I have been a stay home mom to two great kids for the last nine years and I feel like I’m still trying to get the hang of things! Being a stay home mom is my family’s personal choice; we believe it’s what is best for OUR family. It may not be right for everyone but for us the benefits out weigh the sacrifices. For the last nine years I have tried many different systems to organize and maintain our home, some teachings were great and others quickly fell by the way side. It’s been a process of making my own hybrid system that works for me, and I think it’s important for all women to know that there isn’t one cookie cutter perfect system that works for all families. Each family has it’s own dynamics, it’s own temperament, it’s like each family is its own unique living organism. You have to find the proper way to sustain it, regardless of the “status quo”. My family comes with certain challenges, I have been dealing with depression for years and years, and although I think Flylady is a great website for managing a home when a bout of depression hits I’m not at all concerned about my daily or weekly routines. Also, my son has ADHD so there are days that cannot go according to a schedule no matter how hard I try. Routine is important in our home by all means, but having the flexibility to go with the flow sometimes has become a necessary change of mind for me. It won’t ALL be perfect ALL the time…or even most of the time! And I’m still learning how to be ok with that.
Another challenge my family faces, like many other Americans these days, is our financial situation. We try to closely watch what we spend and try to be as frugal as possible. We are a household that deals strictly in cash, if we don’t have it, we don’t spend it. It wasn’t always that way; we use to live off of our credit cards for everything. In an effort to save money I signed up for The Grocery Game, again. I will tell you that this program saves you TONS of money on your grocery bills every month, and it’s not only on groceries, but personal care items and household supplies. I was gearing up for what would be my fourth year of doing the grocery game (we took a year off when things seemed to tight for even internet and weekly newspapers!). The game is easy and well worth the small membership fee, and from experience I KNEW it worked. I honestly hadn’t paid for toothpaste in four years; I had no idea how expensive it was because we had so much stockpiled from when it was free I never had to buy any. I did my first week of the game and then found out about MoneySavingMom.com, another great site about savings at almost every store as well as online give aways and advice on living simply. Oh, and that site is FREE! After my first week with these sites I realized I was saving quite a bit of moola but it wasn’t really on the stuff I thought we should be using. Sure I got huge boxes of 100-calorie pack snacks for about a buck, but do I really want my kids eating all that processed junk? Yeah, I got scrubbing bubbles for FREE but do I really want to put that into our water system? And talk about the environmental footprint of packaging and shipping all that stuff!! EEEK! To compound my global warming guilt I watched an inspirational movie called No Impact Man (I didn’t quite like the guy it was about…he seemed kind of irritable with his wife and arrogant as well) but he did open my eyes to what we do take for granted and how much all the little things impact us on a global scale. This movie led me to watch other movies and read online articles about food production and the truth about some ingredients in food and personal care products. I may not be able to solve ALL the global warming issues, but I would rather be part of the solution (or revolution) than part of the problem. During my quest I found that if my family of four stopped eating beef, it would be the equivalent CO2 reduction as if EVRY SUV in America was taken off the road. I had no idea beef had such a great impact on our environment! Feeling somewhat empowered and educated I decided that if anything ever happened to my family, health wise, that I’d want to know I did EVERYTHING I could to prevent that from happening. Where I could look back and have peace of mind about the choices I gave them to put in or on their bodies. The majority of the coupons and savings available are for the overly processed, chemically treated stuff that the average consumer has no idea what they are doing to their bodies. It becomes about convenience and saving money versus the healthy alternative. Having a son with ADHD and migraines and a daughter with eczema and allergies it made me aware of all the extra “triggers” that may be setting them off in their daily lives. This realization started me on the quest to become a frugal suburban mostly organic and/or locally provided homemaker. My grandma grew up during the Great Depression and valued the cost of everything, and made a conscious choice about every purchase down to her loaf of bread. I wish she was here to guide me in the best way to preserve fruits and to make all natural cleaners; but like most mom’s I’ve met the traditional housekeeping recipes and secrets have been lost over the last couple generations and we have to try and find the answers ourselves.
The first change to come was the laundry. I figured it cost about .40 a load to dry the clothes in the dryer and since we only have the option for electric out here we were also emitting a pretty decent carbon footprint with each load of laundry. The Tide was replaced with an organic laundry detergent (until I can find a way to make my own!) that was on sale for 3.99 at Sprouts, the local health food store. I also found a trick to replace fabric softener, which costs pennies compared to name or store brand even after coupon. Simply add 1/8 c of white vinegar to your washers rinse cycle, your clothes come out soft and no they don’t smell like vinegar. Just throw a damp washcloth with a few drops of essential oil (I chose Lavender) into the dryer with the clothes to give a slight fragrance. I also ran the clothes through and extra spin cycle to get rid of extra water, which can cut the dryer time in almost half!
Then came the adventure in line drying! I live in Arizona so I have the fortune to dry a whole load of laundry outside in 60 seconds or less in the summer ☺ just kidding. I bought a little clothes line and a drying rack and quickly realized this wasn’t going to work for our family of four. So my dear husband and son installed three lines that work great!My old way of washing worked out to .91 a load, $28 a month, $331 a year! With these new changes, my estimated cost is down to .31 a load, just $9.50 a month, only $114 a year ☺That's a savings of $217 a year! Not to mention saving over 1000lbs of CO2 emissions too!
Just to pass on what I learned with line drying (1) make sure your backyard sprinklers are off first! (2) The clothes are a little “stiff” so I take three loads after they are dry and put them on the fluff/air dry cycle for 20 minuets to get them soft and comfy and wrinkle free (3) the HUGE bath sheet takes up a lot more soap/water/energy and line space than a regular towel (4) my daughter changes outfits too many times in one day and puts them in the hamper to be washed when they are not even dirty (5) we can get away with wearing and washing less. Pajamas are good for more than one use, so are jeans! All these things were little factors I took advantage of in the past due to the convenience of the dryer and with blindly acting out of habit instead of necessity.
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