The Porch Light copyright by Revka (2006-2010). All rights reserved.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Frugal tips and tricks

With 3 kids and one income (other than the little I make teaching piano), I am always looking for new ways to stretch our money and make do. I'm sure there are a lot of people in the same boat. Here are a couple of my favorite frugal "recipes." I got both of these from a Yahoo! group to which I belong: frugalfamilies_ncsc

Basic Wood cleaner & polish

1/8 cup oil (either linseed, olive or vegetable)
1/8 cup vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice




Laundry Detergent stretcher
1-2 tbsp borax
1-2 tbsp. baking soda
1-2 tbsp. of liquid detergent

You can mix the borax and baking soda half and half and keep it in a tub; then just scoop 2-4 tbsp. of the mix as needed depending on how dirty your laundry is. Start the water in the washing machine, put in the borax and soda mix and add 1-2 tbsp. of liquid detergent, then put all the clothes in. This works REALLY well and makes the detergent last much longer.

5 comments:

Revka said...

You are quite welcome for the tips. I know I will be posting more as time goes by - don't want to exhaust them all at one time ;) Thanks for the link love; that's kind of you. Come visit any time. I'm glad to have you here.

Revka said...

tulipgirl, thanks for the additional info. I really appreciate new recipes and will check this one out, especially since it comes highly recommended ;) (Don't worry - it doesn't hurt my feelings if someone doesn't agree with me. In fact, I find that I often learn something new when that happens.)

Revka said...

BTW, the deleted comment was my own. I saw that I had misspelled "appreciate" and immediately trashed the whole thing. I didn't realize it would show up. Now everyone knows how perfectionistic I am when it comes to me and spelling. YOUR mistakes are fine, but not mine! OH, NO!!! *grin*

Sarah E. said...

Do you add any extra laundry detergent to a full load of laundry or is that all? I've always just used the amount of laundry detergent that is recommended plus add a scoop of Oxiclean. I've bought the Borax and baking soda to mix so I'm ready to give your recipe a try.

Revka said...

Sarah, I only use the 1-2 T of detergent that the recipe says, and I almost always wash large loads. I keep a measuring spoon on the shelf with my powders and use the same amount of all three ingredients. My clothes come out smelling fresh :)