Diaper Stash Contentment!

I have finally found diaper stash contentment!

Don't mind the ugly green plaid chair- it's getting
thrown away when we move

My happy stash consists of:

9 Bum Genius Elementals
8 Flip Diaper Covers
18 Oso Cozy Unbleached Flats
2 Hemp Babies Doublers (may buy one or two more)
36 Cloth Wipes
3 Kanga Pail Liners
2 Superundies Night Time (for my son who is a heavy sleeper and still wets at night)

All of this cost about $300, but I am set until the baby potty trains. If anything is still in good shape I can sell it to make some of my money back. Right now, with all factors taken into account (cost of cloth diapers, cost of laundry, what disposables would have cost, etc.), I will end up saving over $500 by cloth diapering. What is more important is that it's healthier for my kids and a super awesome bonus is that I never have to worry about finding deals on disposables and will never have to run out to buy them again!

Since my stash is mostly natural fibers, I am going to cut up an old micro fleece blanket to use as liners for nighttime diapers instead of buying pre-made liners. I don't mind the baby having wet cotton against her during the day, but her bum gets a little red if I do that at night. Same goes for my three year old daughter's nighttime diaper (she still has accidents sometimes at night so to save my sanity I put a diaper on her).

As for wipe solution, I am using a few drops of Dr. Brommer's Lavender Soap mixed with water (I am going to boil the water first, just to be safe) in a foamy soap bottle. I got the Dr. Brommer's from an awesome deal at American Apparel a couple of weeks ago- I'm talking only .40 a bottle (I bought 2)!

So I have officially moved from the obsessed with buying cute bum fluff mode to zen mode- I am sure my wallet is going to thank me!

Yeah, I Can Actually Be Frugal...

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If you have been following my blog for the past seven months (since I gave birth to my third and final baby) you have probably noticed the total erosion of my frugal-ness. Something about having a new baby along with two older kids seemed to have put me into survival mode and my coupons and budget just flew out the window.

I am starting to get back into things though I have been spending way more money on food than I have in the past, some of which I blame on my decision to only buy all natural meat (no hormones, humanely raised, etc.). I feel like spending $100 a week on food for my family is a good number but man oh man, a few years ago I would have crapped my pants if I spent that much a week on food.

So, as I have established, my food shopping leaves much to be desired in the frugal department. Just because I stink at that doesn't mean that I don't do other things that are frugal. I can be frugal! I can!

Here are some things that my lazy butt does (and if I can do them then anyone can do them):

-We use rags. I don't go and buy rags to use; I cut up old shirts, sheets, socks or whatever else is made of cloth. Once I run out of rags I wash them in the washing machine- usuall about every two weeks because I have quite the collection. We do still use paper towels occasionally but to hinder my husband from partaking in the paper towels too much I moved them away from the sink to the other side of the kitchen. You want a paper towel the you gotta work for it.

-I don't have a fancy shmancy cell phone with tons of bells and whistles; I have a prepaid TracFone. I rarely use my cell phone so if you average out how much I spend on minutes it come to less than $10 a month. My husband is into the fancy stuff and has an Iphone but his work pays for it. I actually just bought a new TracFone which is refereed to "the poor man's Iphone" so I guess I'm now into the late 1990's with my cell phone technology.

-I buy my kids' clothing on clearance with a coupon. I stock up on off season clothing and put everything in bins until it is needed. By doing this I am never pressed to have to buy something last minute at a price I don't want to pay. My main place to buy clothing for the kids is the Gap- I have the silver store card which means that I get free shipping on every online purchase (you have to spend $800 a year to get this but between the kids, my husband and me this is so doable). This in itself is worth its weight in gold because I don't have to leave the house to buy clothes with three screaming kids but I also get $10 for every $200 I spend and exclusive cardmember coupons. It is really important to me to buy high quality clothes, especially because my older daughter's clothing gets passed down to the baby. Plus, Gap clothes seem to sell well.

-I use powdered laundry detergent that I buy in bulk. I use Charlie's Soap powder detergent because I like that it leaves no smell and doesn't have weird chemicals in it. I recently bought a 1000+ load bucket of the powder which cost me about $100- this equals .10 a load. Pretty darn frugal if you ask me!

-I do not buy regular household cleaners anymore (except for Pledge- can't live without it). I have a one gallon jug of Biokleen which is super concentrated. I mix a couple of tablespoons and water in a spray bottle and I have an awesome all purpose cleaner- it actually cleans glass better than Windex and it's all natural. Plus it smells good and I know that it is safe to use around the kids.

Maybe there are more things but that is all I can think of right now. I know I won't win any awards for my frugal-ness but what I do works for me; it's lazy frugal-ness and I love it!

Disclaimer: This post contains my affiliate links.

I'm Lazy and I Made Baby Food!

I recently bought a five pound bag of pears at BJ's for about $6 and true to form I left them out on the counter for too long and let them over ripen. I put a few in the fridge for the older kids to eat over the next couple of days and decided to turn the rest into homemade baby food- how marvelously frugal of me!

I was never one to make baby food, mostly because I told myself that I didn't have time to. Well I guess I was wrong because it really takes no time at all to do! I used a baby food blender thing that I got on clearance for about $7 at Target when I was pregnant with Jilly Billy and within ten minutes I was able to peel/cut the pears, puree the pears and pour the puree into an ice cube tray.

I'm not sure how much cheaper it is to make your own baby food but in this instance I was saving money because I would have most likely thrown out the pears for spoiling before the older kids were able to eat all of them. Plus, there is something nice about knowing exactly how your baby's food is made.

Homemade Bean and Rice Burritos

I have been obsessed with burritos lately. First I was buying the cheap fifty cent ones at Stop and Shop but then realized there must be a reason why they only cost fifty cents so I started buying $1.79 ones at Whole Foods. They are delicious but a little expensive so I decided to make my own.

I made my burritos with brown rice, homemade refried beans, flour tortillas and lots of chili powder, onions and cumin. I based my recipe very loosely on this one, as in I completely abandoned the recipe and just started pouring spices into the pan (I love spicy food- love, love, love).

How did they turn out? I think they are very good. I overcooked the refried beans a bit so next time I will make sure they aren't as dry. On the opposite end of the spectrum I undercooked the brown rice so it was a tad crunchy so next time I will not be oblivious to the fact that I need to taste it to make sure it's cooked right before using it in a recipe. I think I may buy whole wheat tortillas next time to pump up the health factor and maybe I'll get crazy and add some corn.

I made six decent sized burritos which if bought from Whole Foods would have cost $10.74. From my estimations (don't hold me to this because I am not one for figuring out food costs) I spent about $4 on ingredients for a monetary saving of almost $7. The time it took to make this was not bad at all and I know next time it will take even less time as I sort of know what I'm doing now. It's also nice knowing exactly what is in the food I'm eating so that counts for something in the algorithm of making versus buying.

No More Money Down the Drain- Berry Time

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My daughter loves strawberries so I buy a carton of them every week whether they are $2 a pound or $4 a pound. She is a picky girl so if she likes it and it's healthy you bet I buy it regardless of price.

Because I spend so much on strawberries I want them to last until they are all eaten up- nothing is worse than going into the refrigerator to grab some berries and to see that they are mushy and moldy. It really sucks throwing away half a container that you paid $4 for.

A great way to avoid food waste in regards to berries is to wash them in a vinegar solution, which removes any nasties that cause rotting and moldiness. All you need to do is mix one part vinegar to ten parts water and rinse the berries in the solution. Take them out, dry them off and store in the refrigerator (you cannot taste the vinegar on the berries). Your berries will last way longer than normal and you won't be throwing money away on spoiled produce.

No More Money Down the Drain- Frugal Cologne/Perfume

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My husband ran out of cologne recently so I did what I do best- bought him some online.

Cologne can be very expensive which is why I spend time comparing prices between perfume sites while also checking to see what coupons each site may have available as well as if there is any cash back to be had from Ebates. It seems like a lot of trouble but it's really not, especially considering how much money can be saved by just taking fifteen minutes or less for research.

The biggest way I save money is by buying him a tester version of his cologne. A tester is the same as the cologne you would buy at the store but it just doesn't include the cap. We don't mind this because we have a cap from a bottle I bought before I realized I was throwing money away by buying non-tester bottles. We keep the cap, put it on the new bottle and toss the old bottle. See, I can be pretty practical sometimes (not all of the time though because that would be boring).

Tonight I saved about $15 by buying the tester version and combining that with a coupon and free shipping. I paid about $35 for a 3.3 ounce bottle whereas the best price I could find for the same bottle (non-tester version) was about $50 with a coupon and free shipping.

$15 is definitely worth 15 minutes of research in my book, and I am one lazy lady most of the time. So save your perfume/cologne cap, buy a tester bottle and save some money.

Look, I Can Be Frugal!

My daughter loves macaroni and cheese more than life its self. I only let her have it once in a great while, and when I do make it she could easily plow down a whole box by herself. Since I am a somewhat responsible parent I don't let her but then I always have at least half of the prepared macaroni and cheese leftover which ends up getting thrown away (my son doesn't like macaroni and cheese and I cannot have dairy plus I think saving the leftovers is just plain nasty).

Then I had an idea- why not split the box in half so I'm not wasting my money on half eaten food?

Basically, I just measure out half the ingredients to cook and put the other half of the pasta back into the box and the other half of the cheese mix into it's pouch. For anyone wondering- there are 5 ounces of pasta and 1 ounce of cheese mix in Annie's mac and cheese so I save 2.5 ounces of pasta and .5 ounces of mix for later. Then I tape up the cheese mix pouch, throw it into the box with the pasta and tape up the box where it waits patiently for my daughter's next mac and cheese bender.

See, I haven't totally fallen off of the frugal wagon!

Saved 75% on Boston Children's Museum Passes!

Yesterday the kids and I went to the town library to pick up our passes to the Boston Children's Museum. Whenever we go to the library my kids pick out a huge stack of books and play with all of the toys in the children's room so it is a great (and free) way to entertain them. I do have to say though that I am always very surprised that there are rarely any kids at the library when we go, more people should really utilize this great service!

Back to the museum passes- the passes entitle us to four tickets at the museum for $3 each. This is awesome because the tickets are normally $12 each meaning we would have paid $48 for my family of four to go. With our passes we will only pay $12 which is a savings of $36 or 75%! We are also going to park on the street for free so in my book this will be a very fun, educational and cheap activity!

If you haven't already done so, make sure you check out your local library to see what kind of museum passes they have. Coupons not only save you money on groceries but also family activities!

Bundt Pan Chicken

Tonight I made bundt pan chicken with parmesan bacon potatoes. I know it looks silly but the chicken came out delicious! There is really nothing to cooking a chicken in a bundt pan- you just plop the chicken on the pan, grease it up with some olive oil and cake on some pepper and salt.

As far as the potatoes go I used this recipe for them (less the chicken part of the recipe). Instead of cooking the potatoes for 30 minutes before adding the chicken I put everything in the oven at the same time. I also periodically mixed the potatoes to make sure the ones on top didn't dry out.

We also had parmesan asparagus- well I had it because no one else in my house shares my love for asparagus. The non-asparagus lovers had beets in vinegar instead which i find to be gross.

Here is what the chicken looked like on the plate- a little less silly.

After dinner I took all of the leftover meat off of the chicken to use on Wednesday night for buffalo chicken wraps.

But wait, there's more.

To get even more out of the delicious chicken I decided to make my own chicken stock with it. I put the chicken in a large stock pot and added some onions that were almost expired, a few bay leaves, salt, pepper and some carrots that were in the freezer (they were going bad so I froze them awhile ago). I simmered everything for a couple of hours- it made the house smell wonderful!

I then put a colander into a smaller stock pot, lined it with a plain white paper towel (you should use cheesecloth but I don't have any and paper towels seem to work well for me- I just have to make sure to change them out frequently) and poured the stock through. Once done it looked like this. I let it cool on the counter and when it was cool enough I put it into the fridge. Tomorrow I will skim off any fat and may boil the stock down a bit if I don't think the flavor is strong enough. Then I will freeze it in one cup increments to use in future recipes. Not only is this a very cheap thing to do (most of the stuff I used would have just been thrown away) but it is so much more healthy to make it yourself because you can control what goes into it.

So, from one 5 pound chicken that I paid about $2.50 for (gotta love markdown meat) I will have gotten two really tasty meals and a ton of chicken stock to use in future recipes.

Buying Clothing Ahead

My daughter will be 18 months old in a couple of weeks so I decided it was high time to pull out her 18-24 months clothing from my stash. Throughout the year I buy my kids clothes when I can get them for really cheap and then I store them in plastic bins in their closets.

My son doesn't have a ton of stuff because he is a boy (boy clothes are not very exciting to buy) and his growth has really slowed down so he stays in one size a lot longer. My daughter on the other hand has tons of stuff. I love buying her clothes- I dress rather boring so I am living out my inner fashionista through her. I know that one day she will hate everything I pick out for her so I am taking full advantage of her inability to disagree.

So, here is what I found:

Gap

3 dresses

1 tank

3 long sleeve shirts

2 short sleeve shirts

2 sweaters

3 pants

Old Navy

2 long sleeve shirts

1 shot sleeve shirt

1 hat

Children's Place

1 long sleeve shirt (hand me down)

Gap Outlet

1 pair of pants (hand me down from son)

Target

1 long sleeve shirt

Anything short sleeved will be layered with a long sleeve shirt or a sweater (which is how I get more mileage out of clothing).

My daughter is pretty much set for the winter but if I find more cheap deals then I will get her more stuff. My son is also set for the winter. Yeah for me! Now where is my completely new wardrobe?