Cleaning Recipes

Window Cleaner
1/2 cup ammonia
2 cups rubbing alcohol
water
1 tsp. dishwashing liquid

In a one-gallon container, mix ammonia and rubbing alcohol. Fill almost to the top with water. Add dishwashing liquid and mix. Top off with water. Rated by Consumer Reports Magazine to work much better (and much cheaper) than most commercial window and kitchen sprays. Alcohol is the secret ingredient - it's what commercial window washers use.
*Safe on most, but not all, household surfaces.


All Purpose Cleaner
1 gallon water
1 cup ammonia
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup baking soda

Combine all ingredients. Put in a spray bottle to clean showers, toilets, sinks and counters. Great for most cleaning needs.
Use all-purpose cleaner to clean your floors. Just spray on and wipe off as you would counter-tops.


www.LivingOnADime.com

Homeschool Convention

We are going to be at the Homeschool Convention in Wichita this weekend so if you're in town come and visit us!!

Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com

Transferring Credit Cards

We have some credit card debt leftover from when our car died and David was born. The 0% expired and so I called and transfered it to another card. I spent about 30 minutes calling all our cards to see who had the best deal and found a 0% until Jan. 07 with a $70 fee. They wouldn't waive the fee but $70 is still a much better deal than 21%.

This is one of the fastest ways to pay of cards. We would have never been able to pay off some of our stuff we didn't.

Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com

Fireworks

We went to the fireworks on Sat. They were wonderful! We have a River Festival every year and the fireworks are the grand finale.
It's a free event if you don't go crazy buying the food and drinks.

We got there 4 hours early to get a good seat. We took bottles of water and some snacks. We stopped by Big Lots and got the kids a light flag for $1.50 each so they wouldn't be tempted to buy all the cool light gidget gadgets they sell at these things. That way they had something but it wasn't $5 each.
We also bought everyone a .33 candy bar and a pizza and bread sticks from Little Caesars for $7 for dinner to eat while we were waiting. Not healthy but sure tasted good!

I also packed some baby wipes in a baggie that I dumped some alcohol on to wipe the seats in the porta potty and hands after using them. Those things get gross at public gatherings but with kids you really can't just tell them to hold it! :-) If you didn't have baby wipes you could put some paper towels in a bag with some alcohol and water.

We did have a scary moment. David (our 2 year old) walked away and was gone for 5-10 minutes. There was about 10,000 people just in the section we were in so it was hard to find him! Thankfully the lady sitting next to us helped us look for him and found him. Wow, my heart stopped for awhile there!

Next time, we are going to take a picture with the digital camera before we leave or right when we get there so we know what the kids are wearing and can tell and show the police or anyone helping us look what they look like right then.

We are also going to pin his name and my moms phone number on the inside of his shirt. We don't have a cell phone but that way they can call her if we can't find him.

We are also going to all wear one color like red so we can keep track of each other better.

We did have a good time and needless to say thankful we found David.
Tawra

www.LivingOnADime.com

Strawberry Cruncher

My dad came up with a neat idea for mom years ago.

She was cutting up strawberries and my dad (always the inventor) came up with a quicker way to do it. He took an empty sweetened condensed milk can and cut off the top so it has a sharp edge. The we used the can to "crunch" the strawberries into small pieces. Wow, it takes about 2 minutes for chopped strawberries compared to 10 minutes cutting it with a knife!

Tawra (who just got done cutting up and freezing 20 lbs. of strawberries found on sale for $1lb. Yum!)
www.LivingOnADime.com

Good Day, Bad Day, Please go away day.

I'm having "another one of those days". Augh!

Good news- I went to a garage sale today and found new MaryKay makeup for .50 each. I got me some eye shadow, blush, powder, lip gloss and foundation and compact for $5. It was $100 worth of make up. Yeah!
Bad news- My car died and the battery was dead at the same sale.

Good News- a guy was able to give me a jump so I could get home.

Bad News- For 4 nights the 2 older kids have wet the bed. Now last night David took off his diaper and soaked everything! More bedding, stuffed animals, pillows etc. to wash.
Good News- It's gorgeous out so I can hang it on the line.

Good News-We figured out our antenna on our car is broken and won't go down and I think that's what causing the battery to go dead.
Bad News- It's going to be $350 to fix.
Good New- We think we can just discount the fuse and not fix it right now.

Bad News- My savings on the carpet plastic (I paid $1 for it) so Mike can roll around his desk chair just cost me more. It put about 100 holes in my wood floor where it wasn't on the carpet. Augh! I hate this house!

Good News- Kansas City said they will air Mike’s Cowtown video so all of Kansas and ½ of Missouri will see it. All the stations have said it’s excellent production quality.

Bad News- So far the times it’s aired we haven’t had much sales from it and he can’t find anyone to fund it so we may be out $8,000 producing a video as a demo because we can’t find funding. ☹

Bad News- the kids have been fighting like cats and dogs driving us nuts! We have all been tense and feel like we are going to just explode from being cooped up in the house together.
Good News- We told the kids that if they are going to keep bickering then we are going to assume they are tired so they will go straight to bed for the rest of the day even if it’s 7:00a.m.
We did it once (they went to bed at 6:00p.m.) and it stopped the bickering flat! Yeah!!

Good News- I have been praying for the Lord to show me how to be content with this house and living in hot and humid, why would anyone live here Kansas. ☺
Bad News- He teaches how to do that by testing us! LOL

Tawra (who really wishes she could just go away and have a vacation!) :-)
www.LivingOnADime.com

I'm back.

Dear Tawra,

Is everything OK? I read your blog every day (almost) and you have not posted anything lately. How did the garage sale and the TV interview go? You do not need to answer me individually, but please post to the blog and let your faithful readers know that you are OK!!

jackie


HI! I'm back! The sale went ok. We didn't make much. About $75 for mom and I each. Usually we do really so I'm not sure what the problem was. I was doing that Friday and Saturday and then took Sunday off. I got behind on my work so I'm just now getting caught up.

My interview went well. It turned out really nice. We didn't get a lot of orders from it but it was wonderful practice for Oprah! LOL

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. The day before BJ built me a "bench" for my garden out of some scrap wood and Elly "planted" my flowers (with Dad's help) that they got for me for Mother's Day because I was really sick that day and didn't have the energy to do it. Mike also got me a couple of new gnomes for my collection. We just hung around the house and did nothing that day.
Mike got me the funniest card. It was a picture of a lady sitting in a tub on the front and said "Pamper yourself this mother's day, run a bubble bath, light some candles and play soft music....". On the inside it said "and hang this on the door." It was a door hanger that you cut out and said "Go away all of you! Just leave me alone!" LOL I almost died laughing. It had been a particually trying week with the kids fighting and I was pretty much at my wits end so it was just perfect!

We have been working hard tying to get the site up to date and new material written. It's taking us a LOT longer than we had thought. Mom and I are close to getting the organizing book done but every time we think we are close to being done something else pops up and it seems like it's never going to get finished. It's been almost 2 years now since we started working on it and I'm ready for it to be finished. It sure has snowballed! It started out as a 32 page booklet and now it up around 300 pages! We are going to put it in ebook form first and see how it goes.

I've also been working on painting my furniture. I'm working on our kitchen chairs right now. They have been painted about 4 times since we've been married. The paint was peeling so i wanted to fix them up again. I am also recoving the seats. The one I have done so far looks really nice. They were hand me downs from Mike's folks when we got married and have lasted 12 years so far.

That's about all we have been up to this week.

Tawra
www.LivingOnADime.com

We are having a yard sale.

Since we are having a yard sale tomorrow I thought I would post out tips for all the new visitors.

Tawra (who hasn't begun to prepare yet and hopes her born organized mom doesn't read this! :-)

How to have a garage sale

Your objective is to make money while getting rid of stuff in your house.
Here are some tips to make the most of your garage sale.

The spring is the best time to have a garage sale. After a long winter people are ready to get out and find some good deals.

1. Have as many signs as possible. Put one on every major corner, on the corner to house and any needed in between. If it is more than ½ mile from the corner to your house put some signs in between. You really can not make enough signs. Make your signs large!! At least 12 inches but 18-24 is much better. Make it contrasting colors. Black and white are best but other colors such as coloed paper with black will work well. A black permanent marker works best. Be sure to put your address AND an arrow pointing the direction to your house. Make all your signs out of the same material. ie. all of them make of cardboard with white painting. That way people will know it’s your garage sale and know which signs to follow.

2. Check and see if any of your local papers or thrifty papers have free garage sale ads. Put one in if they do.

3. Clean out everything you can so you can have as large as sale as possible. If you don’t have enough stuff to make big enough sale then ask friends, family or neighbors to have one with you. Also give all of your neighbors a flyer telling them when you are having a sale and ask if they would like to have one also. The more sales in one area the more people will come to your sale.

4. Price you stuff LOW. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a garage sale and you can purchase the items brand new on clearance for the same price, even if it is “Baby Gap”. Name brands can let you get by with a little higher prices. I would recommend pricing really nice kids clothes no higher than $1 each and clothes that have stains or are not name brand at .50 or less. Socks and underwear shouldn’t be higher than .10 each. You may think that these prices are too low but please remember than you are getting rid of stuff!! You don’t want to bring it back into the house. You will also get a lot more sales if you prices are reasonable which means more in the long run. If you sell 15 $1 items or you sell 200 @ .25 each ($50 total) you will make much more if you sell the less expensive items. A good rule of thumb is price items a maximum of 10% retail price.
By the way, people who go to yard sales really don’t care if it’s brand new in the box and you paid $80 for it so you “have” to get $50 for it. It has been sitting in your house for who knows how long so you aren’t getting your money’s worth anyway. Price it for $5 and get rid of it!


5. Expect people to ask you to come down on the price. If you feel your prices are very reasonable then don’t come down, but remember you are trying to get rid of stuff so don’t put to high a value on it. If someone asks you to come down on a price and you aren’t ready to at that point ask for their name and number and tell them you will call them if it hasn’t sold and you want to sell it to them at that price.

Swiffer Questions Answered

We had some questions about the Swiffer tip below. Amy was nice enough to answer them.
I hope this helps! Tawra

Dear Tawra,
On the top of the cleaner blade are 4 push-in spots where the overlap of the rag pushes right into the blade. The cloths are wide enough to wrap around and fit into those spots.

The cleaner solution can be anything you want.
Some people are allergic to every chemical cleaner and can't use commercial types. Whatever suits you and is thin enough to pass thru the hose (I have the attached bottle type mop) will work. I started with a mop that didn't have the attached bottle and just sprayed the floor in-front of me as I went.

Some suggestions are:
plain tap- hot water - not boiling!
vinegar + water
water w/ aroma or essence scent (non-oily)
your favorite cleaner watered down (follow manufacture's directions or less)

Reader Question.

Tawra,

I have an inquiry that I would love for you to throw out there, into cyberspace.


I am having some sort of topical allergic reaction. It may be seasonal, altho at 51, I never suffered from allergies before. My doc did say an allergy can spring up at any point in life.

My question is about any sort of homemade relief for very itchy dry skin on my face. At times my eyes itch, as well.

Of course, there is no substitute for sound medical advice and I am in touch with the docs in my life - I have an oncologist, a cardiologist and a GP. The logistics of going to the doc are almost staggering, so I am hoping to come up with a way to control these symptoms on my own.

Christine

Homemade Stain Remover and other tips.

Tawra Jean,

I thought that you might want to share these in your blog. They are ideas that have saved me money.

Homemade Stain Remover For Clothes

In large squirt bottle mix:

1 cup quality liquid laundry soap
1 cup hydrogen peroxide
1 cup white distilled vinegar
1 cup lemon sudsing ammonia

Shake before using. I have not had this take color out of anything that I wash, but you may want to try it on a seam of clothing before applying to the garment. I also have not used it on delicate items.

The other tip is:

To buy a round steak or london broil when they are on sale for less than $1.80 lb. and have the butcher grind them up to make very lean hamburger.

A final tip is:

Once a year when Current Greeting Card Catalog runs there year end clearance, I buy a whole years worth of various cards at once. They usually run their year end clearance in the summer when there are few holidays that involve gifts and cards.

I hope that someone finds these tips useful.

Angel

How many $ have you saved?

We would like to know a dollar amount of what you have saved using our information.
If you have a general idea or an exact amout please let us know.
We were going to try a new way of advertising and I am looking for some real life numbers.

Thanks!!,
Tawra (who is determined to figure out a way to make money doing this! Hebrews 10:36- Never Give Up - LOL)
editor@livingonadime.com

Swiffer Tip

I do enjoy other folks' tail and tips. Here's one of mine.
I bought a Swifter mop with the spray bottle attachment.
Of course I make my own liquid but when it came time to replace the towel scrubber I thaought the price was too much.
I took two washclothes - folded one in half - placed it on top of the other one in the middle an sewed it together on both sides.
After each use I can throw it in the wash and reuse it. I use my washclothes that are frayed and somewhat unsightly so I can recycle them.
Amy S.

www.LivingOnADime.com