Our Homemade Lives

No-Spend February went pretty well. We only bought one thing that was not food or an absolute necessity, and when I say "we," I mean Jared. He bought an ice-cream maker and tried to sell me on the idea that it was a Valentine's Day present for me. This was funny because A) we don't EVER do anything for Valentine's Day because I think it's a stupid holiday and 2) he has been telling me for a few months how much he wants one. Of course it's funny that he finally broke down and bought one during no-spend month, but what's done is done. It has turned out to be a really great thing to have, especially if you like ice cream but always feel bad buying it because it's expensive and has a lot of unnecessary ingredients in it. Now we have delicious ice cream that isn't chalk full of fillers!

No-Spend February turned out to be an eye-opener, not because we realized how much money we spend on extraneous things (because really, we only saved probably $50 last month) but because of how much money we already save making things at home instead of buying them. Because of this, there wasn't that much we could do to save more money last month. The one thing I did make this month for the first time was yogurt. I got a recipe about a month ago from a friend's blog and finally tried it. I will never buy yogurt again!

Here is a list of things that we make at home:

Yogurt
Bread, including bagels and rolls (using a bread machine)
Granola
Granola bars
Ice Cream (using an ice cream maker)
Sweets (I don't buy cake or cookies or anything of that nature. If we want something sweet, we make it)
Sweet Tea (using a tea maker)
Beer (thanks to Jared!)
Hard Cider (again, thanks to Jared!)
Popcorn (this one is cheating a bit, but what I mean is, we buy kernels and pop it in our own popper which is not only cheaper, but healthier than buying microwave popcorn)
Laundry Detergent

On my list of other things to start making is all other household cleaners, deodorant, soap, lotion and baking mix (like bisquick).

While I am sad that we didn't save hundreds of dollars last month, I guess it's good to know that we really do live pretty frugally already and that we are already doing (mostly) everything we can to limit our spending to things we truly need.

If anyone has any suggestions of things we can make ourselves to save even more money (or to just have something that's more natural and healthy), please comment below and tell me about it!

And for those who are interested, we are still living happily without a microwave :)

Bug Killer

Today while I was at work, Jared sprayed the entire house inside and outside with the bug spray stuff we bought since we can't afford real pest control. :(  In the past four days alone, there have been 9 centipedes and 4 spiders in our stairwell and kitchen.  Today, I saw none.  I hope to God that this spray works as it was only $5 for the entire bottle and it was enough for the entire house.  I am so tired of seeing gross centipedes in my house and it's only been three days.  It seems like it's working so far...

What I Learned: In spending $5.00 on bug spray, there seems to be a significant decrease in centipede activity in our house already.

Pest Control

Today, I saw the first centipede (of probably MANY more to come) in the house.  Last year, we had them   all summer along with these blond spiders in our kitchen.  I keep my house so ridiculously clean, but apparently that doesn't matter and they still are crawling around on my walls!  For some reason, I just assumed that pest control didn't cover centipedes and spiders as I always thought of them as covering ants, roaches and bees (which is what people use them for in Georgia).  I decided to call a few places just to see what was covered and to find out how much it cost.  Turns out that all pest control places (the four I called at least) cover centipedes and spiders!  On top of that, it was a lot cheaper than I thought to get them to come out year round to spray your house.  The cheapest I found was $378 for the entire year.  This company would come every quarter to spray but if you had a problem in between treatments, they would come out and treat again.  I was so excited about this and just thought that of course we would get this because why would we live with centipedes in our house when we could get rid of them?

Apparently, I forgot that money doesn't grow on trees, and when you live on a tight budget with no disposable income, coming up with $378 is literally impossible.  So alas, we are not getting pest control.  However, I am bound and determined to find a way to get rid of these damned centipedes!

What I Learned: Pest control can get rid of centipedes...if you can afford it.

Toilet

Our toilet sucks. There are so many minor things "wrong" with it, but not enough wrong with it that it's broken; it still somehow functions. While complaining to my dad about this, he decided that he was going to buy us a new one for our birthdays (is it lame that I'm excited to get a toilet for my birthday?). So we went and got a new toilet that has a flush power of 10 (I'm guessing ours was a 2 at best), two flush settings, and is high efficiency. I am so excited about our new toilet, you have no idea. No more jiggling the handle, flushing multiple times, wiping up water from all over the floor due to ridiculous amounts of condensation, or waiting what seemed like 2 full minutes to make sure the toilet actually stopped running after you flushed. Who knew I could get so excited about a toilet?

What I learned: Ken bought us a toilet for our birthdays and I am so excited about it!

Shower Curtain

Every month or so I take our shower curtain liner and soak it in bleach and then wash it as it accumulates mold and other shower residue. I have done this so many times and for some reason was under the impression that when I washed it in the past, I put the washing machine setting to "heavy duty" for the wash cycle to make sure it gets clean. Well, apparently I was wrong because this time I did that and it tore the shower curtain! Luckily, the tears are small enough that it is still usable and functioning but I'm sure I will have to replace it sooner now than I was originally planning. I guess pregnancy fog not only makes you forget things but makes you remember things incorrectly. That's my excuse at least...

What I learned: Don't wash the shower curtain on heavy duty mode because it will tear.