Week 1

While on a surprise two week "vacation" from work I discovered there may be a need for us to watch our spending a little. Turns out in my line of work if you work too hard and too fast you run into the unfortunate problem of having no work left to do. However, I was determined to use this time well and make contributions even if I couldn't financially.

One of the ideas I had to bring more to the table, so to speak, was a weekly "meeting" with The B where we would get together to teach each other something. Didn't need to be extravagant, just as long as we learned something new. Of course it is in our line of living more frugally so we decided to learn how to make some household items.

I chose homemade hand soap! I almost felt like it was a cop-out because this is so incredibly easy I feel a little silly about all the times I spent $4-$5 on a fancy bottle of foamy hand soap!
I found this cool little recipe from Thankyourbody.com. I used "recipe 2" and bam: awesome hand soap! 

I found that my preferred ratio was:
2 tbsp soap
5-10 drops of Orange or Lemon essential oil
Fill rest of bottle with water.

Robin links to a very nice foaming pump style soap container, but I had an empty one available and was happy to reuse/recycle.

The B and I love the smell of this stuff. It's like rubbing a fresh fragrant orange in your hands. My hands don't feel as scummy after washing either. I have found with some commercial soaps there seems to be a layer that decides to stick around. This stuff just leaves me feeling clean!

I would note that this doesn't sud up in your hand as much as the commercial stuff. It's not any less of a cleaning agent, it just doesn't have additional chemicals to give it lots of extra bubbles.

The B brought a recipe for homemade mouthwash. Who knew that was even possible? He found a nice herbal recipe from The Dabblist. It's made in smaller batches so it's easy to keep us accountable. We can tell when it isn't be used and it helps keep us minty fresh and clean.

1/2 c. aloe vera juice
1/4 c. water
1 tsp witch hazel
1 tsp baking soda
10 drops peppermint essential oil

Combine the aloe vera juice, water, and witch hazel in a bottle. Gently add in the baking soda and add the peppermint essential oil, cover, and shake vigorously. Store in a cool, dark  area for up to 2 weeks.

We were able to find our ingredients locally at the health food store, and with how little we used we have enough for many more batches to come. This has a very distinct herbal quality and tastes nothing like commercial mouthwash. On the good side it is not nearly as intense and my mouth feels very fresh and clean after swishing it around. We've almost used it up already so another batch is in our future.

Overall this was a very fun thing to do on a Saturday morning. I like to think of it as our creation hour. Instead of consuming something, we make something new. Very fun!

During this time we also go through the weeks spending and try and see how we did. So far so good. Lots of purchases to be proud of and only a few to consider cutting out. All in all, a win!