one cheap beotch

I have expensive tastes.

We have one income.

And my husband isn't a professional athlete.

End result is that in becoming a one income family my previously not interested self had to learn to adjust my financial thinking.  I like to buy things, but I do like my bills paid too.

I know, I am just so silly!

So one day a while back, whilst spending an unreasonable amount of time on Pintercrack, I saw something about homemade glass cleaner.  Wait, hold up, homemade?

While it sounded dangerously close to "cooking," something that makes me a tad wary even on my "good" days, I clicked and read about it.  Turns out its not so much cooking or making as it is "pouring" ... I can pour.  Just pretend the ammonia is grenadine, the alcohol is drinkable ... just remember to mix it in a spray bottle and not mommy's special glass.

I sooo have this covered.

So the combination of this info with the lack of funds, or rather my lack of wanting to spend our limited funds on stupid shit like cleaning products, led me to become a frugal-home-making-stuff-maker.  Okay, that title totally bombed.  Trying again -- I am one cheap bitch now!

Furiously googling homemade cleaning recipes I came across two I could do immediately because I happened to (shockingly enough) have the stuff on hand.  Yay me, I get points for that, right? I also found Fake-It Frugal and HomemadeMamas and I so heart them both.

So here are my Ghetto Drier Sheets:

Here is the tutorial I followed.  Well, that I sorta followed.  See they had cute flannel scraps on hand.  Me no havie.  They suggested cutting up an old shirt, but I be awful lazy and cutting sounded like it resembled work.  I also knew that I do not have "pinking shears" (I felt totally proud I even knew what they were) and if I cut anything it would fray and drive me bonkers.  So I need to find something I had, that was little to no work, and would hold up to repeated washing and drying.

Washcloths.  I have a million of them.

I only used blue ones, and older ones that were a bit on the thin side.  I also had the container from my classroom days, made a label because I am OCD like that, then poured some fabric softener (ala dollar store) into the container with hot water.

Totally Awesome! Am I the only one who reads
this label in Wayne and Garth's voice?

It does nothing for static, but it works and it uber cheapo since the only thing I had to "buy" for it was tooootally awesome fabric softener (see pic, it even says its totally awesome!) and that bottle cost me a buck for 64 ounces.  Score.

I can also use this same fabric softener to make me some Downy Wrinkle Release -- Mommy's solution to never ironing.  But that stuff ain't cheap, so making it ... oh heart be still!  Either way, I can not iron while not having my mom notice the wrinkly clothes my family is sporting.  Win win I say!

I have other homemade recipes that I have been trying since, and I will share my successes (and failures, bound to happen) as they come along.  Basic requirements for me to want to make a faux recipe are as follows:

1.) I use the "real" item enough for it to be fiscally worth my time.
2.) It has to be easy -- time is money and I am an expensive hooker.
3.) It has to be cheap while having decent results.

If I can say yes to all three, its a keeper.  I love love love my Ghetto Wrinkle Releaser, and I like my Drier Sheets so they are keepers.