Monthly Challenge: May Wrap-up/June Challenge

May Challenge: 

"Do not shop the same place 2 times in May. If I do repeat, I must get something different than I usually do."

That doesn't sound difficult, but when you add in not shopping at the same grocery store, department store, restaurants, etc, it gets to be challenging.  It took some planning ahead and being conscious of my decisions. 

I am a creature of habit. I go on autopilot and don't even notice that I am going somewhere too much and getting the same thing every time until the employee goes ahead and tells me my order before I even get to the counter. Some call this good customer service to remember your regular customers. I call it a sign I have a problem.

So for the month of May, I decided to remove repetition from my life. I succeeded in only shopping 2 restaurants 2-3 times and got different items each time, but ate at quite a few new places that I will eat at again. I didn't shop at a grocery or department store more than 1 time each. 

I also didn't watch CNN. Haha! In the month of April, news channels decided to air 24/7 coverage of the airplane crash and the ferry sinking. These were disasters that needed to be talked about, but the endless speculation when we had no more info then when we had last week got old fast. I love CNN, and read their app every day before starting my day, but it became repetitive and we needed to separate..."it's not me, it's you" kind of separation. 

June's Challenge:

"All cash, all the time"

Except for bills, I will be using all cash in the month of June. Challenge! Supposedly, when you use cash, you spend less. Something about it being "real" money then just swiping your play card and getting stuff. This will be challenging to balance what I have in my wallet with what I want to buy. I also can't remember the last time I paid cash for gas. Not even sure of the proper procedure for that! 

We shall see. Have a great month!

Essentials: Laundry (Part 3)

I posted earlier about how to make homemade laundry detergent and a homemade washer. The next step is to actually use these in a non-emergency run to get some of the issues found and resolved before I HAVE to do this during an emergency.

My grandma once told me that there is no excuse for someone to not have good hygene, soap doesn't cost that much! Laundry can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Going through the different videos and posts on the subject, I can see a large range of suggestions on what the "basics" are. 

To wash clothes you need water, something to hold the water, some kind of detergent, and something to agitate the water (a stick, plunger, your hands, washboard, etc). With the previously posted handmade washer ("Essentials: Laundry Part 2") we have these elements ready. 

I have had some experience with manual clothes washing, or at least the drying part. While I lived in Japan for a year, it was common for a family to have a modern washer but no dryer. So they had drying racks they would place just inside a screened door to allow some breeze and sun to dry the clothes. I always found it a bit odd that the clothes came off the rack really stiff but I hear that is because there wasn't enough breeze getting to the clothes to stop the stiffness. 

(Before I did a load in my washer, I did a dry run to make sure the plunger wouldn't release a bunch of black rubber in the water, and make sure the holes allowed for good water flow).

I filled the bucket about 1/3 full of warm water. Placed 2 gym shirts, 2 gym shorts, and a pair of socks in the water with 1 Tbsp of my homemade detergent. Since they were sweaty gym clothes, I let the clothes soak for an hour. Then I plunged the clothes vigorously for a few minutes (the lid helped keep the water in the bucket, but if I didn't have the lid I could just do this in the bath tub). 

Then I drained the water. Rung out the clothes a bit. Then filled the bucket 1/3 with warm water again but no detergent. Plunged the clothes for a few more minutes. Then drianed it again. I repeated that step again so I rinsed the clothes 2 times total.

After the second rinse, I rung out the clothes as best I could to get as much of the moisture out as possible. 

Now for the drying. I do not have a drying rack, it takes up space and is not very multifunctional other than to dry things. If I were going to always handwash and line dry my clothes, I would invest in one. My HOA would frown upon my stringing some trees with nylon and hanging my clothes in the Florida sun unless disaster struck and we all HAD to do it that way. They also would frown at having my garage door up and stringing it in my garage. So indoors was the way to go this time. But where? The shower rod wasn't big enough. There is a real lack of locations to string rope in a house. So I got an ingenious idea! I flipped my ironing board upside down and strung the rope around the legs! Perfect temporary solution!

I laid some dirty towels and a trash bag on the bottom because no matter how much you ring out the clothes, within 5 minutes, they are dripping. Then I draped the clothes over the strings. The ironing board barely fit the 6 objects I washed.

 But it got the job done. 

So thoughts? I was looking in the garage for potential hanging locations and those are rare even in the garage. I was thinking for bigger laundry needs, having a couple garage strings would be nice and might catch a breeze better. I might try those stick on hooks to see if the nylon will stay on those hooks (because the hooks seem pretty shallow and the nylon might just slip off). I would also need to see how much weight it could support and for how long. If that didn't work, maybe premarking where studs are and then having some eye hooks in the hurricane kit might be a good idea. Don't really want to put holes in the walls unless absolutely necessary.

Also heard that adding vinegar to the first rinse will soften the clothes and not leave them smelling of vinegar. So I might try that to see how it goes. Indoor line drying does not allow a breeze to soften the clothes, so they are slightly stiff once dry.   

Essentials: Laundry (Part 2)

Last week, I posted about homemade laundry detergent (powder). I promised to post about a handmade washing machine, so here it is.

Now, I personally feel that a handmade washing machine is a bit of a radical step. However, I do think it is important to have this in my back pocket for emergancies, such as long times without power (hurricanes or ice storms). This would also be good for camping or off the grid living. Having the materials and knowledge to execute a plan B gives peace of mind during extreme situations.

So here is the premise of a handmade washing machine. 

Materials:

CLEAN plunger

5 gallon bucket (with a lid, preferred)

Sharp knife to cut holes

BE CAREFUL with the knife. Rubber and plastic are not the easiest things to cut into.

Take the plunger and carefully cut out the rubber inner ring. Then along the side walls, cut quarter size holes (about 4-6 holes). The plunger will be your agitator. 

If you have a bucket with a lid, cut a hole in the center of the lid just larger than the plunger handle. This will allow you to be more vigorous with the agitation without getting so much water everywhere. 

That is all there is to it. I am planning on using my 5 gallon bucket as a dual purpose washing machine and laundry soap making bucket. The instructions for the liquid detergent isn't supposed to have a hole in the lid, so I was planning on buying a sink hole cover to place on top of it whenever I plan on making detergent. It is usually used to keep sink water in the sink if you don't have a stopper. I think it would serve the purpose I need it to (we shall see since I am still trying to collect the 10 laundry detergent bottles before I try making liquid detergent. That may take awhile.) However, I saved the hole I cut out of the lid and taped it to the side and want to see if it will work ok just taped over the hole. This will save me money and resources. I will let you know how that goes once I make the soap.

If I find myself in a situation that calls for saving money, this method has potential. Being that I expect at a laundromat to spend about $39 per month. That is $468 per year in savings. Combine this with the savings of making my own laundry detergent (about $125). That is $593 of savings per year! That is amazing savings! 

If I pay $50-$100 extra to have the washer and dryer in my apartment, that is $600-$1200 extra per year. Plus about $146 in electricity charges for running them for a year (I looked up cost estimators online to come to that total. Estimated 3 loads per week). So choosing an apartment without a laundry room would save $746-$1346 per year, plus homemade laundry detergent is a total savings of $871-$1471. It all adds to some significant savings in the long run.

I will have a future post on actually using this method since just making the washer does not automatically lead to knowing how to use it and what it takes to get a load from start to finish.

Essentials: Laundry

So I have been pondering needs and wants lately. I work in retail and it amazes me how much people confuse those two items, a need and a want. 

We say we need a dishwasher because their's just broke. Need a washing machine and dryer. Need a 70 inch TV. Need a new car because their's is 3 years old. 

In reality, we WANT these things because they make our life easier to manage. If we are honest with ourselves, we need to clean our dishes for sanitary reasons. A sponge, hot water, soap, and our hands has got the job done for hundreds of years. 

We want to put our clothes in a couple of machines and presto! Clothes are done and ready for our wardrobe. We don't want to put them in a 5 gallon bucket with some soap and a plunger and agitate water. Dump it. Rinse it. Ring it out. Then clip it on a string outside and wait a few hours to dry in the sun. 

We deminish our intent when we mix up need and want. We say things like, "I need to pick up a grill for my husband for father's day." Instead of, "I want to pick up a grill for my husband for father's day." The first statement sounds like a chore. Something on a list. Something that is beyond our control. If I don't do it, something bad will happen. The second statement sounds like a choice you have conciously made. Something that thought went into.

We seem to fill our life with chores, and not choices, or at least that is what we put out in the world when we mix up needs and wants.

So I got to thinking about what I mix up as a need and want. So this week I started thinking about laundry (I know you are thinking, the title says Laundry, when are we getting to laundry?) Washers and dryers, in today's society, seem to be a need. If you don't have it in your home, then you probably go to the laundromat and pay money to wash your clothes there. In contemplating moving out on my own, I contemplated whether I needed a washer and dryer in my residence or if I could live with shlepping it to the laundromat. I didn't even consider there being an alternative. I considered the upgrade charge of getting an apartment with a washer and dryer which averaged about $50-$100 more. I also considered that that would cost extra electricity. I considered the price of going to a laundromat, gas, time, expense, planning ahead, and the inconvenience of not doing laundry while I slept. Monetary cost was about $1.25 per wash load, and $2 per dry load. I average about 3 loads a week. This would be $39 per month. 

So I began to think what my ancesters would have done. They didn't have washing machine and dryers. They had clothes lines and wash boards. While in Japan, my host family had a washer and then dried the clothes on drying frames that they placed in front of a screen door. Could I do something like that at my apartment? 

I researched manual washing machines and came up with the design for a washing machine made out of a 5 gallon bucket and a plunger (I will write more on that at a later date.) 

The manual washer seemed a severe first step at getting back to basics. So I aimed at reducing another big cost to laundry; laundry detergent.

I found a recipe for homemade powder laundry detergent. The items I needed:

One time charges:

Coffee scoop: $1.67

Cheese grater: $7.97

5 gallon bucket: $2.97

Lid for bucket: $1.17

Total One Time Charges: $13.78

Ingredient charges:

Borax (1 box): $3.97

Oxyclean versitile stain removed (1 container): $7.52

Baking Soda (1 box): $2.24

Super washing soda (1 box): $3.24

Zote soap (2 bars): $1.94

Total Ingredient Charges: $18.91

Estimated monthly for homemade laundry detergent (powder): $1.58

Sale price of brand name liquid detergent: $11.99 (that's the "yeah, it's on sale!" price). That lasts my family of two about 1 month.

One year worth of liquid detergent: $143.88

That is a savings of $10.41 per month and $124.97 per year!

How to do it:

1) Leave the Zote soap unwrapped overnight. It will be easier to grate.

2) Grate the Zote with the fine side of the grater.

3) Most instructions suggest layering the ingredients in a 5 gallon bucket and then stirring until well mixed. I thought putting the mix in a trash bag would be less work and reduce the possiblity of breate in the powders. This method worked out great! I would use a lawn and leaf bag instead of a regular bag because it will probably hold up better. So place the Zote soap, Borax, Super Washing Soda, Baking Soda, and Oxyclean in the trash bag.

4) Twist the top of the garbage bag. Then start squishing the bag in order to mix the ingredients. Continue mixing until well combined.

5) Place combination in whatever container you would like.

Each load=2 tablespoon (how much a coffee scoop holds)

They say that if you have sensitive skin, leave out the oxyclean. If you like scented soap, they now have scented crystals that can be mixed in.

Additional Note:

The oxyclean powder was the largest expense in this recipe. Since I have sensitive skin, I would personally leave out the oxyclean. That puts my cost at $11.59. If it lasts a whole year, that would be $0.95 per month. A savings of $11.04 per month over liquid detergent. $132.48 per year.