frugal tip friday - a little green ball of magic

Happy Frugal tip Friday! I wish I could've blogged earlier but I had an unexpected yoga class this morning and I underestimated how much time being with the new puppy and Lealu. New puppies are a big handful! I'm looking forward to when all this training will show in him. I did teach him to sit and to lay down for sure, like he knows that hands down so thats good! The yoga class was great, I was excited to see about half the class elderly women, which is very cool because they are getting the benefits of yoga! I swear I don't know how Moms raise children and puppies, and take care of a household, and a husband and go to work, I'm in awe! 

Today I want to tell you about an amazing invention that can save you money and help you healthwise. The two don't always go together, so this is just awesome.  Its had some skeptisism but I've used it for about 5 washes and its worked great so far. Its called the green wash ball. And its alittle ball with magnetic balls in that washes your clothes and can take the place of laundry detergent! I know that sounds crazy lol. Magnetic balls that clean your clothes?? Apparently the magnetic balls emit OH ions and O2 ions, which are hydroxides and dioxides. The different ions break down organizing matters, deodorize materials and sterilize. I got my green wash ball after a friend recommended it who was very much into living organically. I've been using it for about 4 weeks now and not only is it green, and saves us $, it also saves space! Living out of bags and trunks right now until we get our house raised (which is scheduled to happen in the few weeks!) its wonderful to keep the green wash ball in the laundry basket and just bring the whole detachable laundry bag to the laundry mat. Its a great frugal alternative to laundry detergent and I definetly recommend it! You can buy them on amazon and see their list of reviews from others there.

Happy Weekend to you!!

ps - I was not given payment in anyway for this review, just wanted to share this awesome frugal find! 

Saving trips to the Laundromat & a Wordless Lealu for Wednesday

Living in an apartment or a condo or a house even, sometimes means you have to lug laundry around to either a laundromat or at least another floor to a laundry room. Making many trips back and forth to the laundromat can take a whole day, and unless you have a padlock to put on the laundry machine, you really don't want to leave your clothes in a machine while you run out to bring clothes home and dirty ones back!  I remember my last apartment where the laundromat was a few blocks away and I had my trusty 84 Toyota Carolla to drive me and carry my clothes. I'd load up the backseat and bring clothes back and forth to my car. By the time I got home, it took me like 4 trips of running back and forth to my car to get everything, and the clothes would be spewed out all over, getting dirty again!  My roommate and I went one time on a snowy Sunday and spent the whole day washing and drying clothes! Forget about trying to take the subway with all my laundry bags. A great way to conserve time as well as gas, is to pack clothes in a way that would allow for the maximum amount of space.  Here is an example of how much room clothes piled high unfolded take up,

 compared to how much room the same amount of clothes rolled up take.

That is a huge amount of space! I might be able to fit a whole other load on top of there! Rolling clothes keeps the clothes from wrinkling and keeps them from being thrown all over a dirty car, as well as gives you the room to fit more clothes than you normally would, which allows for less time needing to go back and forth! I wish someone had sat me down and had a long talk about laundry when I was young, don't you? lol. No but seriously, this really helps the whole laundry situation especially if you're doing laundry where you can't make so many trips.

And here's alittle Lealu snuggly love for ya!

Frugal Tip Friday - Commen Cents Home Guest Blogger talks Laundry!

Today Tina from The Common Cents Home is here to tell you how to make your own laundry detergent!! Detergent, especially the green ones like Eco can run between 12 and 20 $ per container. Below, Tina gives you the ingredients for how to make detergent for under 10$ and again, its totally GREEN and good for the environment!

Hi, I'm Tina and I write The Common Cents Home. I am so excited to be guest blogging here at Simple Travels in My Homeland. Nikki has such great ideas and I have learned so much from her. Stop by and see me!
I am mom to four very active kids who give me a lot of joy but also keep me very busy. I'm obsessed with saving money and doing things as simply and inexpensively as possible. I love doing things the way Grandma did them, but seriously, who has the time to stand in the kitchen all day making pies or washing clothes by hand? I know I sure don't! I've made it my mission to find the easiest and cheapest ways possible to have that old fashioned life-style. At The Common Cents Home I share with you simple recipes, cleaning tips, ideas for family traditions and other inexpensive ideas that make life so much easier. Fridays on The Common Cents Home are dedicating to highlighting favorite things, these are simple things that have rocked my world and I really don't know how I ever survived without them. Come on over. Today on my blog Nikki is sharing one of her favorite things.

This is my method for making homemade laundry detergent.

This is my version of homemade laundry detergent. Now, mind you, there are many different recipes that I've found on the internet and many different reports about them. I'm telling you what I have discovered and what I do, but I in no way claim to be an expert on the matter and I claim no responsibilities for results you may have that are less than satisfactory.
I have been using my homemade laundry detergent for almost four months now and I have been nothing but happy with it. It has done a smashing job of removing both odor and dirt from my clothes, which is considerable in a home with so many little people. My whites have looked white and my colors have been bright.
The recipes that I have found for laundry detergent all list the same three ingredients, borax, washing soda and a bar of soap. When I went looking for those ingredients, I discovered that I was not able to find washing soda anywhere. It is available for order on-line, but I wasn't too fond of the prices I saw attached to it. I decided to research the differences between washing soda and baking soda; they are not at all the same. The two have different chemical compositions. Washing Soda is Sodium Carbonate while Baking Soda is a Sodium Bicarbonate. The nuts and bolts of this is that Washing Soda has an Alkalinity of around 11 (which is why we don't use this in our baking) and Baking Soda has an Alkalinity of about 8.1 (7 is neutral.) This means that Washing Soda is far more caustic or reactive than Baking Soda. Hmmm? This information made me curious and made me want to experiment. I don't necessarily like the idea of washing my clothes in a caustic detergent, doing so would be awfully hard on my fibers (and the word 'caustic' just sounds so nasty.) So, I decided to make laundry detergent using the less caustic but still effective Baking Soda.


My Recipe for Laundry Detergent
1 bar of Zote Laundry Soap
2 cups Baking Soda
2 cups Borax (easy to find in the laundry aisle)

Grate the bar of Zote using food processor. You may need to cut it into a couple of chunks to fit it through the feed hole. After Zote is grated I switch to my processing blade and add in the remaining ingredients. Blend until a fine powder is formed. I store this mixture in a large 1/2 gallon mason jar.
Use 1 Tbs per load of laundry. For a very heavily soiled load I will use a heaping Tbs. This is a highly concentrated mixture and does not create suds. I always use at least the warm cycle on my washing machine. This mixture is also eco-friendly! When comparing this mixture to the very frugal detergent I was purchasing from the warehouse store, I estimate my homemade version costs me less than 1/2 the price per load.

As I said, this has worked wonderfully for me. My clothes smell fresh and clean and I have not had any problems with dirt or stains!

and Happy Friday Follow!