Many times when people talk about their grocery budgets, in a way to see if they can save some money, I often hear them say:

I include cleaning and paper products in my grocery budget as well. It just makes sense, if I buy the laundry detergent at the grocery store, not to itemize the receipts for my budget when I get home.

I can’t help but wonder though, are people spending too much on cleaning products? Those are such a small part of my spending that I don’t even notice them. The cost is so negligible, I never think to mention it.

So just in case, let’s talk about cleaning products and see if we can find some ways to save you money.

Laundry detergent

Our detergent comes with a scoop, but the instructions say to only use half of a scoop. Read the instructions for your laundry detergent and check the recommended amount. (You might even want to use a little less than that.) 

I have a baby and with our family of four, I do a load of laundry almost every week day. In addition to that we also use cloth diapers, but washing those requires only a minimal amount of detergent. One box of laundry detergent can last six months.

Dishwasher detergent

Here too, check the instructions to make sure you’re not using more than you should. One time when my husband turned on the dishwasher, I noticed he poured enough of the powdered detergent to fill up both detergent cups on the dishwasher door. He didn’t know that particular brand only required one tablespoon.

Fabric softener

I’m probably in the minority here, but I haven’t used fabric softener in years. When my clothes are clean I want them to smell like nothing. (My favorite scent is unscented, so I don’t like the scent that comes with fabric softener.)

I always thought you had to use it or your clothes would have static cling. Cotton clothes don’t require fabric softener to stay soft and static-free. It’s the synthetic clothes that build up static, so if your clothes are mostly cotton, try a load without it. Towels work much better to absorb water when they aren’t coated by fabric softener.

Laundry Stain Remover

This hasn’t been a problem since we switched to cloth diapers, but when we used disposables, I went through a lot of Stain Stick stain remover trying to treat diaper leak stains on baby clothes. I didn’t know that if you dry the clothes (and cloth diapers) in the sun, sunlight makes baby poo stains disappear! It’s amazing.

All-purpose cleaning sprays

In most cases, I try to clean with just water first, to see if that’s enough. Remember learning in high school that water is the universal solvent? Sometimes all it takes is a wipe with a damp rag. If that’s not enough, then I break out the cleaner. We’re using a concentrated bottle of Shaklee’s H2, and I think it’s going to be a couple of years before I need to buy more. (I also use it as a glass cleaner.)

Shower cleaner

Instead of using shower cleaning sprays, I bought a squeegee (like this one). Before we get out of the shower, we use the squeegee to wipe off the walls and the glass shower door. When the walls stay dry, you don’t get water spots, soap scum, or the chance for mold to grow. Our shower stays pretty nice all the time, and I only officially clean it once in a while.

Pledge

Don’t use Pledge. It’s a product that coats your furniture instead of cleaning it. Find out how you can remove the Pledge residue from your furniture and go back to dusting with a damp cloth.

Air freshener

Open the window. We could all use more fresh air.

Carpet freshener

Sprinkle baking soda over the carpet, sweep it in with a broom, and let it remain overnight to absorb odors. Vacuum it up the next day. This technique removes odor instead of covering it up.

Toilet cleaner, counter cleaner, floor cleaner, tile cleaner…

These are marketing gimmicks. You don’t need to have separate cleaning products for every part of your house.

Paper Towels

Try using cleaning rags instead of paper towels, but I’m sure you’ve heard this before. I have a small towel bar in the laundry room that I use to hang up wet rags to dry, so they don’t get moldy before I can wash them.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Cleaning Products: Are you spending more than needed?

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to come up with a reason to do nothing?

I’m a project person, and I can organize the simplest task into a big project that is much harder than it should be.

For example:

I can’t put the kids’ clean laundry away because their dresser is getting full and I was planning to sort through their clothes.

If I make chicken stock, then I can have soup for dinner. But since that soup requires egg yolks I should make those cookies that use the egg whites.

Before I put the groceries away I really should reorganize the pantry so it won’t be messy.

I can’t wash the white clothes because there is a washcloth with a stain that I was going to pretreat first and I haven’t done that yet.

I can’t dust because this time I was planning to dust the ceiling fan and I’ll have to get the ladder out of the laundry room and then I’ll have to move the vacuum out of the way and the ladder is hard to set up.

I can’t clean the toilet because then I’ll have to clean the other toilet.

I have a thank you letter I need to write but there are two more people I need to send a letter to also and it would be efficient to send them at the same time.

Instead of filing two papers I should wait until I have time to file the whole stack of papers.

It’s too hard to reply to that one email because my inbox is full of unanswered emails.

And my personal favorite…
I can’t wash the dishes because the sink is too full of dirty dishes.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
How to Make Things Harder and Do Nothing

I used to think mending clothes would take too long, so I’d rely on safety pins. The button fell off my pants? No problem, a safety pin will help me get dressed and out the door fast.

But the problem with safety pins is they’re a gateway. Eventually you need a safety pin but can’t find one, and then you’re looking to office supplies to get your fix.

Scotch tape holds up your pants hem, but only for an hour or so. Later people will look down and see your torn hem and long strips of tape sticking out around your ankles. (I know this first-hand.)

You’ll wonder if the stapler will work better and longer, and strategize how if you face the top of the staple to the inside of your clothes, then it won’t be so noticeable.

The binder clip can fasten your pants where the button used to be. Sit gently.

Then one day I decided to sit down and sew a button on. Properly, with a needle and thread.

It took me less than ten minutes!

A shirt I hadn’t been able to wear for five years took five minutes to fix!

Suddenly I was on a roll. Another pair of pants, fixed in ten minutes.

A small rip in a skirt, fixed in just a few.

Buttons were fastened back on, my clothes were better than ever, and I don’t think about safety pins much anymore.

Your Essential Sewing Supplies

A needle and thread fixes most issues, so don’t wait for the problem to get worse.

Start with thread in three basic colors: black, white, and beige will suit most clothes. Choose good-quality, all-purpose thread that doesn’t break easily.

Keep a button jar. Whenever your new garment comes with extra buttons, add them to the jar. Then you won’t have loose buttons in your drawers, medicine cabinets, and jewelry box.

You need some good little scissors.

One more tool is a handy seam ripper. Use it to take the tags off shirts if they stick up in the back. What you do is you poke the pointy end under the stitches so you can break the thread. Then you can pull the tag off without accidently cutting the fabric of the shirt.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
How I Broke a Safety Pin Addiction and Started Mending Clothes

We know to keep kitchen sinks and counters clean and dry to prevent ants, but Marcy Tate from Networx shares other natural ways to keep ants out of your home in this guest post.

The good news is that there are many simple, effortless and inexpensive ways to naturally control small ants in and around your home — and they actually work. In fact, the ingredients for natural ant control can be found right in your pantry. Keep in mind that if you have a major ant problem (or ants other than small brown ants), then chances are these natural tips won’t help the problem go away entirely. In that case, you may need to hire a professional pest control expert to handle it for you.

If you notice ants coming into your home and they are bothersome, try following some of these tricks:

Cinnamon Sticks & Garlic Cloves

Place cinnamon sticks or garlic in areas where you have seen ants enter, such as in window tracks, by doors and in corners around your home. While garlic cloves aren’t as aromatically pleasing as cinnamon sticks, they work really well. Just peel and slice a few cloves and place them where you notice the ants. Last year we had some unexplained ants that kept invading my daughter’s dresser so we placed the cloves on the dresser. After a day or two, we replaced them with fresh cloves and the ants never returned.

You can also place cinnamon sticks around the pantry for extra protection. Once, I ran out of cinnamon and used cloves instead – it worked just as well. I actually witnessed ants crawling away from the cloves.

Vinegar

Place white vinegar or apple cider vinegar in a spray bottle and spray on areas where you have seen ants. The fungicidal and insecticidal properties in the vinegar help prevent ants.

Black Pepper

Sprinkle black pepper where you see ants. The ants will immediately scatter. Pay attention to where they run; chances are they will be exiting your house and you’ll be able to treat the entry area with pepper too.

Boiling Water

For serious anthill problems in your yard or walkway, pour boiling water over the anthills. It sounds a bit cruel, but pesticides can be equally, if not more, cruel.

Mint

Mint destroys the smelling capabilities of ants and prevents them from entering your home. There are several ways to use mint to prevent ant infestations. First, plant mint around your home, especially near doors and close to areas where you have seen anthills. Second, place mint leaves in and around windows. If ants are entering your pantry, place some mint leaves on the shelves and in the corners.

Other Plants

Here is a list of some other plants which have been known to be effective at warding off ants. The idea is the stronger the smell, the more likely the plant is to keep the ants away:

• Basil
• Chili peppers
• Eucalyptus
• Garlic
• Lavender
• Peppermint
• Rosemary
• Thyme

Persistence is the key when trying natural ant control remedies. If one of these methods doesn’t work for you, then try another. You may need to repeat it a few times.

Marcy Tate is a blogger at Networx, the Home Improvement Network. She has been working with ant control experts for over a decade on ways to naturally control ants.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
5 Simple, Natural Ant Control Remedies

Photo by Fabio Bruna

I haven’t lived in a house since I left my parents’ home for college fifteen years ago. I’ve lived in a lot of apartments, and I’ve learned that you don’t need a mortgage to feel like you really have a home.

Apartments do tend to feel more temporary. You can’t do whatever you want to them. You have to put up with behemoth brass chandeliers and old kitchen cabinets. You’ve got space issues. You can’t always paint. You’re probably going to move soon.

Anyone moving into a new home, whether an apartment or a house, faces challenges: budget constraints, trying to get everything unpacked, and figuring out where things should go are tricky.

Apartment dwellers need to factor in time constraints and versatility too. If you’re going to move in a year, you don’t want it to take ten months to finally feel like you’ve settled down. You need your stuff to be versatile too, so that you don’t have to swap your stuff every time you move.

Here are a few tips to make your apartment feel like home and avoid that temporary feeling:

Oh wait, you did unpack first, right? That’s step one: unpack. If you must leave a few things in boxes, then stack them in a far corner behind a curtain or in a closet. Don’t leave boxes in the living room.

Put things on your walls, quick!

People tend to hang things on the walls last, after everything else has been put in place. Stuff hanging on the walls is the number one sign that someone lives there. I know you’ll want to wait to find just the right spot to hang something up, so you can avoid putting too many holes in the walls, but if you wait too long, you’ll move first. Spackle and touch-up paint are there if you need them.

Hang up an oversized painting, or group a collection of smaller things. I would rather hang small photos on a wall than leave them taking up space on a table top.

(I’m glad I didn’t follow the trend to paint all my picture frames the same matching color. I think the different warm tones add interest.)

Anything can go on the walls. If it’s pretty, hang it up; don’t let it take up your limited storage space.

Choose furniture that is comfortable, not space-saving.

I know that sounds obvious to say “choose comfortable furniture,” but so often people who live in apartments choose furniture by price or by size. It’s no use having a tiny dining table that is so small you can’t scoot your chair up because you’ll hit your knees. (Oh yes, trading that tiny table for a regular-size farmhouse table was first on my list.)

If you live in a small apartment, you don’t have to have tiny furniture. Choose comfortable furniture pieces, but fewer of them. For example, you might have a nice couch to take naps on, but forgo the coffee table. Add a soft quilt.

Do keep size in mind, not just for your current place but for future homes as well. A king-size canopy bed just won’t work. An upright dresser or small armoire is more versatile than a low, wide dresser that requires an entire wall. Couches with narrow armrests give more seating than couches with large rolled armrests.

When you’re choosing fewer pieces of furniture, you can afford to spend a little more to get the right one, and you’ll be able to take it with you when you move.

Avoid the Container Store “Back to School” August sales.

Look, we all love storage, but plastic storage containers are a slippery slope. Small apartments risk looking like dorm rooms when they have too many small plastic storage bins and organizers. Not everything needs to be “contained.”

Use bins if you need them (do what you’ve gotta do), but also look for more natural materials that bring texture and a sense of age to your home. Try baskets, linen bags, or wood crates. Shelves are easier to retrieve items from than stacked bins with lids.

Add green living plants.

Most people feel more like plant killers than green-thumb gardeners, but plants bring life to your home. Herbs in a pot or violets in a windowsill make your home feel lived-in.

It’s okay if your potted plants don’t live forever. You can use this gardening tip I learned from my mother: when your plant dies, you can get another one. A few dollars for a plant that lives a few months sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Love your decorative stuff, in all seasons.

Your decorative things should be your favorite things, not seasonal or trendy items. It’s frequent advice for house-owners to “shop the house,” rotate items, and change things out for something new, but I don’t have closet space to store decorative items I’m not using. That’s where my clothes go.

In an apartment, I’d rather use extra space for a kitchen pantry than for seasonal decorations (though I do own a box of Christmas decorations.) It’s so helpful when your things are attractive and useful. White cake pedestals, vases, and wooden bowls serve as a good backdrop for any season.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
How to Decorate Your Apartment to Feel Less Temporary and More Like Home

Cleaning seems easy enough. How hard can it be to push the vacuum around? But developing a system that works for you to keep your home clean on a regular basis takes time and insight.

These are the ideas that completely changed my approach to cleaning, so that I could spend less time doing it with better results. I’ve come a long way from the teenager who had piles of clothes everywhere and couldn’t keep her room cleaned up.

Cleaning and picking up are separate jobs.

I spend about two hours a week focused on cleaning our home, but almost everything is picked up before I start. If I were to start with picking up, I would spend all my time on that and never get around to the cleaning!

Picking up toys, dishes, books, and socks is a daily habit and a family activity, because there is no possible way that I could do it all by myself. If the house looks messy, we declare “clean up time!” and for the next five minutes everyone runs around putting stuff away. We don’t just put away our own stuff, we all help to pick up after each other.

The cleaning goes much faster if things are put away and you don’t have to clean around them.

Plan a routine.

Some jobs need to be done daily, some weekly, and some are monthly or seasonal. You don’t need to clean your whole house top to bottom every time to feel like you’ve done a complete job.

Knowing your daily jobs can help you focus on the basics during times of stress. But which ones are those? It depends on your home and your family life. It might be keeping the kitchen sink clear, sweeping the floor, making the bed, and wiping the table.

Frequent is better.

Ten minutes of vacuuming once a week is more helpful than forty minutes of vacuuming once a month.

If you clean more often, it’s not so overwhelming, and it’s easier to keep things clean as you go. Your bathroom sink might just need a quick wipe instead of an all-out scrub.

Work for significant improvement.

If a mirror only has a couple of spots on it, do you spray and wipe the entire mirror, or do you just clean the dirty spots? Some people like to do the whole thing so that it feels clean to them. Or maybe someone helped you wash the dishes, but you kind of want to do it yourself so you will know they really are clean. That’s fine if you want to spend all your time cleaning everything by yourself.

Save time by just cleaning the dirty stuff. Then marvel at how much better things look.

It’s about taking care of people, not taking care of stuff.

But you already knew that.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
My Top Five Cleaning “Ah-Ha” Moments

In light of changes going on in the lives around us — births, deaths, moves, illness, big plans — focusing on little things such as keeping the house picked up or going to bed on time seems rather…

(minor).

But the small things that go unheralded are a huge part of our support systems.

We don’t clean our homes just so they can be clean.

We’re not taking care of stuff, we’re taking care of people.

We’re meeting our family’s needs in a practical way, like giving someone we love a clean toilet to throw up in.

Or making food to fill tummies.

Or telling someone you’ll pray for them, and then really doing it.

We’re taking care of ourselves too, because life is better when the dishes are clean and the folded laundry is put away.

So the next time it seems like you’re picking something up for the hundredth time or why bother doing the dishes because they’re just going to get dirty again, know your job matters. It’s about more than just the stuff.

In fact, it was never about the stuff in the first place.

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Changing Lives One Laundry Load at a Time

A mantelpiece is grand over a fireplace, but it just so happens to also be the perfect fit behind a queen-sized bed.

Let’s pull back the covers and I’ll show you how we turned this mantel into a headboard.

We found the mantel on Craigslist. It was originally in an old house in the nicer part of town, and the owners were renovating. The mantel was already painted white.

The gaping hole where the fireplace would be is covered with a piece of plywood, which is padded with two layers of felt and topped with linen. We wrapped the fabric around to the back of the plywood and stapled it with a staple gun.

Once the fabric was in place, we mounted the plywood to the mantel on the back using 3 L brackets on both sides and 4 along the top. The plywood only goes down as far as a couple of inches below the top of the mattress (the part that you see), not all the way to the floor.

Since we live in an apartment, we didn’t want to do any heavy installing to permanently mount it to the wall. It’s mostly held in place by the mattress and box spring, and a lone L bracket attaches the top of the mantel to a stud in the wall, to prevent it from tipping.

It’s a big space-spacer for our bedroom, since we don’t need bedside tables. We just set our drinks and books on top of the mantel.

The bed sits on a $40 metal frame.

The silver serving trays were inherited from Doug’s granny. They still have her name written on stickers on the back from times she took them to church suppers. They are hung on the wall with big plate hangers. If it’s pretty, then we want to display it. We wouldn’t want to buy wall decorations while something pretty stays stored in the closet.

Looking for more DIY headboard ideas?

Wallpaper headboard from Blueprint

French Inspired Fabric Covered Headboard from Centsational Girl

Door headboard from Martha Stewart

Grace’s upholstered otomi headboard from Design*Sponge

Lydia’s embroidered headboard from Design*Sponge

Burlap headboard with nailhead trim from Imperfect

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
The Grand Mantelpiece Headboard

In our two-bedroom apartment, Lane (age 3) and Tom (5 months) share a bedroom. We call it the nursery.

If it looks big in the photos, it’s because we kept the furniture to a small scale to save space. (For example, Lane has a toddler bed instead of a twin.) We wanted to maximize the open floor space so there could be plenty of room to play.

Our home is grounded in shades of brown — wood, leather, baskets, and linen — and the nursery has its share of brown too. We balanced it with white curtains and bedding to emphasize the light that pours in the southern window. The kids’ toys and accessories provide the bright colors without being too much.

Colorful outfits on wooden hangers announce who lives in this room.

In the center is an iron mantle I found at an antique junk shop. It had an amazing patina, but rusty bare iron isn’t well-suited for a nursery, so we had to paint it. I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

If you’re counting, I have three mantels, but no real fireplace. (The others are the one in the living room and the one we use as a headboard in the bedroom.)

In one corner is the play kitchen, and it’s set apart from the rest of the room by a heavy brown sewing cabinet I bought at a flea market 10 years ago.

Over the years the sewing cabinet has been storage, a diaper changing table, and most recently, a hiding place. A couple of years ago we put a light, a bench, and a secret shelf inside.

The dresser is a Craigslist find. The kids’ clothes fit in the dresser, which makes their closet available for general household storage (the back room).

We turned vinyl rain gutters into book shelves. They can be cut to any length, and these are mounted on the wall behind the door. It’s an efficient way to use space that would otherwise be empty.

Details

The simple chandelier is a single lamp cord with 11 small glass balls from CB2 suspended around it. I made it in 20 minutes, and the instructions are here. Total cost: $30.

We made the bed canopy by hanging a pair of sheer curtains from IKEA on a big embroidery hoop. I wasn’t sure if it would last, but we hung it up about a year ago and it still looks nice. Total cost: $8.

There’s no fancy toy storage here. The shelves are just two boards and a couple of brackets. The baskets are from IKEA.

Lane uses the top shelves and Tom gets the bottom shelf.

We keep only half of the toys available at a time, and the rest of the toys go in a storage box in the back room. It would be better if this box wasn’t see-through.

The dollhouse is the first thing kids are drawn to when they come over to play. Doug built it for Lane from a kit. The furniture is from my vintage Little People dollhouse.

The magnetic boards are great for a child’s room or a homeschool classroom. They are found at IKEA also.

Under the crib makes a nice reading spot. We pile a bunch of pillows and blankets under there to make a nest.

The much-loved cardboard robot was shared here.

~ The End ~

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Lane & Tom’s Shared Nursery Tour

Note: This is not a sponsored review. I paid for this product with my own money, liked it, and thought you would too.

Why I like it:

• It’s super-concentrated, so it lasts a long time and doesn’t waste packaging. It makes 48 gallons of general purpose cleaner. According to the website, one 16 oz. bottle is the cleaning equivalent of 5,824 bottles of 26 oz. Windex!
• It’s fragrance-free. The concentrate has a faint scent, but I don’t notice it at all when I spray the diluted cleaner.
• It works. No more ring around the tub, and you don’t have to rinse either.
• It’s safe. This means I can put the baby in the bouncer seat next to me when I’m cleaning the bathroom, instead of leaving him by himself in another room.

It’s easy to mix up the concentrate with water into three spray bottles for different cleaning strength: glass, general purpose, and degreaser. Doug always reaches for the degreaser, because he thinks degreaser is manly.

I also like the bottle it comes in. My bottle fell behind the washing machine, stayed there upside down for a week, and it didn’t leak at all.

I use microfiber cloths with it, and a cost-effective place to find those is the automotive section at Wal-Mart, where they come in a package of 8 for $5. You’ll never use paper towels to clean a mirror again once you switch to using those.

But what about natural cleaning agents such as vinegar?

I do like using vinegar and baking soda to clean. For cleaning glass and mirrors I can use about 1/4 cup of vinegar to 2 cups water. But for tougher cleaning jobs, you often need to use a lot more for it to be effective. I don’t have a wholesale club membership to buy in bulk, and you’ve seen my back room — where would I put it?

A 16 oz bottle of Basic H2 concentrate is about $12, plus tax and shipping. You only need 2 drops of concentrate for a spray bottle of glass cleaner, or 1/4 teaspoon for general cleaning. You can mix up a 16 oz spray bottle of Basic H2 glass cleaner for about a penny.

Shaklee is sold through independent distributors, and I bought mine from Becky Rapinchuk. You can buy Basic H2 through her Shaklee website. She also blogs at Clean Mama.

Have you tried it? What cleaners do you use?

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© 2008-2010 SmallNotebook.org (all rights reserved)
Get Clean with Shaklee Basic H2 – A Review