Fabric Softener

Since you all just made laundry soap yesterday (ha. ha.) Here's some fabric softener to go with it. Again I will post pictures when I make another batch.

Ingredients

6 cups hot water
8oz of vinegar
a 22.5 oz bottle of Suave conditioner. (suave is the most fragrant in my opinion)

Mix together well. Seriously, that's it.

Happy Saving!

Laundry soap recipe

Since it's been asked for several times, Here it goes... My laundry soap recipe (I'll post pictures with the recipe when we make another batch)


I do a liquid soap that costs about 50 cents to a dollar per gallon depending on what type of soap you use.

First, grate a bar of soap and put that and 4 cups of hot water in a saucepan over medium-low heat and stir until the soap dissolves completely.

Next, fill a 5-gallon bucket about half full of hot water, then add your melted soap, 1 cup of borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda. Stir until everything is dissolved. Fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot water. cover over night so that the mixture thickens

then take empty and clean laundry detergent bottles and fill half with soap and half with water. you can keep your base in the 5 gallon bucket if you only have a few laundry detergent bottles, just make sure you stir the base before pouring into the bottle.


For each load you use 5/8 of a cup if you have a top loading washer (180 loads) and 1/4 of a cup if you have a front loading washer (640 loads) You can also add 10 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons, but your soap should be fragrant enough.

The next step..

   So our next baby step for the Dave Ramsey Plan is to pay off all of our debts and obviously a huge part of that is to get rid of our credit cards by closing the accounts and cutting up the cards. However, if you know anything about Eric and I, we can't just cut up the cards we have to do something creative! Some people have done it with Lawnmowers, some have grilled their cards and one person even ran over them! However, since all of those have been done, we don't want to do those. What do you think we should do? Leave your idea in the comments.

Baby step 1!

    So, baby step one in Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover is to get a $1000 emergency fund set up. After two weeks, Eric and I did it! We did have some unexpected funds via a deposit refund for our previous apartment and some leftover funds from last month. However, we wrote a budget out (including putting $1000 into the emergency fund) and worked really hard to stay under that budget.

       Our main expenses are food and rent, since we can't change rent we focus on keeping our food costs VERY low. We plan out some meals ahead and between Hy-vee, Walmart, Walgreen's and Sam's club try to figure out where we're going to get the most bang for our buck. We check the coupons each week and like I said in a previous post we make a lot of our own things to save costs. We also NEVER buy brand name unless there's some ridiculous coupon/sale.
   
       Everyone has their own areas where they can cut things out and areas where they can't make a cut whatsoever. For us, cable and food where areas where we could downgrade. Especially since we have Netflix and Hulu subscriptions. We stopped going out to eat all of the time, and when we do go out we have a coupon or there's a special at the restaurant. Eric used to buy a 99 cent tea almost every day and I found the same tea 15 cans for 12 dollars at Sam's club (also, Arizona Tea is 2 for a dollar this week at Walgreen's so I will be making a stop there to go stock up!).

    I believe that most people can scrape together some money to more quickly eliminate the debts that they've accumulated. You just have to make some cuts and downgrade a little bit for a while, but if you're willing to live like no one else, later you can live like no one else! I'll keep you guys updated and let me know if you'd like to see any recipes I use or if you'd like some help with a Total Money Makeover to eliminate your debts and build wealth.

Bevin Posting: Gazelle Intense!

      If you couldn't have figured out from my Facebook statuses, Eric and I are starting a total money makeover (http://www.daveramsey.com/new/baby-steps/) We've made a budget and we're working on getting our $1000 emergency fund and paying off our debts. It's going to take a lot of work, but our goal is to be in a paid for house by the time I'm 30. Mind you there's some pit stops along the way like I'd like to get my master's and a new car (both debt-free) We're on track to have our current student loans forgiven so that's a HUGE help.

     We set up google documents to have "cash envelopes" for food and gas right now. I'm hoping to add some for spending money for me and for gifts but since I spent my spending money for the month on a trip to target the first day and our gifts budget is currently $0 they're not really necessary right now.
     The main way we're saving money is by making a lot of household items ourselves. We currently make our own liquid soap, laundry detergent, and fabric softener. We tried making our own shampoo and that was a DISASTER but I think I figured out what the problem was and I am going to make another attempt at it. We also make our own dryer sheets (to make the clothes smell fresh). Let me know in the comments if you want to see some of my recipes for things. Anything I can't make I try to get at the cheapest price possible. So far, that's been Sam's Club, though in January we're going to switch to Costco because the membership a little bit cheaper and a lot better for our conscience.
    We're both really pumped right now, and it'll be great to not have all of these payments each month. Eric's already planning out his debt free scream. I'm guessing it will take us about a year to clear out everything Eric thinks it will take 2 or 3 years. I'll keep you updated as we go along.

Friday Downtown Ames

Friday Eric and I went downtown with Rob Maren and their kids for their snow magic kickoff. We decorated cookies looked at gingerbread houses and Greyson got his face painted. We all rode the train as well. Rob almost got stuck in the train. It was funny.

The election and my thoughts

I know everyone is probably getting tired of the political posts, but here is my only post I'll make on the election results. In terms of everything that was voted for last night, I am extremely happy with the results. The people have spoken.

In Maine, Maryland, and Washington, they have said, you will not deny a group of people their rights, and Minnesota weighed in by turning down a law that would deny a group of people their rights.

In Colorado and Washington, the people said, we challenge your law, and the state governments have stated they will continue forward with the issue. State governments are challenging the federal government. Our political system, while in need of some updating, continues to work.

In Iowa, we showed that political bullying will not disuade us from keeping a judge, whom values the rights of the people, in office.

Puerto Rico voted to change their relationship with the US with a majority of those saying statehood was the answer. All of this is progress forward.

No matter if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Third Party, as long as we continue to vote and let our voices be heard, and elect persons into office that will work with the people and for the people and with each other to accomplish the former, we will progress into the future and continue to show the world why we are the best nation in the world, that freedom continues to ring, and that the American people will not be silenced.

-Eric