Got No Dough - Saving Money in Slim Times

So I’ve seen lots of talk about getting really great deals at CVS, but it just seemed like far too much work for me to take part in it.  Well, last week that all changed.  Today was my second week participating in the CVS deal game and I must say that I’m addicted.  Add that to the fact that they are building a brand new CVS right around the corner from me and I’m really excited.

I realize that I’m not getting as good of deals as some people are and that is for two reasons.

1. I refuse to buy things that I can’t/won’t use.  Some people will buy anything just because it’s a good deal - I will not.  Therefore, this week I didn’t get the Just For Men hair stuff.  Yes, it’s “free” after ECB (Extracare Bucks) but I just can’t use it and I don’t know anyone else who would use it.
2. I just started doing this and so I don’t have as many coupons as other people do.  Luckily there are a lot of coupons that can be printed online, so that’s how I’ve made some great deals.  Each week my arsenal gets a little bigger though.

So, without further ado, I would like to tell you about my special deals.  The first week doesn’t really count because it was kind of an initial investment, but I’ll share it anyhow.

April 20 - April 26

• Speedstick deoderant - $3.99
• Gold Emblem 24 pack water x 2 - $3.99 each
• Spa Radiance - $4.99
• Gold Emblem Peanuts x 2 - $3.69 (Buy one get one free)
• Kleenex x 2 - $1.29 (Buy one get one free)
• Circus peanuts - .88 cents - not on my list, merely a stress reliever

Minus $1.00 coupon for deodorant that I found online.  Plus, since I signed up for deals by email I had a $4 off a $20 purchase.

So, after all was said and done with tax and crv, I spent $20.71.  Remember, this is just my “initial investment.”  It kicked me back $3.99 in ExtraCare Bucks for the deoderant, $4.99 in ExtraCare Bucks for the body wash and $2.00 in ExtraCare bucks for the water.

April 27 - May 3

When I got to the store, I scanned my card at a little kiosk and it spit out a $3 off any $10 CVS brand purchase.  Very beautiful considering many items are buy 2 get one free.  I hadn’t planned on that, so I’ll try to use it later this week.

Bic Soleil Razor - $5.99
Gold Emblem 2.5 Gallon Water - $1.99
Softsoap Handsoap x 3 - $2.91
Pepsi 2 Liters x 4 - $3.18 (Buy one get one free - limit 4)
Essence of Beauty Face Scrubber x 2 - $2.98
Essence of Beauty Bodywash Sponge - $1.99

Minus $2.00 coupon for razor found online, $10.98 in ExtraCare bucks from last week and a $3 off any $15 purchase found online.

Total spent - $3.83 + I received $8.00 in ExtraCare bucks for next time

I’m so hooked.

I’m just beside myself right now.

Tonight I was waiting for my husband to get done with one of his appointments and so I ran to a Walmart near where he was so that I could wait for him.  He decided that when he was done, he would just run in and meet me and we’d go.  When we got back to the parking lot we found that his truck was gone.  A 91 Nissan pickup truck with 220,000 miles on it.  The parking lot cameras showed an SUV pull down the aisle we were parked in, a guy get out, walk up to the truck, open it and drive away - all within about 30 seconds.  The cop that we filed the police report with said that the older vehicles are stolen all the time with worn keys.

To make matters worse, he left his guitar in it.  He was just going to run in and out and there really should have been no harm in it.  That guitar is our bread and butter because he’s a music instructor.  Oh yeah, a music instructor who travels to people’s homes to give lessons - who now has no vehicle and no instrument.

And let’s just add insult to injury.  We just paid off a loan to a family member who helped us buy his school books.  Guess what else was in his truck?  $300 worth of school books.

It’s times like these that life feels like it’s over.  We were just starting to get back on our feet and now the means to make our money has been taken from us.

Tomorrow we hit the pawn shops to see if someone pawned the guitar.  Wish us luck.

Sometimes I look at what search terms brought people to my site and realize they must have been pretty disappointed when they got here. Therefore, every Friday, I’m going to take the top searches for the week and elaborate a little more on them.

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

By and far, the most frequent term to get to my site has to do with making your own laundry detergent. I think people are more interested in more recipes to make the detergent. Since I made that post, I have found a couple more ideas on doing it.

• How to Make Laundry Detergent from Keeping the Home (no washing soda needed)
• Making Your Own Laundry Detergent: A Detailed Visual Guide from The Simple Dollar

Do I have to use a dishwasher rinse aid if my dishwasher has a dispenser?

The easy answer to this is no. The dispenser is there for your convenience and doesn’t have to be used. If you find your dishes are gritty or spotty, then by all means use a rinse aid. You can either buy a commercial brand or fill it with vinegar. And if you don’t have a dispenser at all, you can buy a rinse aid that hangs in your dishwasher.

No money and in need of groceries

This is a situation I have found myself in too many times. First of all, if you have absolutely no money at all, you’re going to have to ask for help. Family, friends, church, or food banks will be happy to help you. Look into public assistance if you have to until you can get back on your feet.

If your budget is limited, I can give you a resource that saved my life: $45 Emergency Menu by Hillbilly Housewife. It’s based on making everything from scratch, which is a lot of work, but when you have no money, it is invaluable. In the process I’ve learned to eat healthier and learned to make so many things in the kitchen.

how to make slim with glue and borax

I saw “slim” appear many times and couldn’t figure out what it was. I searched wikipedia thinking it might be a foreign term. I searched urban dictionary thinking it might be slang. I was really at a loss, so I decided to Google it myself. That’s when I realized I was an idiot. It’s a typo and supposed to be: How to Make SLIME with glue and borax. Without further ado:

• Homemade Slime
• Blennophobia - Fear of Slime

And there you have it. Hopefully someone will be a little less disappointed this week.

I’ve been debating whether or not I would add the CommentLuv plugin since I read Encouraging Comments with the CommentLuv Plugin. Then I began to procrastinate and haven’t felt like tweaking my blog.

Well, good old RT wrote Backlink Building with DoFollow Blogs and the CommentLuv WordPress Plugin yesterday and once again he gave me the kick in the pants I needed to actually make a change. And yes, it was a GREAT kick….I think this guy should be a motivational speaker. Maybe he can tell me I need to get off the computer and clean my home…nah, nobody is THAT motivational.

I installed the plugin and it appears to be working - I won’t know for sure until someone leaves me a comment. In return for a lovely comment, you get a lovely link to your last blog entry. If you don’t have a blog - well tough luck I guess.

I like to choose projects that *look* easy and that’s probably my biggest mistake.  After making my own dishwasher detergent and failing, I decided to try to make disinfectant wipes.  The kind that you purchase at the store are expensive and I figured this is something that I could definitely use.

The instructions are pretty simple.  You’re supposed to get a roll of paper towels, take the cardboard out of the center, cut the roll in half and then put the roll into a plastic container of some sort.  Then you add the disinfectant of your choice and pull the towels from the center of the roll and it’s just like the containers from the store.

Ok, let’s break this process down so the world can see what went wrong every step of the way:

1. Take the cardboard roll out of the center of the roll.  I’ve yet to find instructions that mention that manufacturers GLUE the cardboard to the paper towels.  So, I expected the sucker would slide right out and it didn’t.  I ran a long thin knife down inside to pull it loose and it really chewed up the paper towels.  Nothing fatal though because I could just throw away the first few that I pulled out.  After performing major surgery, the cardboard roll came out.
2. Cut the roll in half.  Again, nobody mentions that you need a hack saw to cut this thing in half.  I tried a regular kitchen knife - didn’t cut.  Tried scissors - didn’t cut.  So I finally got out a bread knife which seriously resembles a hacksaw and it worked.  However, it also made confetti out of the paper towels as I cut and I was left with pile of paper towel dust when I was done.  Definitely not pretty, but it got the job done.
3. Put the half roll into a plastic container.  I looked at the store for a plastic container that would hold half a roll of paper towels but really couldn’t find anything.  I decided to use something I already had at home.  This was probably the best part of the whole project.  If you want to get REALLY fancy, you can even drill a hole in the lid so they dispense real pretty.  I opted not to do this and instead have to remove the lid every time.
4. Add the disinfectant of your choice.  I used 1 part Lysol kitchen cleaner to 2 parts water.  I think it’s breaking down the paper towels though because they feel weaker and weaker each time I use them.  I probably should have used more water…but then would they really disinfect?
5. Pull from the center and wipe.  The paper towels come out of the center and my husband was very amused that I was able to make something like this.  However, I feel like the wipes are getting thinner by the day and there is still some paper towel dust in there.

Will I Do It Again?

Nope.

A Better Alternative?

Buy a bottle of disinfectant, spray it on the surface and use a paper towel to wipe :)  Seriously though, I heard this on a show the other day and it is a great idea.  Bleach is one of the best and cheapest disinfectants there is.  Fill up your sink with bleach and water (read the instructions for the proper dilution).  While the water is in there, throw your sponge, scrub brush and anything else that needs disinfecting.  You can even use a white towel dipped in the water to wipe down your counters.   The smell is not the greatest and you’ll need to ventilate, but you can have peace of mind knowing that you’re kitchen is clean and that you’re saving some bucks in the process.

And you won’t have paper towel dust everywhere.

Tricia over at Blogging Away Debt is hosting links for the ING Savings $25 bonus. All you have to do to get the extra $25 is open up a savings account using one of the links from her $25 ING Orange Savings Bonus page and make an initial deposit of $250.

She will be hosting three of my links shortly The links have been posted and used and if anyone needs another, I have plenty! Here is one to get you started:

Open an ING Account with $250 and get a $25 bonus   Used THANK YOU!

Open an ING Account with $250 and get a $25 bonus

Dishwasher detergent was one of the first “make it yourself” projects that I took on. It was very simple to mix, the ingredients were easy to find, and it seemed like something that could save me money since I run my dishwasher every single day. I looked up the recipe on several sites just to see the different variations on it and they were basically all the same.

To Make Your Own Dishwasher Detergent

You’re going to need:

• Baking Soda
• Borax
• Container to store it in
• Scoop

You can make the batch up in any size you’d like, just mix equal parts baking soda and borax. Some other recipes call for Koolaid but I opted not to add it. Use 1-2 Tablespoons of your mixture (less for soft water, more for hard water). A very important consideration for this is to make sure you’re using a rinse aid. Again - do it yourself! You can fill up your rinse aid dispenser with vinegar or add a bit to the rinse cycle.

My Verdict on Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

Indeed it was easy to make - it took a whopping minute to measure and mix. Definitely inexpensive - two positives so far. Now, here’s the killer! My dishes didn’t come out clean and they had this nasty powdery residue left on them. I even ran them through an additional rinse cycle and the gritty mess wouldn’t come off. Long story short, some of my dishes still had grit after several wash cycles so I had to wash them by hand. I investigated this on the internet and some people said that maybe I used too much detergent, so I cut back. Better, but still not acceptable. Some people say it was the rinse agent, so I added extra vinegar to the rinse cycle. Again, better, but there was still too much grit on them for my taste (no pun intended because you could actually TASTE the baking soda on the glasses!).

This little experiment probably cost me more than it saved me because I had to wash the dishes so many times. This is not something I recommend because for me it just did not work well no matter what I did to correct the problem.

So what do I recommend? I went out and bought the largest box of Cascade I could find. Why the name brand? Because the larger box was cheaper per ounce than the generic! And the results?? My dishes sparkle again and are super clean.

Now if you want to try to save a little more money just cut the amount of detergent you use in your cups. This is something you’ll have to experiment with based on what kind of water you have but I find that I can fill each one half way and it works fine. Some people are able to leave the prewash cup empty and fill the regular cup 1/4 full and it works for them. Just experiment and find out for yourself!

A lot of time has passed and while I’d love to say that I’ve been out working on a super secret research project - I’m just not a good liar.  The truth is that our cable was shut off and with the cable goes my internet connection.  No internet connection = no blogging.

On a side note, I guess I’ve technically been researching some things though.  You know all those sites that tell you how to make your own “fill in the blank” and save money?  I’ve actually been trying some of those things out and I’m a little surprised.  Some things were difficult to make, some didn’t work how they were supposed to and some of the things I thought would be most difficult were a piece of cake.

I’ll let you know the results of my efforts over the coming days (maybe weeks if I can’t get a wireless connection).  It’s definitely been a journey!

Ok, so I thought I was so smart by talking about the foaming hand soap dispenser.  Only $7.99 I spouted.   Oh the money I thought I was going to save.

Then, the very next day I was at Walmart and I had a huge DUH moment.  Instead of spending $7.99 on a fancy foaming hand soap dispenser, why not buy one that is already filled and just reuse it?

So, I bought one made by Dial because it was most appealing (completely clear) and spent $1.84.  Luckily I thought of this before I spent the $7.99 and now I’ve just saved myself an additional six bucks.

I think that’s the key to truly saving money is to think outside the box.  Find new uses for items, find items that can be reused, and find items that can stretch so that you can get more bang for your buck.

The other day while waiting for my husband to finish an appointment, I was walking around Target wasting time.  I like to go up and down the aisles just looking at stuff, especially around the home furnishings and organizing sections.   I came across something that I thought was neat and best of all, it can be used to save money.

Rubbermaid makes a foaming hand soap dispenser.  Big deal, you say?  Well, they have a little tag attached to it that explains that foaming hand soap uses 1 part soap to 2 parts WATER.  I personally love foaming hand soap, but am turned off by the price of it.  However, if I can use the same soap I’m already using and make it go much much further with something that costs nothing, then I’m all for it.

The cost of the dispenser is $7.99, so it would take a little while to recoup the costs, but  once you do, the savings will be great.  Now, if you don’t wash your hands much, this is probably pretty meaningless to you, but for me, it’s gold.  I change a gazillion diapers, cut up raw chicken for dinner and deal with croup a couple of times a year, so the need for saving money on my soap is high on my list.

Besides that, it’s cool!  And as a double bonus, I got a $10 gift card to Target for Christmas!