I know it isn’t just my kids that end up with a rats nest on their head when they wake up, and combing and brushing girl’s hair was an absolute mystery to me. My wife had to show me how to work out the snags without pulling most of the kids hair out. We found something to help at the store, but it was (if I recall correctly) around $3!

Huggies and others have a great product for spraying on your kids hair to help with detangling and smoothing it out after a long nap. Detangling spray squirted on dry hair really made a difference in smoothing out those knots. There were two down sides. First, the cost. Second, the stuff was thicker than we’d prefer and left our girls hair looking greasy and in need of washing.

Of course we came up with the perfect solution:

Once the spray bottle is empty, take your kids conditioner and squirt a long squeeze into the bottle, add some warm water and shake it up to mix it. Instant detangler for a fraction of the cost. I’m all about re-using as much as we can to cut costs.

We’re on the same spray bottle that we bought two years ago. The best part of this, we can adjust the amount of conditioner to balance getting the knots out without leaving icky looking hair.

Give it a try, save a few bucks.

Peace,
Tony

Our garden is growing like mad this year. We redid the lay out and made some raised beds from some left over redwood that was at my in laws back yard. Last year, the garden was an eye sore. One big square with a few plants in there. We didn’t use it very efficiently, but the bunnies and deer did. We were still able to get out a bunch of Zucchini, tomatoes and some peppers for salsa.

This year, even though we have less actual growing area, we are going to get a much larger yield. Not only that, our layout is just pleasing to the eye. It LOOKS nice, and by gum, that makes me feel better about going out back!

This year we planted tomatoes, more zucc’s and summer squash, hot peppers and bell peppers, corn, cilantro, beans, and leaf lettuce. I’m most excited about the leaf lettuce! (Probably because I can eat it now.) We just have a four foot by four foot bed with the lettuce in, but I can’t keep up on eating it as it grows! Its great, I’ve never had lettuce be so flavorful and tender. I typically go through a head of lettuce a week, too, so its not like I’m not having my greens.

Before lunch, I run out with a scissors and a bowl, give a section a bit of a cut and bring it back in. It doesn’t take much to fill my bowl! Mmm… today I had some left over taco meat that I put on it with salsa and ranch dressing, don’t forget the cheese!

So, for two or three months, how ever long it lasts, I will be saving the $1.39-1.49/head a week. As soon as the rest of the veggies come ripe we’ll cut even more from the shopping list. What makes it so much better is knowing where it was grown.

Lets not forget how much the kids enjoy helping work in the garden, too!

Peace,
Tony

I haven’t had a chance to try this out yet but it comes from a very reliably source. My mother in law read a tip to clean the shower of soap scum and scale cheap and easy. The trick, she says, its to get a bottle of clear shampoo and some baking soda.

Place some shampoo on the wash cloth or better, a mitt, with some baking soda and work that into a lather. Scrub the walls of the shower with the mix. Apparently you can feel the scum breaking down! From the sounds of it, a dollar store bottle of clear shampoo (the kind with out any conditioners that would gum up the works) and some baking soda could replace the harsh expensive shower cleaners.

Since I have a wonderful test facility in the next room I will take before and after pictures of the technique and report back if it works. Also, since I clean so regularly*, this test may occur within a month or two.

Peace,
Tony

*sarcasm alert

I used to drive to three or four different stores looking for the better deal on something. Usually it would end up being at the first or second store, so after initial recon I’d end up driving back to where the deal was. Hey, spending an extra ten minutes driving around to save $20 or more on a big ticket item was worth it.

Now? Not so much. Gas is at $4 a gallon. Now my errands are planned around the stops to get the least amount of driving done. I’ve been known to park centrally between two stores and make the kids walk with me from one to the other. Thankfully there is a shopping center just up the road with an assortment of shops.

So how do I comparison shop?

Online, of course! Seems obvious, though. Almost all major retailers have online adds or inventory checks that you can verify prices before going to the store. Check the adds first, though. Some retailers have different prices for things online versus in the store. Target is a good one to do that, an extra Wii Guitar online was $59, at the store $69. (No, I didn’t get either.)

We still shop around for bigger ticket items, its worth it when we plan ahead and go online first.

When our girls were old enough to move into a normal twin size bed we were looking around at the local furniture stores and were amazed at how expensive kids beds are! For the basic bare bones nothing fancy bed we were looking at shelling out over $300!

NO WAY!

My wife’s family had an old bunk bed set beating around the houses. One half spent a few years in a shed and the other half in a brother’s attic. We got a hold of the set and went to work. First I scuffed up the clear varnish and patched or filled any major gouges and holes. Then I painted everything with a sturdy white primer/finish coat.

Then came the fun part, for a couple of dollars at the local craft store we bought some wooden plaques or apliques, painted them the accent color and my wife decopouged decopagued, doco… well she clear shellacked the kids names with sparkles on to it.

The most expensive part were the new mattresses and the bedding. We splurged on that because, really, the beds them selves cost less than $50 total! Can’t go wrong there.

Here is one Happy Customer.

Peace!

Monday’s post about Changing your mind elicited a comment from The Adventurist about rummage sales that I thought I would capitalize on. One of the biggest ways to save money is to buy USED! No kidding. Thats right, something someone has already used and decided they don’t want any more. If there is still life in the thing, use it!

Kids clothes are the best example of this, especially little kids clothes. I am trying to think back about how many new, full priced outfits we bought for the girls and I’m coming up with a very slim number. I know when my wife first found out she was pregnant, she bought a couple super cute outfits to surprise me at work with. I also know that when we were travel ling and I forgot something I would have to buy something quick… maybe a nice new dress for Christmas or something, but really there hasn’t been that many.

Then I see folks at Children’s Place, Baby Gap …um… those kind of stores (Sorry, I don’t make it to malls very often) buying hundreds of dollars worth of clothes! Come ON! They are kids. Spend that kind of money to watch them spill juice, barf, grass stain those clothes? WHY?!? Hit a few garage sales and get hundreds of dollars of clothes for your kids with $5.

We have also been absolutely blessed with my cousin. She has two girls as well, the youngest a couple years older than my oldest. Every couple of months they send another box of clothes that they have grown out of. They have been doing this for the last couple of years, and it has been an absolute life saver. Right when we are thinking “Oh boy, she’s outgrowing this stuff…” there is another box on our stoop! Do I mind that they are used?

You should know me better than that!

Acquire used, go to garage/rummage sales. Put that money to something more useful…

Peace!
Tony

The biggest part of being frugal is looking honestly at what we need versus what we want. When I was working and we didn’t have kids it was pretty easy to go out for dinner a couple times a week. Having a butcher right on the corner and a new grill made for a very expensive summer of ‘99.

I try and remember back to that time and I don’t think that me would recognize today’s me. We have had to cut back on a lot of the stuff we thought we needed in order to make the budget work. I look at how some other folks spend money and often wonder if they are being honest with themselves. Stopping at Starbucks every morning eating out for lunch and dinner then complaining about not having enough money to make the house payment seems foolish to me.

They need to change their mind. If I recall my college days correctly (always a challenge considering my hobby haha) they call that a “Paradigm Shift”.

My advice to folks is to take a step back and look, really look where your money goes. Every time a wallet or purse is opened, look at what its for. Then decide do I need this. I had the perfect example just this morning. The girls and I were at the local Target and they had Rock Band for Wii. It just came out. It looks really fun. We would have a blast playing it!

It retails for $169.

While I had the box in my hands and looked long and hard at it, jaw slacked, I knew we didn’t NEED it and that is a LOT of money for a game, even if it comes with drums, guitar and mike and cool rock tunes…

I left it on the shelf. (This time.) The point is instead of just picking it up and rolling with it I stopped and thought whether the cost was justifiable. At this time it wasn’t.

Change your mind.

Peace!
Tony

One of my favorite money saving tricks is to re-use those fancy foaming hand soap dispensers. Once the original product is emptied from multiple hand washings or preschoolers pumping it all over the counter it is really easy to refill the thing.

Simply put about a quarter of an inch of your favorite dish soap and then fill the rest up with water. Give it a shake and its good to go. Amazingly I find those pumps with soap in them at the store for up to $3.00! By refilling it a few dozen times you are saving huge money on buying new each time.

The pumps do eventually break down and become sticky, but replacing them after a few dozen fillings is a pittance versus replacing them each time.

Finding the right dish soap balance is something that might need tweaking as well, but it only takes a few times to get it figured out. My favorite lately is Dawn Apple antibacterial. No one in this house likes overly scented stuff, so when I tried using Palmolive Oxy it got vetoed after the first round.

Good luck!

Tony