Well, I just came across your site for the first time so early in morning on this wonderful Friday. Quite by accident, I picked another site and got yours – go figure, but however so happy I did. I know I do have a Twitter ID but I don’t know what it is:(

I have gone to the beautians (sp? WARNING: I’m a terriable speller and lost without my spell check) in training for 20+ (I’m aging myself here) years and have had some pretty complicated “do’s” “do’s” to me to. Like the time I had them braid my VERY LONG PAST MY BACKSIDE hair into about 300 tiny little braids – It took 13 hours and 5 different gals to do it. Did I mention my hair is very, very, thick also. In a salon that would have cost me $350 – $500 and I paid $80 and got a free manicure, pedicure, and eyebrow shaping, and 2 pierces in my ear including the loops!!! Now, beat that:) I would never pay full price to have something done to my hair – if I couldn’t get into the beauty school than it would either have to wait or attempt it myself (there’s another story :).

I also wash ALL my clothes in cold water and use at least 1/2 the amount of detergent they tell you to. I mean think about it. Who’s best intrest is being served when you use a full cap rather than a 1/2 or less. I have never noticed the difference and I started doing laundry this way 4 years ago and PLEASE use your water level settings. It doesn’t always have to be on High. So many people set it there and no matter what size load thier washing they never move that dial. Then I hang out all my clothes and during the winter I do the laundry and hang it up in the house excluding the towels and bedding – to hard to hang up. The only time I use my dryer is in the winter for the towels and bedding or in an emergency like we have to go NOW! I live in Wi and I have not turned my heat on yet and it’s been in the 20’s on some nights. Layers of clothes and comforters do the job and their so snuggly.

Ok – I’m ranting and your hoping I’ll lose your website address. To bad – already put on FAVS.

Have a great day.

I’m afraid we can’t do the shower thing. Tim uses it to numb his skin, and it’s the only time his skin stops itching! But we do share a shower, to save water.

I’d heard the toilet thing, but with a bottle of water.

As for haircuts for less, I used a student academy and plan to again. They’re very well supervised and I’m VERY picky about how my hair turns out. So that’s saying something.

One big one my mom taught me was to cook lots of liquid based foods — chili, stew, soup, watever — over rice to stretch it out. You can also eat it with tortillas to make it go even farther.

We are rarely ever sick in this house. And none of us have actually been sick at all since I started using cloth. But I credit that to God.
Check out my blog for some posts about my cloth usage.

This saves about 1 gallon per flush.

Or buy a new toilet, they have amazing ones that use less gallons per flush every time.

I save water in a bucket to water plants and such.

You could also convert washer water to drain outside to water stuff, instead of going down the drain.

Just remeber to reduse (use less), recycle what you can, and reuse (even if you can’t reuse, can someone else?) This helps save money and the earth God has entrusted us with.

But my biggest money saver is giving up paper products in our house.
We now use cloth napkins (save about $5 a month.)
We now use rags for cleaning instead of paper towels (save about $10 a month)
We now use hankies instead of tissues (we all have two each, and I wash them as needed. Save about $3 a month)
We now use cloth toilet paper (we do have a regular roll for guests.) It really is not gross at all. (Save about $12 a month.)

So these savings add up to about $30 a month or over $300 a year. Now I realize that is regular prices and I am sure you all clip coupons and shop the warehouses, so these figures may be a bit off. But I know my mom buys and uses a case of paper towels a month and pays about $15 for it at a warehouse store, so the figures are not to off.

I also make my own laundry soap that works great and has no scent which my son needs. It costs about $13 to make 15 gallons, which last me about 6 months. Less than $1 per gallon, for scent free laundry soap. Also I am reusing old bottles and lessening the impact on the environment. The recipe is on my blog.

One more thing I do to save money is I use cloth menstrual pads (really they are comfortable and work great) (save about $10-$15 a month.) One set costs about $250 with shipping (and I have a very heavy flow) and will last about 5 years. I would have spent $200 on disposables for just one year. Check out my blog to see who I order from (a work at home mom, so I am also supporting small business.) So this is a total savings of about $750 five years.

I want to say all of the above has not changed my quality of life at all. Some of the things actually improve my life (like all cloth on my skin.) So even hen I have more finances I will continue to live this way.

-Becky

Remember the saying, “you get what you pay for”.