Over the past few years, I have tried new ways to save money, be more healthy (reducing chemical products), and help the environment where I can. A while back, I shared about my love of using coconut, baking soda, and vinegar, all of which I still use. Since then, I've added a few things around the house that I share with people as often as I can and have been wanting to add here. I will start with tips around the kitchen.
Dish Detergent: For the dishwasher, it is very easy to make your own mix. I use 1 cup Borax, 1 cup washing soda, 1/2 cup kosher salt, and (believe it or not) 5 packets of Kool-Aid lemonade mix .When I first started doing this, I bought citric acid (found with the canning supplies) as suggested by one site. It worked just fine but that was the most expensive ingredient and had other chemicals with it. I read another site that suggested the lemonade mix (which has citric acid in it) and its been great! I can deal with $1 for all the packets and seemed less "potent" compared to the other stuff I was buying. I also started adding 1 cup of dry detergent with it, which just makes it all last a bit longer and adds a little "umph." I need to make this mix once every 3 weeks or so and the Borax and washing soda is also used to make my laundry detergent (post coming soon). I re-purpose a used coffee can to add it all together, shake it up to mix, then just pour into the detergent tray.
Oven Cleaning: Recently we decided it was finally time to clean our oven, yuck. That thing was GROSS. I knew there had to be a better way than that nasty chemical stuff you poison the house with and we don't have a fancy self-cleaning oven. Once again, baking soda and vinegar to the rescue! Make a paste with baking soda and water and, using rubber gloves, spread it all over the inside of the oven. If your oven is like mine (was), it will all turn a nasty brown color as it is soaking up all that grime. Let it sit over night or at least a long extended period of time. Use a spray bottle of white vinegar (we always have a bottle mixed with water ready to go for various uses) to spray down the oven. This will loosen up the now caked-on baking soda and will mix with it to do its foaming magic. Use a sponge, cloth, old toothbrush, or whatever you'd like to use to scrub and wipe it all away. We had to repeat this a few times and the oven isn't perfect but looks so much better...and no nasty chemicals to do it.
Trash Cans: People are usually surprised when we tell them we don't use trash can liners. One trick we've learned, to avoid extra messy trash cans, is using an old coffee can and/or used bag (bread bags, produce bags, etc) to collect grimy stuff like used coffee filters, banana peels, vegetable peelings, and sticky stuff. We throw out the gross stuff about every other day and the actual trash can probably once a week or so. Once in a while, maybe every 3 weeks at most, we need to wash and rinse out the trash can. To me, this process is well worth not using plastic to fill up our landfills more than they already are.
Fresh veggies: I used to think that buying fresh fruits and vegetables was more expensive and that frozen and canned was the way to go. However, especially the more I cook fresh meals, the more I realize that fresh is actually very inexpensive. For lunches, I buy bulk carrots and broccoli heads (I'm lucky that my son loves broccoli!) and just fix them up for a yummy veggie baggie. Peeling and cutting fresh carrots takes a bit of time of course but they actually taste way better than the slimy baby carrots that come in bags. Currently, we are also on a potato kick. Buying a big bag of potatoes is just a few bucks and I use them for homemade fries, baked potatoes, and breakfast potatoes. We also always have fresh spinach available. A bulk of spinach costs about $1, versus the container of prepared spinach for at least three times that! Again, it takes a bit of prep work to cut the stems, wash and dry them but totally worth the savings.
Buying Bulk: If your grocery store doesn't sell in bulk bins, find one that does quick! Around here, WinCo is fantastic and Fred Meyer (a Kroger brand) also has an aisle. At WinCo, I buy bulk oatmeal, pasta, flour, sugar, baking soda, granola, chocolate chips...you name it. Some of these will save you money buy going bulk and others are about the same as in the aisle but then you're not using extra packaging (you can reuse the bags for the trash as described above!). And a bonus to buying bulk is that you only need to buy what you actually need. Sometimes a recipe calls for an ingredient that you will only use once, or at least once before it goes bad. Bring your measuring cup and buy exactly what is needed! This is especially wonderful for spices...
Spices: How many times have you bought that big jar of a spice for $5, only to use it once? I remember buying a jar of bay leaves and I think I used one or two. Now, I can buy what I need from the bulk bin and literally spend pennies! I have a set of airtight containers that my sister-in-law gave to me after getting a new set and I now use them for a collection of bulk spices I've picked up here and there and my garlic. I have other ones for my baking soda and brown sugar (both bought in bulk).
Tupperware and Ziploc: While I do use Tupperware containers for leftovers and lunches, I also re-purpose used cottage cheese, butter, Cool Whip, etc containers for this purpose. They work great! Usually I will pack my lunch with these and then not feel guilty if I just recycle them at work, less mess to bring back home. If I can, I will use them more often but I tend to collect so many of these I don't need to! I also wash and re-use Ziploc bags as often as possible. I feel better about spending a bit more on the brand name and re-use them rather than buying cheap and needing to throw them away after one use.
Used Coffee Cans: I've described various ways of re-purposing coffee cans above. We drink a lot of coffee so I try to re-use these as often as I can! A few other things I use them for are: bulk flour and sugar, Goldfish crackers (we bought a big stock of them at Costco), and laundry detergent (post coming soon). You could also use them for planting flowers and herbs but I haven't tried that yet.
Glass Jars: We have stocked up our drink-ware cupboard with re-purposed glass jars. It is amazing how many you can collect! Ours have mainly come from pasta sauce and jelly jars. Simply soak your jar in hot water to loosen the glue on the label, peel it off, wash, then re-use! As a bonus, when we had a big storm approaching and expected to lose power, we filled up a bunch of these with tap water and topped them with the lids we saved. While everyone else was rushing to stock up on bottled water, we were ready with no money spent.
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