That Wasn’t So Bad, Now Was It?

I’ve mentioned before that the three of us are taking part in a challenge of sorts to change the way we do one thing in our daily lives to save money and improve our lives.  In reality what we’re doing is making a monthly change to simplify our lives, lessen our dependence on others and money, reduce our debt, and improve our home environment.

In January we committed to not buying anything new that could be purchased used.  I am happy to report that it worked wonderfully!  The new things that we purchased were gifts for the children of friends, a toilet seat for Cheeks (ew), a sweater for Cheeks’ 18 month (!) photos, and a few glass bottles (3 + one used that was free) for some of the concoctions I’ve been brewing up (more on this later!).  That’s it.  We’ve been so happy with this that we’ve decided to keep it going.

But now we’re moving into February and it’s time for a new change.  I’ve started a list of possibilities so that as the months wear on we’ll be able to look at the list and choose one rather than try to come up with something at the 11th hour, and I’m surprised by how long the list is getting.  I thought that it would be hard to come up with changes for us…because we’re cheap and unwilling to change.  So, I started a list just in case but now the problem is choosing one since they all seem so fun and easy (and like something different to break up the monotony of the longest shortest month of the year) and we want to do them all at once.

For February we’ve taken a long, hard look at our list and decided that this is the month we’re going to work to replace our household cleaners with those that I can make at home.  Last month we had a little foresight and purchased a very large bag of baking soda and a very large bottle of vinegar to facilitate our change.  Now we just need to get a couple of recipes together, do some mixing and bottling, and we’ll be ready to start cleaning.

I got a fantastic book for Christmas last year (this year? how does that work?) in which there is an entire chapter dedicated to simple homemade cleaners and I plan to use the crap out of it.  In fact, it’s only the first of February but the pages are already starting to look like I’ve had the thing for years just from my reading it over and over.  Cody, I suppose, will be a little less involved in this month’s challenge than he was in January, but he doesn’t seem to mind so much (that is until I remind him about the bonus).

So, there you have it!  For February we’re making friends with the baking soda and vinegar.  Wish us luck.

(Bonus!  You might recall from elementary school that baking soda + vinegar = one awesome volcanic explosion!)

UPDATE:  I’ve been informed that this post is boring and that I should post some of the things that I make (because toilet bowl scrub is so exciting), which of course I plan to do but first I have to make those things.  Duh.  So, as the month grinds on (as February does) I’ll be letting you all know just what I’ve made and how I like it or don’t.  Fair?  I think so.  Awesome?  Probably not.