Homemade Halloween

   Halloween costumes from the party store or even Wal-mart can be expensive and they are made like crap. Of course you can always order your high-quality, custom Halloween costumes from Etsy for $250. (Shreek) I suggest getting creative, buying material or parts and pieces from thrift stores  to make your own at home. I did exactly that for Grady's first Halloween. We were the Neverland gang - Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and Captain Hook.
   Grady's Pan costume: I bought a small amount of green jersey knit material ($3), a roll of paracord for the lace on his tunic and to make his belt out of ($4). I bought a little toy knife at Target ($6) - which he'll play with for years I'm sure. Using a shirt that currently fits him, I traced the material to form a tunic style. Cut along the lines and sewed with a simple stitch on my Singer. Snipped little holes in the v-neck cut and threaded the cord.

   Originally, I really wanted a green elf-style hat like Pan wears but I looked high and low and gave up when I couldn't find one. While digging through by sewing bin, I found some old Christmas stocking material in the perfect color green. It was literally just a scrap but large enough to make a child's head sized triangle. Score! I cut a triangle with a rounded bottom, sewed 2 sides and flipped it inside out. Done. This perfect little hat was FREE and my favorite part of the costume!  

 

Here is the finished product! A pretty sweet little Peter Pan costume!

 

 

 

   My Tinkerbell costume: I bought 4 rolls of green tulle on sale to make a tutu. I had elastic for the waistband already. As motherhood would have it, I ran out of time and energy to make my tutu and abandoned this part of the costume. I returned the tulle and got my $16 back. I had a green sundress that worked just fine for a mom Tinkerbell costume. I did buy white glittery wings at Target for $8. I snagged a very comfy, broken-in pair of flats from the thriftstore (because if I have to walk around the neighborhood all night I don't want sore feet and blisters) and spraypainted them mint green. At Hobby Lobby I found these awesome pom poms perfect for Tinkerbell shoes! Altogether the shoes, paint and poms were $12. I swear I will wear them to Disney one day and be the envy of every other cool mom.

   Ian's Hook costume: This was pretty easy. I found a red winter coat at Good Will for $5. I had seamstress tape (you iron and it sticks) and bought a roll of black velvet ribbon for $2.50. I added the black velvet trim. It looked **sort of** like a pirate coat but not exactly since I ran out of time and never got the giant gold buttons to finish it off. He didn't wear it. (I am committed to finishing the pirate coat and he WILL wear it for a future Halloween!) I had a few pieces of black material I ripped into strips to make a dew rag and sash. Bought a pirate hat at Target for $10. I had a heavy duty gold costume jewelry chain that looked like Mr. T. or a pirate. He agreed to wear that since he would not wear the coat.

The finished product - the Neverland Gang!



Lots of Laundry...and Soap!

   I have been making my own laundry soap for about 2 years now. It is incredibly easy and inexpensive. The laundry soap method has been on the blog in the past but my most recent batch is my biggest ever! I'm pretty proud of it. I saved about $200 on a 2 year's supply in just one hour. Here's how it works:

Ingredients:
20 Mule Team Borax powder
Arm & Hammer washing soda
bar soap of choice

* There are 10 variations of the recipe depending on the concentration and consistency you prefer. Find them all here at TipNut.com

My preference is a liquid that turns gel after sitting overnight.
My favorite recipe: 2 cups Borax, 2 cups A&H Washing Soda, 2 bars soap per 5 gallons of water.

Grate the bars of soap into shredded pieces.

I purchased a case of 20 bars of soap at Sam's Club for $7.89. That's $.39/each bar or $.78 per 5 gallon recipe.

I knew I was going to make a 25 gallon recipe so I grated 10 bars of soap at one time and then just measured it out for each 5 gallons.

In a large stock pot, bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Add the shredded soap and continue on a low boil until pieces are completely melted.

 

Meanwhile, fill a 5 gallon bucket with hot water and disolve the powder ingredients. Tip: Crush the clumps in your hand before dumping into water. Once in the water, they don't disolve well on their own and the water is too hot to reach in and mess with it then.

 

 

When the soap on the stove is melted and ready to add to the bucket, dump entire contents of stock pot into the bucket and stir until evenly disolved. Continue to fill the 5 gallon bucket with hot water.

 

If your kitchen looks like this in the middle of the process, don't worry! You're doing it right!

 

I had saved - with the help of my dad - a bunch of heavy duty containers with handles, perfect for laundry soap. I only have two 5 gallon buckets for max holding of 10 gallons so I needed more contatiners! Sunny D jugs make the best reusable jugs because the labels come off really easy and they are very durable. Arizona tea jugs too. Regular milk and water gallon jugs tend to be made of plastic that's too thin and will crack and leak over time. I used a large funnel to pour from the big bucket to the smaller jugs. The end result was a year supply of laundry soap for our house and my parents' house.

The average gallon of detergent costs $9. That would be $225 for the 25 gallons I made for under $20 (case of bar soap, 2 boxes each of washing soda and Borax.) If you're buying laundry soap at the store, you are literally throwing money down the drain!

 

 



 

Target's New Craze: The FREE Gift Card

   Target is getting highly competitive with other major retailers in the grocery, household products, cleaners and baby supply industry. It is worth it to you to check out their new system! They are featuring free $5-10 gift cards with the purchase of a certain amount of select items. My savings today was more than $50!
   I went in specifically for diapers and hair products. I had coupons for only these things and my stock at home was running low. I had the following coupons

• $2 off Pamper's (Target Baby Club)
• 2- $1.50 off Huggies diapers (Sunday paper)
• $1.50 off Huggies wipes (Target Baby Club)
• $3 off Huggies diapers (Target Baby Club)
• $5 off a #Tressemme purchase of $15 or more (Sunday paper)
• $5 Target gift card for an $15 Tresemme purchase (Sunday paper)
• $10 off a $40 purchase of items including Tresemme, Cottonelle and Schick (and several other brands) (Sunday paper)

Then, while I was in there, I saw #Huggies diapers advertised "Buy 2 boxes, get a $5 gift card". AND the Tresemme products offered a "Buy any 3 get a $5 gift card." I was buying Huggies and Tresemme anyway!! Another sweet score was the #Pampers diapers had a "Buy 2 boxes get a 504 ct. case of Pampers OR Huggies wipes free". The wipes were valued at $10.99 and they were free and I still used my $1.50 in coupons. So at the end of the day, I bought 4 cases of diapers, 4 giant bottles of shamp/cond, 2 packs of razors, 18 ct. toilet paper, a free case of wipes and saved $50.

P.S. If you are not using the #Cartwheel app for #Target savings, you need to start! Unfortunately today, there were no extra deals for the items I needed, but usually there are several I can use. The single barcode for all your coupons makes checkout a breeze and the savings are in addition to all your hard copy coupons.

Coupons for Prescriptions

   Prescriptions can be expensive, even if you have health insurance. Especially if you take one (or more) that are on the non-generic, non-preferred list. My birth control of choice happens to fall into this catagory. I have tried several kinds and most pills make me a moody bitch with other side effects that are not pleasant. I'm a fan of and advocate for the Nuva Ring. It is a low hormone dose and much more convenient than taking a pill every day. It works for me. But it's EXPENSIVE. Wicked expensive. $110/month! I'm telling you at this rate, it is cheaper to not have a child than to have child. (Okay, that is probably not accurate. But you see my point.)
   I was on this prescription before I had my son and I remember it being pricey but not THIS pricey. I called the pharmacy and the insurance company to see if it was my coverage that had changed or the price of the Rx that had gone up. The price went up AND my coverage went down. Super. I did not see how I could justify spending that kind of money on a non-life-saving medication. I asked my best friend, who happens to be a pharmacist for Walgreens, if she had any suggestions. She told me to check the manufacturer's website for coupons. Sometimes they have them - not just for birth control but a lot of non-generic Rx companies offer coupons so the product is more affordable and therefore selected over others that treat the same issues. At first I thought, "A Rx coupon? How much could it possibly be for... $10?" It would still be too expensive. I checked the Nuve Ring website anyway and BOOM! $50 off. Not just once...every month for up to 12 uses. After 12 uses you just print another coupon! Holy smokes! I literally printed the coupon and called in my Rx the same day. A $50/month savings. That's $600 a year.
  Lesson here: If you are on a non-generic, non-preferred Rx, go to the manufacturer's website and scout it for coupons.
  

Cut Years and Thousands Off Your Mortgage

   It seems like I'm always waiting until the last minute to pay the mortgage bill; mostly because Wells Fargo is not a found vendor on my Regions online bill pay options. So I have to snail mail them a check every month like the cavemen did. At least twice now, my check has been "lost in the mail" and not made it to WF on time. To settle the most recent debacle, I called and spoke to a lovely lady who educated me on automatic bill pay. This woman's advice is saving us $30K. Here's how:
   When you enroll in automatic bill pay, WF splits your mortgage payment into 2 equal bi-monthly payments (every 2 weeks). The most practical option is to select payday as your transaction date so you can be sure there is enough money to cover the automatic withdrawl. Not only does this save me time and hastle, but lots of money. Twice a year, there are THREE paydays in the month. Therefore, there will be three (1/2) mortgage payments in those months too. The first two would be regularly accounted for. The extra one, goes 100% to principle. Since this happens twice, it's like a full month's mortgage payment going directly toward the principle of your loan. We already round up to the nearest 100 when paying our mortgage so we pay it off a little early, but this is making it that much faster.
   So by making an entire mortgage payment extra each year, we are expected to pay our home loan off NINE years early, saving us $30K in interest. This is crazy easy and there is absolutely no reason anyone should not be doing this!

For those of you comprehend things better with an image, here's a cool infographic!

Streaming Savings

    When we first launched this blog in an effort to save $10K in a year, one of the first things we did was get rid of home internet. That saved us about $50/month. Honestly we have not missed it much in the last 2 years. With internet access at work and on our smart phones, there really was no need to have it at home.
   Advances in techonology have changed the game. You can now stream shows and movies from your TV using Netflix, Hulu, etc. We have had several friends cancel their TV packages and just use these new avenues to watch home entertainment. We hardly every watch live TV - everything is DVR'd anyway and we watch days or weeks later. (We are busy parents) Our smart phones have hotspot capabilities so we can watch Netflix on the laptop while connected to the hotspot. The problem with that is it drains your data allowance very quickly if you're watching a lot.
   
Here's how the game has changed in our favor and you can save some money:

YOU CAN'T GET ALL THIS :(

   Our current Dish Network package runs us $92.50/month. You can get **almost** all the same movies and shows by streaming with Netflix and Hulu. There are a few you can't get that might break your heart like Discovery. My husband is an avid fan of all things Alaska, digging and axing so this would be a gut punch.

You will need unlimited internet usage to do this or you will likely go over every month if this is the primary way you are watching TV. Comcast, Cox and Brighthouse offer comparable internet service for around $40/month plus tax. This is JUST for internet, no phone or TV service. Although you will get basic cable channels - they are required by law to provide news in case of emergency, evacuations, etc.

YOU CAN GET ALL THIS! :)

Netflix will run you anywhere from $8-12/month depending on which options work for your needs. The Roku device is about $50 but this is a one time purchase. There is no reoccuring fee with the Roku.

For around $60/month you can watch unlimited movies and shows using this method. Let me say this in closing. All of this research was done in vain because none of the internet providers I mentioned service our address. The only one that does (Marion County Cablevision), charges a lot more for the unlimited internet package and you have to pay for 100 channels you can't even DVR. So we would end up paying much more for TV than we currently pay with Dish. Booo. But I hope this post is helpful to some of you who CAN get service from one of those providers!

The Greatest Love/Hate Relationship Story of All Time

   Long before I got pregnant with Grady, a good friend of mine  - a fulltime working mom of two -
inspired me. She is a fantastic mother in many ways. The kind you watch in awe of and think to yourself, "I hope I handle a temper tantrum with that much grace, love and effectiveness when I'm a mother" kind of admiration. She breastfed both of her girls until they were a year old. Every day she stopped by my desk on her way to or from pumping. I had absolutely no real understanding of the level of dedication this involved. (She is now nursing her brand new THIRD angel baby girl :) )
   When I got pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed and I set my goal at one year - recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for optimal growth, development and allergy deterrence. In addition to all those benefits, there is no greater bond between mom and baby than the one established during nursing. The double bonus is the average formula-fed baby consumes about $1,800 in formula in one year. So I consider that we saved that amount by breastfeeding this long.
   Because I work full-time, the only way I was able to succeed at this was by pumping. My pump of choice was the double-electric Medela in the back-pack style bag. **Shout out to Christina Jett for getting me a donated pump from a close friend! I saved $300 there. (I bought all new parts, attachments and tubing. Essentially I was just using the motor and bag second-hand, so don't be grossed out.) The other key piece here is a safe and private location to pump. I work in a building full of cops but luckily our purchasing department is run by some awesome ladies who loaned me their storage closet, electric outlet and a comfy chair twice a day for 9 months.
   I love that I have an amazing bond with my son. I love that we saved $2,000 by sticking with boobie milk. I love that my son has excellent health and no known allergies. But breastfeeding - pumping in particular - had its challenges...moments of frustration, tears, exhaustion, pain and defeat.
   Unless you nurse exclusively, which is impossible as a working mom, you will have to pump. Anytime you're away from the baby, you are with your pump. A trusty side kick. I pumped just about anywhere you can think of. Storage closets, hotel rooms, the bathroom stall inside a church, a locker room at an Emergency Operations Center during training, friends' guest rooms, the back and passenger seat of cars, a Luke Bryan concert, the driver seat stuck in traffic in the pouring rain, and even the bow of a boat during a fishing tournament. It would surprise you how discretely us ladies can get with all that practice! We find our life revolving around our full and leaky boobs. And our pump bag. Wash the parts. Pack them up. Are there batteries in there in case I can't find an outlet? How many milks storage bags do I have left...
   On a few occasions I forgot pieces I needed or forgot the bag alltogether and had to stop what I was doing mid-morning and go all the way home to get it. You cannot just keep working and take care of it later. There is no later. We live and die by the nursing/pumping schedule!! Then there are the days when your schedule is so jam-packed you realize you've gone 5 hours instead 3 without relief and you are DYING to have a rendezvous with that tiny dreaded machine.
   Grady is now eating "food food" including an embarassing amount of cheese and carbs...just like his mother. No judgement. At this point in motherhood, it makes me both elated and slightly depressed to say I am ending this relationship with the black back pack. I will no longer be the bag lady dragging in my purse, pump bag and lunch box cooler to keep the milk cold. I will just carry a purse!! ::happy jig::

I KNOW other working nursing moms feel this way. Stay strong! It is awesome for you, baby and your wallet. A hilarious article --->  Why Working Moms Are Frenemies with Their Breast Pumps