Friday, April 17, 2009

Company Girl Coffee


Good morning everyone. Rachel Anne at Home Sanctuary has asked us to post some of the things we do to save money. My list is long. It started 6 years ago when my husband and I did the Dave Ramsey get out of debt plan, this has enabled me to stay home with my kids and while we don't have room for many luxuries in our budget, we do have a good life.

Secondly, I work at the YMCA two shifts a week. Here in Nashville the YMCA is the place to work out, in all of the places I have lived, the YMCA has not had as big of a presence as it does here. The kids are able to go to work with me (free childcare) if I work during the day or they are home with their dad if I get an evening shift. I only work about 8 hours a week, but it pays for our membership, and I get a 50% employee discount on all activities for the kids, i.e. soccer, swimming lessons, karate, and many others.

Coupons. I have been using coupons for most of my adult life and I can't even begin to tell you how much money this has saved us over the years.

Phones. Seven years ago we turned off our land line phone and have not had one since. I was working full time and going to school at night. My husband was working a full time and part time job. We were hardly ever home so cell phones were the answer for us. We also keep our phones for several years (we don't have the latest and greatest phones, but we can use them to call or get calls from others)

Homemade cleaning supplies. About 6 months ago I started making our laundry detergent. I was a little scared of this at first, but now I can't imagine paying that much money for a bottle of detergent that lasts me a few weeks. Our clothes are clean, they smell good, and it costs me about $.01 a load. A word of caution, I tried this with homemade dishwashing detergent and it did not work good. For now I sticking with laundry detergent and hardwood floor cleaner.

Cook from scratch. Almost everything I cook is from scratch and most of those ingredients I got on sale. I use very few box mixes and only when those are on sale and I have a coupon. We also limit how often we eat out. This also is aided by the vegetable garden that we grow every summer.

Here is part of my list. At first, doing these things might seem hard, but if you are looking to save some money they have worked well for us and once they become part of your routine they are easy.


P.S. For anyone interested, I got the laundry detergent recipe from the following website.
http://iamfrugal.blogspot.com/2008/11/homemade-dishwasher-detergent.html

7 comments:

One More Equals Four said...

great ideas! I have just recently started couponing and it has saved us a ton already. I also plan to plant a vegetable garden this year...if the rain lets up long enought to get out there and prepare!

Cheryl said...

Great ideas! I would love your laundry detergent recipe, if you don't mind sharing!

Rachel Anne said...

I'm going to follow the link for the laundry detergent!! I hate spending money on that.

GREAT TIPS!! Thanks so much!

Les & Sweetie Berry said...

How did I miss you are in Nashville...oh my! I would have so come by and hugged your neck! I get simply tickled when I see "Camille" each week and look forward to getting to your new post!
hugs!
Sweetie

Anonymous said...

Sounds great, I'm definitely going to try making our laundry detergent. What a great help, thank you!

Mommahen said...

I think your homemade laundry detergent is a HIT! I'm going to try my hand at it too! Thanks for the link. Have a blessed week.

secondofwett said...

Well, I always seem to be going to the store because we've run out of laundry detergent so I'd love to try your idea out! Thanks.

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