On the Cheap

In May, I made a decision that greatly improved my quality of life, but resulted in a fairly significant pay cut. I had been working 24 hours/week at the hospital and attending graduate school full time. I had become burned-out on my unit, and working weekend nights was taking its toll on me. Andrew and I had started dating in January, and I was quickly growing tired of missing out on lots of things with him because I had to work. In addition, I missed a lot of time with my family, friends, everyone really. So, I decided to make a change and to become a graduate assistant with the university. I still work per diem on my nursing unit, so I'm not losing the skills I've acquired there. However, I'm now working for a Lung Cancer study, so I'm learning all kinds of new things as well. While the economy is still not so great and my income reduced, I have been inspired to look for some ways to save money. I decided to start posting some things here just to share with everyone.

1. Home-made laundry detergent

I saw a recipe for this online and decided to try it. I used one bar of Ivory soap grated, one cup of Arm&Hammer super washing soda (not regular baking soda), and one half cup of borax. All the ingredients cost me about $8. I have enough soap for three batches, but if I bought more soap, I'd have way more. I'll get back with the blog for an exact count. The borax comes in a big box, and I'm not sure how much soda is in the washing soda bag. I only bought a 3 pack of soap because I was just trying this out. This recipe is only for top loaders; however, there's front-loader recipes on the internet. So far, it's worked out fairly well. I haven't washed too much laundry since I made the detergent, but so far, things are turning out clean and have a fresh scent. I suppose I could change the scent a little by changing the type of soap. I use Ivory because it is cheap and fairly hypoallergenic.

2. Traveling

This is a time of year when many people like to go on vacations, weekend trips, etc. While it may be the vacation I spent the whole year looking forward to, there are small ways to prevent such a sharp blow to your bank account. One thing that has saved us probably close to $100 this trip is bringing drinks and some breakfast items with us. Right now, I'm in Baltimore, MD, Inner Harbor. A bottled water or soda from a machine is going to cost at least $2. Meals and snacks from street vendors, etc are going to be pricey as well. Before we left on the trip, I bought one 24-pack of bottled water, one 6-pack of Diet Coke (my personal vice), a loaf of bread, a little jar of peanut butter, and a little jar of jelly. All total, I believe it cost me roughly $15. I chose to share with the three people I'm traveling with. I'll have some things left over that I may or may not choose to take with me when we leave tomorrow; however, it's still a great deal. I can buy a 24-pack of water in West Virginia for less than $5 while I might pay > $2 for just one bottle in Baltimore.

Looking out for the Future

As of Monday, I have been dating my wonderful boyfriend, Andrew, for seven months. That is a "long term" relationship in my eyes. In the past, any relationship I might have had never lasted more than 4 months, and honestly, I knew they were about over by the 3rd. While things here are going well, there have been some things that have come up that I had not encountered in the past (neither has he really), that we are sort of dealing with that I wanted to write about. I thought our experiences might inspire others.

Tuesday night, we had a very long phone conversation about how we wanted to live our lives in certain areas. We come from different backgrounds, but we're both Christian and want to live in a way that honors God and the things He has given us. Andrew started feeling convicted about some things that he owned. It's mainly some DVD's and comics that are really not "family appropriate". Maybe is wasn't a big deal when it was just him, but he felt that owning this stuff would have a negative affect on our life together as well as that of our children. I started thinking about some of my things. I'm on a vacation right this second, but I plan on getting rid of anything like that I own as well. I think there's three seasons of Family Guy that could make their way into the Goodwill box. We made an important decision about our future life: we aren't going to have cable the first year we're married. It's a big money-saving effort, and many things are available on the internet now. We would rather have NetFlix or something similar and choose something to watch TOGETHER rather than coming home everyday and habitually staring at the "idiot-box". Also, just think of all the time we'll have to spend working on projects at home, reading books, doing other things that might benefit other people, etc.

Our future family is very important to us. I come from a very small family in Keyser, WV while Andrew has a larger extended family that all lives on the same road in Doddridge County, WV. We're not perfect people...we both gave up on that a LONG time ago. We're just trying to look out for our future a little bit.