Natural Hair Care With Change To Spare

Unless you are one of those people who buy only the high end, expensive, premium salon hair products then you most likely never consider your shampoo and conditioner as being a major expense. Well you’re right; it’s not a major expense, but it is money going down the drain (pun INtended). Not to mention the harsh detergents and chemicals used on most of these common hair care products. Do you ever stop to think about what’s in your shampoo? Do you ever read the list of ingredients? If you do, you’re probably wondering what half of the “stuff” on that list really is. Well some of it looks pretty good; you might see things like “coconut oil” and “aloe vera”, which are wonderful ingredients and great for your hair. But there are other ingredients too, ingredients like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, or SLS, a surfactant used to clean your hair to its most squeakiness. In a nutshell, it’s what makes your shampoo lather. SLS can be an irritant if you have sensitive skin and actually strip your hair of its natural oils to the point where your scalp may actually overproduce sebum (your hair and skin’s natural oils) to compensate. This is why so many people have to wash their hair every day; their sebaceous glands are going into overdrive! We have come to associate a rich, foamy lather with cleanliness and this just isn’t the case.

You may also see ingredients like Dimethicone or Amodimethicome (cones, as we like to call them). These are basically silicones that coat your hair shaft. Their job is to make your hair look sleek and shiny, and they do their job very well. Shiny hair is healthy hair, right? Not necessarily. If Even if you have not-so-healthy hair, cones do a great job of making it look like it is. You may be thinking “okay, so how is that a bad thing?” Well, dear friends, I am going to tell you how.

Cones coat your hair, making it look oh so pretty and shiny and leave it feeling soft and luxurious. With this comes an added perk, it helps seal moisture into your hair. Sweet! Right? Not really. If it is sealing moisture in, it is also sealing it out, meaning that over time, cones actually deprive your hair of moisture and mask the condition that your hair is truly in. Not so sweet now, huh? But I am here to tell you, no more! Let your hair be healthy and free and rid yourself of SLS’s and cones! Let your hair be frizzy, curly, straight or wavy. Let it be what it shall be, because healthy hair means a healthy you means a healthy attitude! So unless you want to dish out too much dough of expensive organic shampoos and conditioners, pay attention and I will tell you how to have beautiful, natural, virgin hair.

This is a recipe that I found online here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Shampoo/step2/STIMULATE/.  I tweaked it slightly to better suit my fine/thin, limp and oily hair but you can use the original recipe from the website if you like. Let’s get to it!

What you will need:

1/2 cup distilled water

1/4 cup liquid Castile Soap (I went with Dr. Bronner's unscented, but you can use whatever kind you want)

1/2 tsp grapeseed oil

1/8 tsp peppermint essential oil

1/8 tsp tea tree essential oil

2 measuring cups

1 1/8 tsp measuring spoon

1 1 tsp measuring spoon

something to mix the solution with (I used a fork)

a squeeze bottle or dispenser of some kind (an old shampoo bottle works great for this)

WARNING!!! Essentials oils can be extremely dangerous if used improperly. Use with caution and be sure to keep them away from children and pets!!!

Pour 1/4 cup distilled water in one measuring cup, then pour 1/4 cup liquid Castile Soap in the other. IN THE CUP WITH THE CASTILE SOAP add grapeseed, peppermint and tea tree oils. Mix well. It will become cloudy at this point, this is normal. Now add the distilled water to the soap/oil mixture and mix well. Pour mixture into your bottle/dispenser (you may need to use a funnel). Ta da! DIY 'poo! Shake well before use. Use as you would regular shampoo, just don’t expect a rich lather, and the oilier your hair is, the less it will lather.

Now, I recommend clarifying your hair before using ANY new shampoo and conditioner to rid it of product buildup and oils. I suggest using baking soda followed by an apple cider vinegar (ACV) rinse. Don’t worry, your head will not look like a 4^th grade DIY volcano, nor will your hair smell like a salad bar when you’re done. Just add 1 TBS baking soda to every 1 Cup of water (tap water will work fine for this), I usually make up 2 cups of solution, so it’s 2 TBS baking soda and 2 Cups water. Mix very well. Put into squeeze bottle or dispenser of some kind and take it in the shower with you. The ACV rinse is 1 TBS ACV to every 1 Cup of water. I make up about 6-8 cups because I have very long hair and it takes a lot to rinse it all. Mix ACV and water together in a large container and also take it with you to the shower. Wet your hair thoroughly and apply baking soda/water mixture to your ROOTS ONLY, your ends will be clarified by the mixture running down your hair. Obviously it will not lather at all and this will seem weird at first, but it will feel slippery. Massage into your roots for about a minute or so and rinse well with water. Then pour the ACV/water mixture all over your hair starting with the roots, be sure to get it on your ends as well. ACV is very conditioning so it is great for your ends. Let the ACV rinse sit on your hair for about 5 minutes, take this time to do all your other shower duties. Rinse well with plain water, if you want extra shine when it dries, flip your head over and rinse with straight cold water. Some people use this method to clean their hair regularly. I don’t because I find that it is too drying for my hair. This is the cheapest of all methods. you can mix up several batches of this stuff for mere pennies, plus end up having to wash your hair less often thus saving a buck or two on your water bill.

If none of these methods works for you, or you just aren’t ready to give up on your shampoo, pour half of your shampoo into an old shampoo bottle and fill it the rest of the way with water. Diluted shampoo works just as well as full strength, and you’ll save 50% on shampoo!

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack!

Hello everyone!

Yes I know that I have been gone for quite a long time, I am sorry that  I have neglected my blog. Yes I had my baby. Grayson Michael graced us with his presence on May 11th after 38 hours of labor. He weight 9 lbs 9 oz and was 22" long. He is now 8 months old and is the greatest blessing I have ever known. My life has changed so much for the better now that  I have my baby boy to love and hold every day.

Yes I still on my mission to save every last dime I can, but I am not doing the extreme couponing that I was before. Although I did save quite a bit of money when I was doing it, I was running all over town and having to devote more time than I actually had to do it. Funny how just one tiny person can take up so much of your time. I also had to go back to working full time and in an effort to save even more money, my husband and I decided to move in with my family. A little history lesson on my family: We all prefer to stick together and support each other in any situation so we all live in one home and share all of the expenses. In my home there are 10 people, 5 dogs and 4 cats (my parents, my 2 siblings, my brother-in-law, my grandmother, my nephew, my son, my husband and me). My second blog, One Big Blessed Mess goes into more detail about my life and hijinks, you can read more about my family here: http://onebigblessedmess.blogspot.com/. So all of that, on top of having a baby and a husband to take care of, I just don't have time to do the extreme couponing or the space to build a proper stockpile. We have been doing all of our grocery shopping at Aldi and it has been such a blessing. We saved roughly 50% on our monthly grocery bill and it's been great. Couple that with splitting the grocery bill 7 ways and BOOM! Even MORE savings.

I just wanted everyone to know that I am not gone, I am still around, I am still saving money and I plan on posting new blogs soon about some great stuff. Everything from consignment shops, to thrift stores to making your own shampoo. I will also be experimenting this year with composting and growing a container garden. So stay tuned because I've still got plenty of ideas up my sleeves, I am still committed to living a more simple, cost effective, and green lifestyle and I won't stop.

Yet another week in the land of saving!

With the husbeast and I both off, we did our shopping today (I also have 2 prenatal appointments tomorrow and it's almost impossible to schedule much of anything else around that). This week was not a good week for couponing, oh sure I was able to clip a lot of coupons from my 2 Sunday papers, but the coupons I have just didn't match any of the sales this week. This week was also our meat and dairy week so we had to stock up on some things that there aren't many coupons for. We went to 3 stores today: Aldi, Kroger and Publix. Again, it's hard to know exactly how much we saved at Aldi today as everything we purchased from there was full price. But remember, full price at Aldi is cheap, cheap CHEAP! We set a new record today, we did all of our weekly shopping in 1 hour. Oh yeah!

So here are the goods broken down store by store:




Aldi

1 dozen eggs

1 gallon of milk

1 3 lb. bag of granny smith apples

2 3 lb. tubes of ground beef

1 3 lb. package of polish sausage

1 8 ct. pack of hotdog buns

1 16 ct. package of presliced cheese

1 24 oz. jar of salsa

1 15 oz. jar of cheese dip

2 cans of chili

1 8 ct. package of AAA batteries

1 15 oz. bag of plain tortilla chips

1 11 oz. bag of ranch tortilla chips


GRAND TOTAL (tax included): $34.97
TOTAL SAVINGS: Who the heck knows, but it's got to be at least 15%


Kroger

2 1 lb. packages of smoked sausage (B1G1)

GRAND TOTAL (tax included): $4.06
TOTAL SAVINGS: $4.00


Publix

2 all purpose Windex cleaners (2/$5 + 2 $1/1 coupons)

4 16 oz. jars of Ragu alfredo sauce (B1G1)

2 1 lb. boxes assorted Mueller's pasta (B1G1)

4 assorted Taco Bell dinner kits (B1G1)

GRAND TOTAL (tax included): $14.67
TOTAL SAVINGS: $14.88


GRAND TOTAL OVERALL: $53.07
TOTAL SAVINGS (Kroger & Publix only): $18.88

Not too bad, less than $60 for everything we got and we got a fair amount of meat. Our total between Kroger and Publix alone was $18.73, so we saved more than we spent at those 2 stores alone! My mission is to not have to buy anything but milk and eggs when I go on maternity leave. I do not get paid maternity leave where I work, so we will be living on my husbands paycheck alone which would be more stressful if we weren't faced with having to do weekly grocery shopping and spending over $100 on average (eek!). Thankfully those days are long gone, sure there will be weeks when we will spend more than others, but since out stockpile is growing we don't have to buy all the little things every single week anymore. I will try to post pics of our little stockpile sometime this week just to show what we have accomplished so far.

So there to have it, another week in the land of frugal living. Another idea that we will be trying soon (my family is trying it at their house with great success) is cloth napkins. You can buy a whole bunch of bandanas for super cheap and apparently they make GREAT cloth napkins. What a fantastic way to save on paper products! And if you're concerned about the extras cost of washing all the cloth napkins, it's really not when you factor in the amazing powdered laundry soap recipe that my family is using with GREAT results (http://savvybrown.com/home/homemade-powder-laundry-detergent-recipe/ for the recipe). They are actually saving much more than they were spending on paper towels and paper napkins (they have a house full with 8 people living there).

How did you do this week? Any tips on how to live more frugally? Please share!

Week 4 *insert dramatic music here*

*deep breath* So, week 4 on my super frugal journey and still not a bad week. We did some of our shopping at Aldi yesterday and I would say that we saved quite a bit on what we purchased compared to paying full price at a super market. This was a particularly large shopping week for us, we definitely needed to replenish some of our stockpile and needed a few other things as well. We ended up going to 4 stores. Now that may sound like a lot, but when you have a perfectly mapped out plan and you KNOW what you're going to purchase based on sales and coupons, you can get in and out of stores in a matter of minutes. It took us less than 2 hours to do all of our shopping, we spent the most time at Aldi because my husband had never been in there and wanted to see what all they had and what their prices were. I actually did not have any prenatal appointments this week so we were able to focus on shopping and getting it done.

Ok, so let's check out our haul for this week:



Aldi

2 large frozen pizzas

2 cans of "SPAM"

3 bags of assorted variety potato chips

2 boxes of assorted variety granola bars

1 boxed pasta salad kit

1 insulated frozen food bag

GRAND TOTAL (including tax): $20.43 (not bad, eh?)



 Kroger

2 4 ct packs of Scotch Brite sponges

5 tubs of Smart Balance spreadable butter substitute

5 packs of Smart Balance stick butter substitute

GRAND TOTAL (including tax): $20.90

TOTAL SAVINGS: $15.73



 Publix

2 Irish Spring deodorant

2 frozen concentrate juice

1 15 oz bottle Johnson & Johnson baby wash

1 15 oz bottle Johnson & Johnson baby lotion

2 packages 1 lb smoked turkey sausage

10 boxes Barilla assorted variety pasta

5 boxes assorted variety General Mills cereal

2 boxes Honey Bunches of Oats

GRAND TOTAL (including tax and paying full price for the juice and sausage): $27.40

TOTAL SAVINGS: $31.87




Walgreens

2 50 ct packages disposable diapers

GRAND TOTAL (including tax): $9.53

TOTAL SAVINGS: $8.99

GRAND TOTAL OVERALL (retail value): $134.85
GRAND TOTAL SPENT: $78.26
GRAND TOTAL SAVED: $50.59




Not too bad, I'd say! It's hard to know how much you really save at Aldi, but I still could not believe all the food I got for 20 smackeroos! If you deduct Aldi and just want to see how much we spent vs.what we saved with shopping sales and using coupons, we only spent $57.83. So that means we saved almost as much as we spent! Still being able to buy all that food, plus deodorant, plus baby wash/lotion, plus 100 diapers for under $100?! Shut the front door! So the moment of truth has finally arrived, it's time for the Monthly Roundup! This is where I tally up the total retail value of everything purchased over the last month and compare it to what we actually spent so that we can see what we actually saved. When I started out on this crazy venture, my goal was to save $300 a month on groceries, I thought that was a major goal considering the fact that as of right now, it is just my husband and I. So let's see how close I came to reaching my goal.......


TOTAL RETAIL VALUE: $602.11
TOTAL AMOUNT SPENT: $332.66
TOTAL AMOUNT SAVED: $269.45


Wow! I can't believe how close I came to reaching my goal in the first month alone! That's amazing! Now don't assume that my husband and I were regularly spending $600 a month on groceries between the 2 of us. Heck no! We knew that we would probably spend more in the first few months while we built up our stockpile. But to have almost cut that bill it half is amazing, we saved 45% on our grocery bill this month. When was the last time that you save 45% on anything? Let alone your monthly grocery bill! I want to save so much more, but 45% in the first month is a great start in my opinion. 


So how did you do this month? Remember that any savings is a step in the right direction. Share your story!

Holy savings, Batman!

I FINALLY made it to at least one grocery store to get some of my weekly shopping done. Fortunately I work next to Publix which made grocery shopping on my lunch break quite convenient. I must say that I was quite proud of this one, I only paid full price for 4 items which was fine since they were relatively small items. Something fantastic that I discovered recently was the Publix Baby Club (www.publix.com for more details). Basically you just sign up and they'll occasionally send you some great coupons and offers on baby/toddler items, I got some great ones just for signing up. They also send you a nice little magazine with some great information and articles as well. So if you or someone you know is pregnant or has a child under 2, sign up and take advantage of the savings! I signed my mom up for it so that I could get double the savings (shhhhhhhhhh!).

So let's take a look at my loot for today:

1 8oz Beechnut baby rice cereal- Free w/ PBC (Publix Baby Club) coupon

2 New York Style Bagel Crisps- On sale B1G1 + 2 $1/1 coupons

2 boxes Uncle Ben's instant rice- On sale B1G1 + 2 $1/1 coupons

4 Hormel Compleats microwave meals- On sale B1G1 + 4 .55/1 coupons

10 cans of assorted Chef Boyardee- On sale B1G1

1 16oz bottle Pubix cocoa butter lotion- Free w/ PBC coupon

1 16oz bottle Publix rubbing alcohol- Free w/ PBC coupon

1 12oz bottle Publix oatmeal baby shampoo/body wash- Paid full price

1 8oz bottle Publix oatmeal baby lotion- Free w/ PBC coupon WYB (when you buy) Publix baby wash

2 Prego pasta sauces- On sale B1G1

1 small bottle of aloe vera gel- Paid full price

1 gallon of Publix brand milk- Paid full price

1 Stouffers vegetable lasagna- Paid full price (ate it for lunch ;-P)

Total retail price: $60.90

Total amount paid: $25.24

Total saving: $35.45

That's a savings of 140%!!! That's incredible! I have yet to save 140% on my weekly grocery bill, but now I can say that I have. I was in shock at the register, even the cashier congratulated me. I just love saving all this money... Of course what I save is pretty much all going to keep gas in our vehicles *rolls eyes*, I'll be glad when/if the prices go down again. But at least we are able to save money in some areas so that we can take the extra money and put it away for more important things (like paying the midwife) and making sure that the baby will have the things that he needs. How did you do this week? How much of a percentage did you save? Please share! I hope everyone has a great rest of their week and that in this economy and with the price of gas and groceries climbing sky high you are able to save a few bucks somewhere. Good night and happy saving!

Wow what a deal!

Still have not had a chance to make my big weekly grocery trip due to the fact that I had not 1, but 2 prenatal appointments today. One with my midwife (yay!) and one with my ob (blah!), add general house cleaning, laundry, dishes, etc. to that list and you can see that my day has been super busy. I did however check out Aldi today (www.aldi.com to find a store near you), it is basically a store which has no name brand products but the generic brands that they do have are high quality and very low cost. I had never been in there before, but after my mom and sister told me how awesome it was, I let them drag me there today so that we could all check it out together (a family that saves together, stays together :-P). All I can say is WOW! There are some really incredible deals in there! Now one thing I need to tell you about Aldi is that  they do not accept coupons, but their everyday prices on some of their products are so low that for some products, it doesn't even matter. I will definitely be adding Aldi to my list of stores to hit up every week.

I didn't get a whole lot, but let me share what I did pick up today:

1 5 lb. bag of grapefuits- $1.69
1 72 ct. box of baby wipes- $1.39
2 large frozen pizzas- $3.69 ea.

Grand total (no coupons, no sales)= $10.72!

I can't believe that I was able to find a 5 lb. bag of grapefruit for under $3.00! All of their produce was VERY reasonably priced and most of it was grown right here in the USA (if that means anything to you. I prefer to eat as locally grown as possible), they had 16 oz. containers of strawberries for 99 cents! If I wasn't allergic to strawberries I would have grabbed as many as I could, lol. Also, my husband really loves pizza and we used to spend anywhere from $6.00-$9.00 for just 1 large name brand frozen pizza. I think that this is a great frugal step in the right direction! I encourage everyone to check out their local Aldi (if there is one in your area), you just may find some really great deals there.

Oh, and if anyone was curious, my appointments went well. Baby Grayson and I are healthy, happy and right on schedule for the big day!

Quickie post but great savings!

So this isn't my big "look at all my stuff" weekly post, this one will just be a quickie but I am so stoked that I can't hardly stand it!

Yesterday my husband and I were walking around Target (had to pick up a few items for a baby shower that I am attending tomorrow) when we found a very fairly priced car seat & a shelf that we can use in the nursery. So after using my handy dandy smart phone to check the reviews and safety ratings on the car seat (I'm such a nerd, I know) we decided that this was a fantastic deal for the quality and I wouldn't have to worry about my son not being safe. So what did we spend on a brand new car seat and 3.5' tall 3 shelf unit? Our grand total (before tax) was $55.99! The car seat was on sale for $39.99 and the shelf was on sale for $16. Personally I think that this is a pretty hot deal if you ask me, I don't know many people who purchased a brand new car seat for under $100.

Everything is coming along, we got the nursery painted and all we need now is for the crib to arrive. We are so excited! Will post pics when it's complete. I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend, I hope the weather wherever you are isn't as miserable as it is here. It's been chilly and drizzly all day and it's still raining at 11:30 PM. Yuck!