza & lasagna rolls would work here too! You can also freeze jarred marinara/pizza sauce. I can't tell you how many times I've made a pizza and only used a little sauce, only to put it in the fridge and then have to throw it out later! Just make it a habit to pour it into a freezer bag in 1/2 cup increments!

Edited to add- While making the Turkey Sausage Pasta last night, I was reminded that I'm also using the turkey sausage in 2 meals this week! We'll be having turkey sausage in our spaghetti, too! The 16 oz of turkey sausage was $2.88, I believe, not too bad to get two meals out of it! I browned it all with garlic and halved it. Then, I froze the one half to throw into the spaghetti sauce this weekend!

By putting a little thought into your meals, you can save a little. And a little here and there adds up!