Thoughts on Frugality and Being "Green" - Part 1

I have blogged much about our journey to healthier eating. I am truly thankful I have been able to initiate positive change in this area, (not that we have "arrived" at any sort of official destination; we are still very much on a journey) yet in recent months I have begun to ponder what many of these changes have meant to our grocery budget. A very few have reduced our budget, like making our own bread, but most have increased our budget - in some cases dramatically. It's happened slowly over time. A few cents for this product, a dollar for that one. It all adds up...really quickly.

Our grocery budget is definitely higher than I want it to be but I just haven't been able to reduce our expenditures enough to really make a difference. I've always tried to be careful with money. I've cut coupons for years. I try to stock up on items when there is a good sale. I make a monthly trip to Wal-Mart to get items that never have coupons and are significantly cheaper there. I have switched to generic products for 80% of what we buy. I even did Grocery Game for 18 months. Still our grocery bill has risen over the years. Then I saw a thread on the message board I frequent that talked about frugality and I was intrigued. There is a whole world out there of others on this quest to be frugal who are sharing their insight and wisdom - websites, message board and blogs. Who knew?! ;) This is a new area of learning for me. I'll blog more about changes we've made in Part 2.

Another area I have been noodling on (love that expression - lol!) is living "green". Eliminating chemicals from our diet has been very expensive so when I began researching how to get rid of them from the rest of our lives - at least the ones in my control - I have been delighted to find that these changes can be much more budget friendly. You can go two routes here. There is a huge market for enviro-friendly cleaning products, and at my local grocery store I see new items each and every week. Most of these are considerably more expensive than their "non-green" counter-parts. Or you can go the homemade route. I chose the latter having replaced all the cleaners in our home with four simple ingredients: white vinegar, baking soda, lemons/lemon juice and borax. In my research, you can pretty much clean every single spot in your home with some combination of these four products. A gallon of white vinegar cost me $1.50, a box of baking soda was $1.00, three large lemons were $1 and a box of Borax was $4. I also made a one-time purchase of spray bottles at Home Depot for $.96 each. One I filled with pure vinegar and the other with 50-50 vinegar/water. Not bad considering I won't need to buy another item, other than lemons, for several months.

Here a few links I have found helpful in learning how to clean "green" on a budget:
vinegartips.com
The New Homemaker
3 Homemade Natural Cleaning Products
Non-Toxic Bathroom Cleaners and Homemade Cleaning Solutions

This is still all very new for me so I am learning as I go. For every person the exact formulas that will work for them varies depending on the surfaces in your home (I have white linoleum, white laminate counter tops, and very light beige carpet...and lots of each - ICK!), the type water you have (ours is hard) and the types of stains/grime/dirt you are likely to be fighting (with three boys and a dog it's any and everything in this department- grin) . At first I was very daunted by this try-and-see process, but I finally realized it's no different than my trying several store-bought products until I found just the right ones that did the job - some work and some don't. This is no different. I will soon be trying homemade laundry detergent and dishwasher powder as well.

It's been nice to make some changes that are good for my family's health, the environment and our pocketbook. How refreshing!

P.S. Don't forget to become a follower of SSA and leave a comment on this post before midnight on 7/13/09 to enter my very first giveaway! :)