Whats For Dinner 1/31 - 2/5

Tuesday - Shrimp, Pasta and Salad

Wednesday - Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese

Thursday - Chicken w/ Mushroom Sauce, Green beans

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Tostadas

Sunday - Waffles and Sausage

Powdered Laundry Soap

 This post is for Diary of A School Nurse who has asked me if I had a recipe for homemade laundry soap :) I have posted here about my semi homemade laundry soap .  I have recently tried out another new recipe for the powdered version.  So far I like it and it works well.  It also uses the same ingredients that I use if I make the liquid/gel version.  I thought I would share the recipe.  Also you can now find all the items to make this in the laundry isle of my Walmart.  Although I am still unsure if that is the cheapest place to get the Washing Soda or not.  I need to check into that!

1 box - Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
1 box - Borax
4 bars - Fels Naptha
4 cups - Oxyclean type product.  I use the Sun version of this.

I cut the Fels Napth bars into chunks and then run them threw my food processor.  I then mix all these items together in a big plastic laundry soap box I saved from forever ago.  When I make the liquid/gel version of laundry soap this is what I make it into and store it in also.  I then put some of the powdered version in a glass jar on my dryer.  I have a old tablespoon scoop I use in the jar.  Many people say you can use 1 TBSP per load but I usually use 2.  I don't know why but that just seem to work for me :)

I have also been asked about my dryer sheets which I shared about here.  I am on my third round of using this idea and they seem to work great.  The last old napkin I soaked in a fabric softener sample I had received in the mail.  So this batch of "dryer sheets" were actually free :)

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Made a menu and ate at home.

2. Went grocery shopping with a plan and paid cash

3. Cooked my meals from scratch and used my crock pot on busy days

4. Had a few stay at home days ( which is easy to do when it is cold outside)

5. Made a big batch of laundry soap.  Hopefully it will last me a while :)

Whats for Dinner 1/23 - 1/29

I haven't been doing well the last few weeks with menu planning!  This week I decided to get back into the swing of things.  Here is what we will be eating this week

Monday - Spaghetti and Salad

Tuesday- Taco Joe's, French fries and cut up Veggies

Wednesday - Chili and Corn Bread

Thursday - Crock pot Ravioli

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - ????

Sunday - Coffee Cake.......fend for yourself day :)

Today........

My sister and brother in law who are adopting through the foster care system, are meeting their new son!  I am so so excited for them!  They have waited a very long long time for this and will be the best parents! Hopefully, in just a few short weeks they will be bring him home for good.

Hope you all are having a great day.  I am off to my house cleaning job :)

5 Thing I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Did laundry in cold water using homemade laundry soap

2.  Hung back up a few items of clothing that had only been worn for a couple of hours.

3. Had some stay at home days.  Of course we had some snowy weather so that helped

4. Worked on a few projects and used up some items I already had

5.  Paid cash for any purchases made this week

A Couple of Gifts I Made For Christmas

I saw these family trees on Sutton Grace.  I really enjoy this blog and knew eventually I would like to make some of these trees.  This year for Christmas presents I made 3.  One for my Mom, Grandma and Parent in laws.  I did mine little differently and had Kid # 3 help me print out 4 sections that I then taped together to trace my tree, so that I then didn't have the expense of going to a copy shop.  I also just did immediate family members for each tree.  For my Moms, I did each of my sisters and their families and my step brother.  My Grandma's I included, my mom and our whole family and each of her sisters and their families.  The same with my Parent in laws, my family, my sister in laws family and brother in laws families.  I included extra leaves so as each of the families grow new members can be added.  I also tried to match colors that I new each recipient would like.

Here they are!

I used coupons at Hobby Lobby and bought all the items over  time to get the best price on everything.  Total for each tree was less then $18.00.  Everyone loved them!  Someday when my family is bigger I plan to make one for myself :)

Whats for Dinner??

Well if you came here looking for my menu plan............there is none :(  I am in a rut and have been just winging it.  I have 3 meals planned for sure this week and then I don't know.......

Enchiladas
Pizza
Pizza soup

We may get stuck eating soup for the rest of the week.  Who knows lol!!!


On another note I last week was my first week or Weight Watchers.  As of today I have lost 3.3 lbs.  My goal is to loose about 20 lbs. I think that was pretty well for the first week.  Hopefully this week goes as good!

5 Things I Did That Were Frugal This Week

1. Ate at home

2. Had some stay at home days

3. Put all extra money towards credit card debit and paid it off!!!

4. made my own washable swifter duster instead of buying some

5.did the banking and made a budget for our money

We did it!!!

Today I paid off all our personal expenses on our credit cards! WOOHOO!!  What a great way to start off the new year!  My husband does still have a small amount in business related expenses but those should be paid off by the end of this month also.  I then will make sure to keep a much better handle on those charges. 

Goal #1 for 2012 - DONE!!  Now on to the car payment :)

12 Things for 2012

I have thought long and hard in the last month about what I would like to accomplish in 2012.  My two main goals for the year are to pay off our credit card debit for good and our car payment.  Those two things would put us debt free except our house.  But there are also other things I that I know I would like to accomplish this years also.  So here is my list.  Most of it is money related.  The last two items are personal but could also help cut expenses.  I plan to write some posts elaborating more on each goal at a later time and as I figure out how to best accomplish them.  Last year I had many more family/personal goals then I do this year but I found I had a hard time keeping up with some of them.  I also found that several of them are just things that I am always going to do so they are now more habit and don't need to be a goal anymore.  So this year I tried to keep my list more manageable and simple.


1. Credit Card - Done as of 1/6/12 :)

2. Car payment

3. Kid # 1's Wedding

4.  Kid # 2's Graduation Party

5. Main Floor Bathroom

6. Downstairs Shower

7. Kitchen Floor

8. 6 month Car Insurance

9. $500 School Fund

10. $500 Dog Fund

11. De clutter

12. Weight Watchers