Who Taught You How to Clean?

Photo by jbcurio

Growing up, I knew my mom cleaned a lot. I don’t think I helped much.

It wasn’t until when I later had an apartment of my own that I became more interested in cleaning.

I didn’t realize how many of my ideas about cleaning actually came from television commercials, especially the ones showing how dishwashing liquid can cut grease, bubbles can scrub the tub, lightweight sponge mops can glide across floors, and germs will get zapped.

While I watched my favorite cartoons and sit-coms, I learned:

• that you need a different spray bottle of cleaner for different parts of your home.
• that regular soap is bad.
• that everything needs to be sanitized.

Over the past few years I’ve found myself unlearning some of those cleaning habits that I picked up from watching TV. It occurred to me that the more a cleaning product needs to be advertised, the less I probably need it. I started asking questions:

How did people clean up spills before paper towels? Oh, a rag!

What did people use before dustbusters? Oh yeah, a dust pan!

Do bathroom cleaners need to be so harsh that the fumes make me choke? Last year we were talking about “Housekeeping Learned the Hard Way” here on Small Notebook, and Sandra commented, “Once the shower door closed behind me when I was scrubbing the shower walls.  I almost passed out from the Tilex fumes. Death by Tilex is not how I want to go.” Me too, Sandra.

Those cleaning commercials have been filed away in the memory of my youth, in the category “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time,” along with Lunchables and Little Debbies.

What’s left is the sound advice to make my bed, the helpfulness of routines (from my mom’s 1981 paperback copy of Sidetracked Home Executives), a healthy appreciation for baking soda, the strong urge to get rid of stuff, and my eternal love for a good makeover.

The Best Part of This Blog

Photo by jules:stonesoup

I have to tell you something. I am so grateful to each of you who stop by here to visit or who subscribe and read in your email or via RSS. But there’s something you should know.

The best stuff is in the comments at the end of each article.

If you’re only reading the post without clicking to see the comments, then you’re missing out.

I have such a good time getting to know you and hearing the funny, touching, inspiring, practical, helpful comments you share.

There is so much to relate to…

Melody and Kim shared about kids helping out with the cleaning.

Jenni shared the recipe for her family’s favorite comfort food.

Jessicah has talked about going back to work and trying to balance everything.

And lately I’ve been cracking up because Kait shared how her grandmother used to spray Windex in the air to make it smell like she had cleaned! (It fooled her Grandpa every time.)

And that’s just the beginning.

If you’ve never visited the Comments section, I’d like to invite you to come over and see it. Just click the link at the bottom of this post.

It’s really easy to share a comment if you would like to. And do you notice how when I leave a comment it has my picture next to it? You can do that too. To have a photo, all you need to do is get a gravatar and then come back here and try it.

Come by and say hi. See you in the Comments!

No Time to Clean? What to Do.

(click image to print)

For the days when you have too much to do, just take care of the essentials.

Three posts I really want you to read:

• Changing Lives One Laundry Load at a Time

• My Top 5 Cleaning “Ah-Ha” Moments

• How to Make Things Harder and Do Nothing

“How Low Can You Go?” and the Grocery Budget Dilemma

Have you ever wondered how much someone else spends on groceries to get an idea of how you’re doing with your grocery spending? No matter what amount she says, her family is different from yours, so then you have to do conversion math:

So that would be…

+ $100 per additional kid in your household

double if your kids are teenagers

- $38 if your kid only eats peanut butter

+ 50% for special diets

- 20% if you try to cook from scratch

- $15 if you save on household cleaners

+ $25 if you love Kettle chips

x 1.4 if you choose all-natural ingredients

+ 15% if your city has a higher cost of living

- 17% if you watch for sales

-$20 if you drink more water

then take the last digit of your phone number and place it at the beginning, and divide it all by 5.

When you finally get an answer to compare to yours, it might be higher or lower, but is that good or bad? Or does it even matter?

***

I used to be overly concerned about trying to make my grocery spending lower. I was caught in a game of grocery limbo: “How low can you go?” and while my motives were good (be a good steward of our money), the results were not what I desired.

I read several times about how food is a very flexible part of your budget. You don’t always have control over your other expenses, but you can save money on food. So I tried it, and it wasn’t working. I was spending less money on groceries, but every time we opened the fridge we felt disappointed. So you know what we did? We went out to eat more often.

Two years ago when I started to understand the extent of the food intolerances that run in our family, I had a hard time getting used to the idea of spending more for special food. The cost of yogurt was suddenly double. Muffins and loaves of bread, which are a cheap food for others, became an expensive special treat. I saved special foods for my little girl, but couldn’t eat them myself.

Time heals a lot, and I gradually became used to the higher cost of food. I also saw the effects and medical bills when someone in our family ate the wrong food, and not in the vague “you’ll regret this when you’re older” way, but later the same week. I’m fine with spending more money on food now. We have it, and I will spend less on other things. I know this is not an option for everyone, and I don’t take that lightly.

I still watch my spending, but I do it differently now.

1. Each month I look at how much I spent on groceries, but I don’t isolate that expense. I look at it as part of our complete budget, and I watch how much we’re spending on lunches and dining out too. (We definitely spend less on eating out now.)
2. I also watch the average amount that we’re spending on groceries during the year. If I spend more to stock up in some months, then I should be able to spend less during other months. This gives me a better idea of what to expect.

Even after hearing all of this, I think some people may still be curious to know what I spend, so I’ll tell you. I’m averaging $550 a month on groceries so far this year. There are four people in our family, and one is a baby. We’re gluten, dairy, soy, and corn-free, and that’s just the beginning of a long list of ingredients we must avoid. My husband can expense most of his lunches for work. I like to buy whole chickens that are already smoked, because dealing with raw chicken is just too medieval for me. We chose our apartment by looking at Whole Foods locations on a map and drawing a radius within a certain number of miles. How does this relate to your budget? I’ll let you do the math…