Frugal living.

I am working on saving as much as I can so that I can work a "portfolio career" that includes raising my son as much as possible. I have rediscovered my love of baking and now have to deal with my love of baked goods... I have been making cornbread and banana bread (I recommend allrecipes.com ) and will be adding to my repertoire of recipes as time goes on. Cornbread is the easiest bread in the world and I had forgotten how much I love it. the little man will eat bananas and when they go black, he will eat the banana bread that I make. He is a little bit picky so I am working with whatever will go down! It is always less expensive to bake your own and if I could figure out how to capture the heat of the woodstove to use as an oven - then I would be cooking without gas!

I have been making my own laundry detergent and stretching my dishwasher soap. I make a bottle of dishwashing liquid last me a year. Now that they are all super ultra concentrated, I find that i can dilute them quite a bit and still have them be useful. I fill a spray bottle with warm water and add a bit of detergent at a time trying the sprayer in between. I use it to clean the stove and counters. I use it to clean the floor. I spray down my microfiber cloth with a mist of soapy water and it gets the kitchen floor clean. I sweep instead of vacuum and am slowly changing all the light bulbs to energy efficient. And saving the pennies along the way. I don't use dryer sheets but have static reducer cloths that I bought at the community natural food store in calgary. Good for 500 loads as long as you wash them occasionally. I don't use baby wipes. I use a wet washcloth on the poopy bum but diapers are so good nowadays that you don't need to wipe chemicals onto the babe if the diaper is only wet. My son has rarely had any more than a very small and occasional diaper rash and usually a bit of cornstarch will take care of it.

I hope to elaborate on my efforts in the future. I am also working on greening my home... but that is another post for another day.