Removing Hard Water from Plastic Dishes

I had to share this even if it doesn't save me money.  I recently ran out of my favorite dishwasher detergent, Lemi Shine.  Typically, I use Cascade as my pre-wash and Lemi Shine as my main wash.  Well I just used Cascade for both and this was the result:



 

HARD WATER!!!  Believe it or not that was clean!!  It looked worse than when I stuck it in there.  I can't blame Cascade, but it just doesn't cut threw hard water like Lemi Shine.  So I finally got some more...



And here's the same colander after ONE wash:

Some products are worth the price!!  Thanks LEMI SHINE!!

Money Forecast Calendar

While most people know how much they need to make to cover their monthly bills, for me, it is not that easy.  Maybe my brain just does not work that way or maybe our debt and income fluctuates too much.  Either way, my mother came up with a brilliant, yet so simple way to "forecast" how much money you will have (or in my case, NOT have...haha) on any given day.  All you need is a spreadsheet program, like Excel, and you can make up your own little "Money Forecast Calendar."

	CHECKING
	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
	23	24	25	26	27	28	29
			Car 150.00	Fuel 30.00
			($150.00)	($30.00)
	$1,000.00	$1,000.00	$850.00	$820.00	$820.00	$820.00	$820.00
	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
	30	31	1	2	3	4	5
		Phone 25.00    Ins 100.00	Rent 550.00	CC 100.00		Tran 400.00
		($125.00)	($550.00)	($100.00)		$400.00
	$820.00	$695.00	$145.00	$45.00	$45.00	$445.00	$445.00

So this is a little example of what my mom created, and I love using it!!  If you look at the numbers I plugged in, you can see that after paying $100 for my credit card, I will have $45 until I get paid on Friday and make a transfer of $400.  It is such a simple formula, but it can give you a look into the future to see where more money can be saved or spent.  It has really helped me know much money I have to save for my upcoming bills and if I can afford that $10 trip to Dairy Queen.  As for the yellow highlighting, that just helps me see what my current balance should be.

THANKS MOM!!

My son's piggy bank

My money saving habits are slowly rubbing off on my son.  When he does his chores, I usually give him at least a nickel, sometimes a quarter, and he puts it in his piggy bank.  Some days he will look for ways to earn money.  The funny part is if you ask him what he is saving his money for, he will tell you, "A truck."  And he's not talking about a toy truck.  He's only four, but he's so smart.  Maybe it is about time to teach him about the concept of money, because he has no idea how many quarters he will need to buy a truck.

Coupon Binder

Finally!!  I got my coupon binder all put together.  Started with a mess of coupons...

Sorted them by categories and got them all divided up



And finally all put together, nice and neat



So excited to try it out!! Can't wait!!

Ink Stain Removal

On Tuesday, my husband washed his uniforms for work, 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants.  While they were tumbling in the dryer, he heard a strange noise.  Upon opening the dryer, he found that he had left a pen in his pocket, which had EXPLODED all over his uniforms and the inside of the dryer.  Luckily his clothes were not 100% dry, but there were ink spots all over.  When he asks me if I know how to get ink stains out, of course my first response is, "Google it!" 

I typed in "ink stain removal" and started to look at all the results.  Most of them said to try rubbing alcohol.  So I started with that (in a hidden area, of course) and not only did it make the color fade, it was useless!!  Then I tried nail polish remover, which worked, but it took forever!  Maybe if I was dealing with just one ink spot, I would have stuck with it.  But these clothes were SPLATTERED with ink!!

I told my husband to call a dry cleaner to see if they could get the stain out and how much it would cost.  One store, just laughed at him.  Another told him they could not guarantee the stains would come out, but it would cost $10-$18 for three shirts.  Now if I wasn't trying to save every penny, I would have suggested we try the dry cleaner and if it does not work, then buy new uniforms, which cost $70 for one shirt.  We were looking at $240's worth of damage.  The pants were dark enough that you could not really see the stains.

Now let me go back for just a moment...When we pulled the uniforms from the dryer, I knew they needed to stay wet, so I stuck the one I was working on in a sink full of "OxiClean" and a little color-safe bleach.  Well in the middle of working on the ink stains, I took a break for lunch and left some stain remover on a couple spots to see what would happen.  After lunch, the stain remover had done nothing, but after rising the shirt off I realized there were much fewer stains on half of the shirt that had been soaking in the "OxiClean" and color-safe bleach.  After showing my husband, we decided to let all the shirts soak in a tub full of "OxiClean" and color-safe bleach.  Later that night, we checked the shirts and they were looking much better.  So we made a new batch and let them soak overnight.

The next morning, there were NO ink stains left.  I washed the uniforms again and they looked as good as NEW!!!  Thank God for "OxiClean" and color-safe bleach.  I wish I had taken pictures to show you the results.

Insurance

When is the last time you looked at your insurance coverage?  I know for me it was whenever I signed up for it.  How sad is that??  I pay every month and I have no idea what kind of coverage I have.  I think it is about time to do some comparison shopping.  I wish it was easier to know what I was paying for and what I actually needed.  I guess I have my work for the next week or so.  I let you know how much I save...

Happy 4th of July!!

Happy 4th of July everyone!!  Summer time fun and grilling, what a great combination.  Holidays like this one, don't have to be expensive.  Most people like to grill on the 4th and if you spend some time looking at grocery ads, you can find some good deals.  This week I found hot dogs for $.77 a pack and the hot dog buns where just $1.  Since they where in a pack of eight, that means each hot dog costs only $.22!!  Then 12 packs of soda where 4 for $8, that is $.17 a can!!  They even had 24 packs of water included in that deal.  I found a medium size watermelon for $1.77 and that was not per pound!!  So for under $20 I could feed up to 15 people.  Alcohol is where you will spend the most money.  So just tell everyone else to bring their own :-) 

For decorations, I like to scavenge around my house to see what I find.  I'll use a red, white, and blue beach towel for a table cloth. Tie some bandannas around some mason jars to hold utensils.  Hang some ribbon streamers from just about anywhere and you have some bursts of color.  As a little bonus for the kids, go to the $1 store and pick up some water balloons and glow sticks, for after dark fun.  I'm sure you will find a couple cheap decorations to add the finishing touches while you are there too.  Just get creative and try not to go crazy.  If creativity is not your thing, check out Pinterest, you are bound to find a million ideas there. Most of the people at your party want to be fed and to stay cool, they are not going to worry about the decor.

So have fun and stay safe!!

Grocery shopping

Groceries!!!  It is one of those chores that no one likes to do, go grocery shopping.  For us, a family of 3 and 1/2 (my daughter is learning to eat solids), we can easily spend $180 a WEEK on groceries.  This is somewhere I see a huge potenial for saving, but there are some habits I had to break first and some lessons to be learned. 

Extreme couponing is the latest thing.  I am amazed every time I hear examples of people getting $1000's for less than $100!!  Cudos to them, but who really has the room (or the need) for 50 boxes of tissues or 20 bottles of ketchup??  I know many extreme couponers say they keep what they want and donate the rest, and that is great.  What a great way to give back to a community.  Maybe someday I will get to that level of savings, for now, I will just borrow some of their techniques. 

I like the idea of having a binder for all your coupons.  If I can see things all laid out and organized for me, then I will remember I have the coupon to begin with.  I've only started couponing in the last month, and I still have a lot to learn.  But for those of you who think it is silly to waste time looking for and cutting coupons only to save $1 on three boxes of cereal, think about this...I can buy 3 ears of fresh corn for $1, so that $1 I just saved means my family will have corn with dinner tonight for FREE.  In a month, I have probably saved close to $10.  It is not much, but it is only the first month.

I also think everyone should have a price comparison notebook.  I took a spiral notebook, divided up catagories like dairy, fruits and veggies, and meat with page marker tape, and then wrote down some prices at the three stores I shop the most.  The hardest part is paying attention to the size of the item.  Boxes of cereal can come in three different sizes, so write down a price per ounce.  Once you have a decent comparison notebook going, then start paying attention to those grocery adds that come with all the junk mail.  Based on my grocery needs for the week, I'll shop where I think the best prices are for the things I need.  Maybe someday, I will actually shop at multiple locations.  Right now, I found trying to shop at different stores just made me forget things or when I thought I would get a better price at the other store, I didn't.  It was frustrating!

When it comes to groceries, look at WHAT you are buying.  I LOVE sweets!!  I crave something sweet after I finish a meal.  Take a close look at your grocery receipt and see how much is spent on just snack foods.  Or better yet, the next time you go to the grocery store, try to spend under $100 for a weeks worth of meals, and I'm not talking about mac'n'cheese dinners.  Buy what you need first, and if you have anything left, then spend it on snacks.  Granted I could save much more if I would give up soda, but it is an addiction I cannot break.  The last shopping trip we made, we didn't buy any snack foods, i.e. candy, but it actually forced me to get creative and bake something.  (Okay, so Rice Krispy Treats techincally don't require baking, but you get the idea)  Better yet, we are eating the food we have, making meals out of ingredients we have, and getting creative when we are missing an ingredient.

Lower your interest rates

The next monthly bills we looked at were our loans.  With interest rates so low, my husband and I looked at what we could get refinanced.  Our auto loan was at 7% interest, but recently we got it lowered to 3.9%.  Saved us $185 a month!!  However, we did extend our loan another 5 years.

We are currently trying to get our house refinanced, but it is proving a little harder.  There is a potenial $100 a month savings, we just have to work on lowing our debt to income ratio.

As for credit cards, well honestly I don't know where things are at with those.  A couple years ago, my huband and I transfered the balances on our higher rate cards to some lower rate ones.  Credit cards are a little harder to deal with than they used to be. It would be nice to call them up and ask for a lower rate, but I'm not sure they do that anymore.

Cable/internet/phone

The best place to start is by evaluating your bills.  A year or so ago, my husband and I sat down and looked at our monthly bills.  We decided that paying close to $100 a month for cable/internet/phone "bundle" was not something we could afford to do.  We both had cell phones, so we didn't NEED a home phone. 

Cable was hard to give up at first.  It wasn't that I missed all those channels, because a few months prior I had lowered our package to include only family channels.  My son loves cartoons.  The hard part was giving up my "TIVO" box.  I actually have to watch commercials again!!  I was surprised at how many channels I can get with just plain ol' rabbit ears.  PBS kids is, of course, my son's favorite.  I must confess, we did sign up for "Netflix".  Actually it started as a gift, and then we just kept it.  It comes in handy when we are out to dinner and my son gets bored.  He can watch a show on our phone.  Man I wish I had something like that when I was a kid!!

Internet, well that was something we decided we couldn't live without, at least for now.  We did change carriers and got our bill lowered for three months.  So with all the changes we made, we saved around $70 for three months.  Even after the three months, we are still saving $50 a month.  That is half a week's worth of groceries!! 

Saving every penny

When I was little, my dad would save all his pocket change.  He would count it, roll it, and when there was enough, he would divide it into two savings accounts that he had for me and my brother.  It may not sound like much, but by the time I was old enough to drive it was more than I needed.

Now that I am grown and have children of my own, I try to do the same for them.  But who uses cash anymore??  I will admit, this was very easy a couple of years ago when I worked at a casino.  Most of my tips were change.  In a year, I had saved almost $1000 in JUST change.  But now, I'm just a stay-at-home mom, and I'm looking to save every penny I can.

This is not an easy process for me.  While I do like to save, I do have my weaknesses, i.e. my kids.  Actually, scratch that, my family.  My husband can talk me into buying just about anything, even if I know we don't need it.  But who doesn't like that feeling of giving someone everything their heart desires??  My family is blessed.  We have more than we need and I believe that God will always provide, even when it doesn't seem like enough.  The goal here is to learn to live with less and I want to share with you some of the things I'm doing to save every penny.