Thursday, March 28, 2013

It All Started With A Simple Idea

The Cheapskates Guide to Penny-Pinching 101


How was copper wire invented?  A Mennonite and a Scotsman were fighting over a penny.

Les, the Scottish "water doctor" is installing a new water purification system in our home.  He's full of one-liners and ethnic anecdotes.  This one was new to me, and I chuckled in spite of my Mennonite self.  It's easy to laugh when you realize the incriminating truth behind it.  Were there a study of my family gene pool, I have a feeling they would find a frugal gene.  And that is where a simple idea got started.


Actually, it got its start on Pinterest one day - an on-going search for rad recipes and funky fashions.  The recipe jumped out at me, the right time, the right place and I was in the right mood.  How to make your own laundry detergent for just pennies a load.  Hmm, it was worth a try.  I'd heard rumors about the fillers in store bought detergents - water (in the liquid ones), drywall dust (whoever told me this was serious) and ground wombat tooth (that one I made up, but it sounds plausible doesn't it?) in the powder stuff.  The point is, the majority of your laundry detergent is stuff that's pointless, made to fill up the box (bottle) with extra junk that you're paying for.  And it's stuff like that that winds this tightwad into a tighter ball.

So, one day, green boxes and fabric grocery bags in tow, I went on a hunt for the 3 simple ingredients to make my own liquid laundry detergent: Borax, Washing Soda and soap; the kind of stuff I might have found next to my grandmother's old Wringer.  The first 2 weren't as easy to find as one might think, having virtually gone the way of the horse and buggy; but I finally located them between the Super Duper Extra Cleany Fresh Sunlight and the Synthetically Formulated Outdoor Fresh Scent Tide.  Superstore rarely lets you down when you're on a mission to find the out-of-the-ordinary.


A trip to my local Thrift Store produced just the soap I wanted; hand-made Homesteaders soap, produced by local women in a local sweat shop (sweat merely implying what happens when you hang over a large vat of hot lye all day).  The Thrift Store was also the perfect spot to find the "making" components of my project: large pot and wooden spoon.

Within about an hour I had the finished product cooled and ready for bottling into empty milk and apple juice jugs, emancipated from the recycle box for now.  It was kind of fun, actually, drawing my husband into the kitchen to hold the funnel as I slopped it in.  Well into my second batch, I must say I am duly impressed.  Each batch lasts about 4 - 6 months, requiring only about 2-3 tbsp per load.  The cost, according to my best calculations, is about $3 - $4/batch.  


Of course another boon, in these times of environmental conscientiousness, is the fact that it's phosphate, chemical and perfume free.  Guiltless, easy and cheap!  Three of my favorite things in life.

Recipe
1 bar of soap
 (any kind you want - with the pre-shredded Homesteaders soap I used 3/4 cup)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
a big pot (that holds more than 2 gallons)
a grater 
a funnel
a long spoon
2 empty gallon jugs

Grate the bar of soap into your pot.  Fill one gallon jug with cold water and pour over soap.  Cook until soap dissolves.  Add the Borax and Washing Soda.  Bring to a boil (it will coagulate).  Turn off the heat.  Add another gallon of cold water.  Stir well.  Allow to cool slightly (the mixture gets quite thick.  You want to pour before its too thick for a funnel).  

Side note: I used 2 large Dutch Oven type pots, making the stove top batch in one, transferring 1/2 of it to another and then adding the second batch of water to both.  If you find that it's too thick to pour, add more hot water and stir it in.  If, once bottled and cooled, it's gets too thick, add water and shake bottle.

Don't expect suds when doing your laundry, but suds don't equal clean.  It does as good a job as any regular detergent on the shelf today.


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Love, For Love's Sake


    Life is challenging at the best of times. The struggle for survival when things are going awry all around seems to be one of the great equalizers of humanity. We fight to be heard, we long to be respected and we dream of raising our children in a safe and friendly world.
     Many of us come out on top, breaking through to the surface of the tumultuous waters for a breath before braving the dangerous depths one more time. Others, sadly, give up, finding the tide just too much to swim against. With no lifeboat in sight, what's the use? We likely all know someone who's succumbed to the bitter-sweet call of suicide leaving tragedy in their wake.
     My dad was a survivor, but in the last days of his life he faced his greatest challenge – being stuck in a body that wouldn't carry him. Equally frustrating was his trek through a walker-friendly world from the seat of a cumbersome wheel chair. I'm glad most people had the foresight to still recognize him as a human being, giving his wheelchair guidance over a foreboding curb, holding doors and bending down to talk to him face to face. This made his challenge more bearable.
     From those who have the “fortune” of fitting into the status quo, greater grace is required. Like my dad, the strugglers are all around us. They are the mentally challenged, the autistic, those with differing skin pigments, the immigrants, the depressed, the poor and the homosexual.
     We're trying, I know. We make buildings wheelchair friendly, we integrate the mentally challenged (I wish for a better term, like cerebrally gifted), we promote mental health and work to erase the stigma, we create programs to ease the hardship for new immigrants, we teach our children that we are all God's creatures, irregardless of colour or race.
     In the face of the last few weeks, I realize, though, how far we still have to go. Today's buzzword is Bill 18 and the much-feared and misunderstood enemy are the sexually different.
     There was a time when the depressed were instituted and kept “safely” away from the world at large. Out of sight, out of mind. There was a time when the black man was understood as the slave to the white. There was a time when women belonged in the home, not at polling booths or in positions of authority. But we know better now, right? We've learned; we've evolved and grown.
     How did this happen? Someone, somewhere, stood up and spoke out. They recognized an injustice, they mobilized a community and they trumpeted the truth from soap boxes on street corners. The world took notice and eventually we shushed our neighbours when they spoke maliciously, we taught our children about human value, we re-wrote our text books.
     It's time, now again, to mobilize and re-write the way we treat others of a differing sexual slant.      We know, now, that this is not a lot most of them have chosen. If you don't believe the scientific evidence then ask them yourself. Put down your smoking gun long enough to get to know someone whose discovered their difference. I mean, really get to know them, without bias and prejudgement.
     At the same time, ask yourself the question, “What would I do if my son or daughter came seeking my unconditional love in the aftermath of revealing their homosexuality?” It can happen to you; it has happened to many. My hope and prayer is that your love would not change; not one iota. And if this love can transcend the parent/child relationship, then why not all others?
     I implore us all to stop the madness, the fear-mongering and the irrational behaviour, and love – for love's sake.