well no wonder!

The horn of the unicorn is comprised of
Skittles, fairy dust, and cardamom.

Previously in one of my dafuq moments I mentioned that I couldn't find cardamom and left several old people at the grocery store fully deaf and traumatized by exposing them to my impatient child whilst I tried to find it.

Well apparently it was my inner cheap bitch that was preventing the locating of said ground spice.

What, is that stuff like ground unicorn horn???  Holy smokes, I found a bottle of it for nearly $10!!!

I found it at our specialty foods store (the place I go to not have to visit the "freak" aisle with all the vegan stuff because the whole store is that way) so I am hoping that it was special cardamom.

Speshul.

And I am hoping beyond hope that there is some cheapo cardamom somewhere else.  I will continue looking, and hoping.  Otherwise, we be needing a new recipe for Pumpkin Juice!

debt is a four letter word

I pride myself on having a decently well rounded vocabulary.  My husband absolutely refuses to play word games with me, like Scrabble or Words With Friends, because he claims that merely using my brain is cheating.

I like words.  I use them often enough as I literally never shut up, even in my sleep I talk.

As a result, I find I wear words out if I don't adapt and utilize new ones.

I am also not shy about words, I can make sailors blush with my vulgarity under the right circumstances.

But the dirtiest of all the words I know is four letters and starts with a D.  And it does not reference the male anatomy.

Debt.

Fo sho this is a dirty word and an even dirtier concept.  I have had a bit of a thinking revolution lately when it comes to money.  The process of going to one primary income made me get cheap like a two bit hooker but with more class, at least marginally so.  While I can clip coupons, rock that dollar store and create "ghetto" versions of frequently used products the financial revolution in our house has encompassed more than that.

One of my all out favoritest of favorite blogs on financial doings is MoneySavingMom.  I eagerly read most of the posts there furiously hoping to absorb anything and everything useful that I can.  It has proven useful, though I have found that internet osmosis and furious hoping do not a savvy shopper and organized home CEO make.  In my efforts to delve deeper into financial security, independence and confidence I eagerly purchased MoneySavingMom Crystal Paine's book when it came out.

I have read it twice.

Seriously.

It is highlighted and has notes and dogeared pages and I am trying very very hard to put into practice much of what I have read because if nothing else, it makes sense.  I took economy class in high school, but quite honestly if they actually discussed personal finances and stuff that comes with it I totally tuned it out.  While I am not a total fiscal moron I did previously approach financial decisions with the attitude that I was not an adult capable of making decisions regarding my own money.  Financial stuff just made me anxious because I handled it like there was some sort of huge mystery involved.  For example, I'd log on to my account via my bank's website and be holding my breath hoping that there would be money there.  Now really, think about how flamboyantly stupid that is.  What was I worried about, money gremlins sneaking into the vault (I totally picture Scrooge McDuck's coin pool here) and making off with my paycheck?  I must have.  Revamping my thinking and removing this ridiculous notion of "mystery" from my fiscal thinking was the first step in the revolution.

Well here we are about 50 more steps down the line and the husband and I are fully committed to eliminating our debt.  Specifically credit card debt, then vehicular debt, then probably my student loan debt.  We chose this order based on what felt most manageable and most stifling to us now.  The credit card debt was certainly that.  It hurt our credit scores, was stupid to have, and made both of us feel sick to our stomachs.  The most ridiculous part of all of it was that all of the credit debt we had was well over 2 years old.  We don't use credit cards.  We did, and then have paid minimums on them for-ev-er.  Apart from being stupendously stupid for doing this, it also has cost us more money than I would ever like to calculate.

So when we finally got a tax refund  after three years of not (We had the world's shittiest tax guy, and took a while to figure out he was the problem.  Post in and of itself and it would certainly capitalize on the aforementioned sailor-blush-inducing-language.) we applied 100% of that refund to debt.

Three debts are completely gone, leaving us two to go.

I must say, it feels quite good.

With those three "gone" now the payments we were making on them are being paid on the next credit card of focus, and if the debt calculator I found online is right, we will have this baby killed in under a year from now.

While I know this is do-able, I still hold my breath because it seems like such a big thing to hope for.  We are committed to it, and my hope is that by posting it here (even if it is anonymously done) I will add a level of accountability to our behavior.  We have eliminated a lot of the unnecessary crap that was costing us and are now quite able to do this, even with our little projects we already have going and have planned.

So, yay us!  Here's hoping we can meet these goals and eliminate at least one four letter word from our vocabulary!

sing with me: silver balls, silver balls ...

In the never ending quest to save the money I have become a bit obsessed with making my own versions of things when and where I can.  In order to do this I have discovered that the "faux" item needs to meet these three conditions:

1.) Something we use often.

2.) Something I can make for substantially cheaper than the bought-version

3.) Something that does not take an enormous amount of time/effort/skill or require me to purchase strange products over the internet that put my on a special FBI list somewhere.  I do not need to be in their database for dish soap, thankyouverymuch!

If we don't go through it regularly or if I can't make it for a heckovalot less than the store version I don't think it is worth my time.  Time is money, if I am only saving a penny or two, forget it.  I may call this the One Cheap Bitch series, but even cheap bitches have standards y'all!

So remember my Ghetto Drier Sheets?  Well they met all three of the critical conditions for OCB-worthiness, and they were working great.  But -- there is always a but isn't there? -- the washcloths I used were bulky and I felt like I was wasting the fabric softener solution a bit.  Not wanting to cost me more money I asked Meatball if he had shirts he had outgrown because his closet is reaching epic crapalanche proportions (that is on my to-do-list).  He had like 8 undershirts that were short enough when on that they revealed his belly button so they were quite perfect.

each shirt made 16 sheets

Now with all those shirts I had a butt ton of "drier sheets."  The only flaw in the drier sheet recipe is that there is nothing to reduce static at all.  This meant as a family we all felt a bit like human Tesla coils walking around all the time.  A quick but desperate google search yielded this valuable gem of cheapo goodness: aluminum foil balls tossed in the drier reduce static cling.  Word!

So here is the new and improved (and oh so effective!) drier set up!

I have two Ghetto Drier Sheet containers because one if for the ones that are "new" and the other is where the used ones go.  This way they are rotated.  Then the little basket is there to hold the drier balls.  I found that if I toss two in at a time it really illuminates the static for all of us, except my husband who apparently is just a human lightening rod who drags his feet like Igor.  I don't know if the size of the ball matters, I just made them golf ball sized and it is working.

Yes, I am having a hard time not making immature ballz jokes here.  Give me credit for hanging in there as long as I have.

Figuring out the cost here:

"drier sheet" shirts (owned and outgrown) ... no real cost

fabric softener (bottle previously purchased) ... $1

aluminum foil (also previously purchased, teacher stash) ... $1

three containers to hold it all, from the teacher stash ... no real cost

rug and towel to make it clean and pretty (previously purchased) ... no real cost

I consider things I already own, but can re-purpose as being "no cost" to me because I didn't have to buy them for this.  Yes, the shirts and containers cost me something originally, but there were not being used anymore so by breathing new life into them I maintained their use without incurring extra costs.  Score!  The aluminum foil and fabric softener at the dollar store are plenty good enough for this project, so it would have run me $2 had I not had them already.  It was free to me ultimately!  Hot dayum, I like free!

So Ghetto Drier Sheets, Silver Ballz and now I call this part of the OCB series a success!  Next up to share is homemade citrus cleaner!

menu boards, recipes, and cookbooks ... oh my!

While I am no Betty Crocker, I do shoulder the responsibility of cooking for the Domestic Rocket Clan.  Frightening, I know.

Between mom blogs and Pintercrack I am pretty much convinced that the path to culinary success is lined with highly detailed menu boards.  So while the minions were otherwise occupied this weekend I did some looking into this.

And I discovered something very, very important.

While I may be an OCD spaz who loves color coordinating charts, graphs, tables, and the like -- it turns out that when I look at really complex menu planning systems I sorta have a brain flatline.  You know on TV when someone is dead and the heart monitors have that one long, single tone beeeeeeeeep with the monitor reflecting that there is not beating in that ticker?  Brain flatlining is like that, but only with my head.

beeeeeeep!

beeeeeeeeeeeep!
(and the wonky labels make my eyes want to explode)

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!

And the mother of all highly-organized-I-am-never-going-to-be-this-awesome menu planning systems:

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!

I am a firm believer in baby steps.  All of those menu boards up there, and the multitudes more you will find on Pintercrack and the mommy blogoshpere, are nice.  But not very doable for me.  If I did have the time, and did want to spend it making one of those, I wouldn't stick with it at this point.  Not even kind of.  Like at all.

But I see the value in meal planning.  It prevents the epic nightly fail of hearing "so whats for dinner?" and responding with the ever intelligent "uuuuuuuhhhhhh ...."

It also is a great way to save money and hit that grocery budget.  

But I am not there *points at any of the pictures above* yet.  Expecting me to pull that off would be kinda like asking a person who doesn't know how to ride a bike to do some awesome BMX tricks blindfolded.  And drunk.  While juggling chainsaws and monkeys.  I am not even sure I want to do that yet.  (the detailed crafty boards, not the BMX juggling act)

So I started with acknowledging that I have no system for the recipes I do have.  I print them off of the internet, then lose them.  I have some recipe cards my mother-in-law gave me for a wedding present, but I have no organization to them other than they were in a box.  I don't like the box, and none of "my" stuff is in the box because I don't have cards.  Really, like 80% of the time I just make it all up anyway and don't actually follow a recipe.

My labels

So I did this.  Its not a recipe card binder, but it is a binder.  I made categories for it, but being the rebel I am I couldn't label them logically.  So here are the section names:

Ole (Mexican)

Mangia (Italian)

Domo Arigato (Asian)

Good Mornin' (Breakfasts)

Slurp (soups, stews, chilies)

Warmin' Up (appetizers)

Fat Pants (desserts)

Not Veg (meat based meals)

Slainte (beverage, not all alcohol for the record)

??? (stuff that I had no idea where to put)

Faux (the cleaning supplies and what -not that I am making to save moolah)

Brrr! (specifically designed to be frozen, like this pizza dough)

I used "return address" labels and stuck them on the dividers because it is about a million times easier than trying to sit there and slide those stupid pieces of paper in those itty bitty things.  

I still have one blank section left so when I remember something, like side dishes, I can add that to the book.  

A page from the Fat Pants section

Then I just use sheet protectors for the printed off, full size recipes.  I can also just tear out any magazine pages I want and stick them in there too.  I will eventually make a format for my recipes, and then eventually I will need to have some way to visually represent them, I guess.  But in the mean time I figure this will have to do.  I have a white board on the fridge that I just wrote the days of the week on.  Each day gets a meal next to it, simple enough for now.

This "system" cost me nothing, the former-teacher-stock-piles had the nice binder, sheet protectors, binder dividers, and sticker labels.  

So, in summary:

1.) I got to do something that makes me look and feel more organized.

2.) It cost me nothing really!

3.) I got to tap into the teacher-stuff hoarder bins that my husband says I will never need.  So I proved him wrong, again!

Triple win if I do say so myself!

** A word about the Non Veg section -- We are actually a vegetarian family, slightly transitioning into the vegan world due to severe milk protein intolerance.  This blog isn't about that, so it doesn't come up often but that section of my "cook book" is for all the family recipes we have (ie my MIL's recipe cards) that are meat based.  I can modify them, but know where to look if I want one. **

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.