Chemical Free Cleaning For the OCD Person In Me

One of my most enjoyable, and not to leave out cost cutting things I have done this past year is cleaning my home chemical free.

My new best friends are baking soda, and white vinegar out of the bulk section of my local grocery store. Admittedly the vinegar in bulk was a little difficult to find, and not wanting to pay the price from Whole Foods, I was able to finally find it at a locally owned grocery store. And here on the west coast we have Winco that offers an enormous selection of bulk foods at great prices, and baking soda is no exception.

I purchased a sugar shaker, and keep it full of baking soda, and a spray bottle of vinegar on hand all the time. All I do is shake the baking soda in the toilet bowl, sink, shower, or anywhere you need to clean, spritz it with the vinegar, and scrub away. I even use it to clean the grout on my kitchen countertops. Fabulous!

Carpet stains? No problem, baking soda and peroxide. Peroxide is one of those things I have not been able to find in bulk either, but it is so useful that I purchase it anyway, ant try to use it sparingly before I recycle the bottle.

Windows, Vinegar and a squeegee.

Floors, what is wrong with just sweeping, and then scrubbing with hot water, or using a chemical free steam machine. You can use vinegar diluted with hot water to get the streaks out if you have any.

Laundry soap, here is my favorite recipe strait from Pinterest, and I buy all the supplies in bulk except for the borax, but the box is recyclable.

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/07/brand-name-laundry-detergents-last.html

The problem area in our home for me has been the glass shower doors. The previous owners of our home over the last 12 years apparently did not find water spot free doors as important as I do, so they have been a nightmare to clean, and I assure you, no amount of chemical cleaners has worked. I finally found a tip on making an orange and vinegar cleaner, and thought that the acid in the oranges would help. So I tried it, and with my stainless steal scrubby, and a little elbow grease, it is coming clean! I'm so excited!



All you do to make the cleaner is peal enough oranges to fill a quart mason jar about 3/4 of the way full. Then pour vinegar in the jar, and let sit for 10 days. After it sits, strain the peals out of the mixture, and then put it in a spray bottle. Works great. I also use it on my counter tops, and stove. Do not put the peals into you mulch pile though, vinegar is a natural weed killer, and will kill your broad leaf plants. You can bury them in an area that will not be affected by the vinegar.



Things I am experimenting with still are dish soaps, I will keep you updated on what I find.

I love cleaning this way. The house just feels healthier without the chemical smell in it. Go ahead and experiment, you will be surprised at what you can do.


- Monica

Making a List, Checking it Twice

Oh, there are so many reasons to make a list;
Shopping
Home repairs
Projects
Parties
Holidays
And this list goes on, and on

I love a good list, and make them often. One of the challenges for zero waste is not using so much paper though, so what about my list?

When I first became interested in zero waste a couple of years ago, I took a class at a convention that I was at, and it made me think of all the places we could cut back in the office. One of the huge ones was paper.

People of my generation are totally on board with this idea, and modern technology with computers and email make this so much easier. But where I knew the problems to my plan would exist is with the old school guys, oh boy.

I started watching everyone, and took over control of the office supplies, which in turn earned me the name "Supply Nazi". Whatever, it will pay off in the end. I noticed that we were blowing through these 5x7 yellow notebooks, so I investigated where they were being used.

I discovered that the notebooks were used for several reasons, among them was to take phone messages at the front desk, and writing a list of problems on an airplane for the mechanics.

In turn, we would get a bunch of junk faxes from people, and things that had been misprinted. So I started having everyone save those papers, and cut them up to make notepads to use instead. I did however get complaints from mister old school about how embarrassing it was if a customer saw we were up cycling our paper, but I think this is untrue. Most of the customers are business owners themselves, and a probably have started some of the same practices that we had. I told him that all the cool kids are doing it, but I'm not sure if I will ever win that battle.



Any-who, I only go grocery shopping every other week, so needless to say my list is long, and I like to have been making as i had seen the needs arise over the previous last two weeks. So I do keep a notepad on the counter to write my grocery list. I do however make my notepads out of my old store receipts that they insist on giving you, so at least I have up cycled those. But as I have learned in this venture, anything smaller than your fist is not recyclable, so I use my paper lists to the fullest.



For other lists, I try and use my notepad app on my phone as much as possible. It is the most used app on my phone. And as for the list that hangs around forever of chores and home repairs, I use a whiteboard for that.



So go ahead and make your list, it feels great to keep checking things off.

- Monica

Let There Be Light!

Even though I have teenagers, they are avid followers of Disney Channel's cartoon "Phineas and Ferb". I have to admit, it is hilarious, and I find myself watching it with them from time to time.

We have lived many places in our carrier as an Air Force family, and have lived in many different climates. Texas, Guam, Idaho and Oregon all have their share of pros and cons, but I still enjoyed each one. But that could not be said so far for the grey dimness of Southern Washington.

Back to Phineas and Ferb, there is an episode called "Meepless in Seattle". They are all flying along in this space ship headed to Seattle to save the world, and Phineas asked the question, "How will we know when we make it to Seattle?", right then the sky goes grey, and it starts to pour rain. That is what it is like here, ALL OF THE TIME!!!

My husband is a Seattle native, and has announced that he loves living under the regime of a giant cloud, but I am not sure which one will come first if I have to live here for more than the next 2 1/2 years, a mental breakdown, or a life of husbandlessness.

Anyway, I have tried to find ways to combat this, and the biggest help is by lighting up the inside of our house, but this can lead to a huge electricity bill, and buying a never ending supply of light bulbs, especially if you want it nice and bright.


The past couple of months I have been testing out compact florescent bulbs to see what would work best in our home, and finally decided on a daylight bulb. I went to Home Depot, which is where I found the best deal. A box of 12 bulbs for $17.47, and they often go on sale. We replaced all of the light bulbs in our home with these.

It was an initial investment, and we decided to buy a box every paycheck and start with the most used lights in the house. The investment has paid off, literally. Our electricity bill has come down an average of $10.00 a month since we have installed the bulbs, and we actually leave them on more often. The light is amazing, and we are using about a tenth of the power that we were before.

Each bulb uses 14 watts of electricity, but puts out the same amount of light as a 60 watt bulb. It is estimated that each light will save you a total of almost $2.00 a year. That is $24.00 a year for the whole box, and we used 3 boxes of the bulbs in our house, that is $72.00 a year for us. And the math keeps going. Each bulb is supposed to last an average of 9 years. That can really add up. Of course when they do need to be changed, there are only certain ways to dispose of your bulbs. Our guidelines here are to place them in a separate container next to our recycling. You will have to check with your local disposal company on your guidelines, but I'm hoping we won't have to dispose of them that often.

I know there are also those crazy odd sizes of lights that are hard to find. I have had luck finding fluorescents for those at IKEA. Also, there are fluorescents for your can lighting at Home Depot.


Lighting is one of the most important components of your home, so cut your energy usage, while making your wallet fat.


- Monica

"We are a hippy commune, and don't use paper towels"

Comments from the peanut gallery of my family are always my favorite, most of the time I am laughing along with them, but as long as I just keep plugging along I will win them over.

The biggest hint that I have found for living the zero waste lifestyle is starting small. Find something you want to change, and work on that one thing. Don't get frustrated or overwhelmed with changing everything at once.

This is true confession time. Here I am writing this blog, and one thing that I am having a terrible time fazing out of our home is paper towels. I have made the roll of paper towels out of washcloths and everything, but I have been loosing that battle. I finally realized that the reason that haven't been successful at it was because I keep giving into buying them. Oh...really? I think that was as much for my benefit as it was for the peanut gallery. So here I am in public, on the Internet, committing to go cold turkey with the paper towels.

There will be updates, and I'm sure comments from the peanut gallery coming soon.


- Monica

Why, Oh Why

Here I go again, so to speak. I have tried blogging before, but only for family updates and such, but this time around I and trying to serve a purpose. For about a year now I have been trying to transition our home into a "zero waste" home, and have had some success in the transition, but still have a long way to go.

In the process I have had several friends ask me about it, and decided that it was time to share our zero waste adventure with the world of bloggers, and hopefully I can get feedback and helpful hints from others about what works for them, and maybe inspire someone along the way.

For the last couple of years I have been following a zero waste blog about a family that has done a great job of cutting all waste in their lives. I was totally inspired by this, but I was just not sure if I could actually live the way that they do. I decided to try, and guess what? I came close, but didn't make it all the way to my goal, but I decided that way okay. I came to the self realization that zero waste is a process, and as long as I continually worked at it, I will accomplish my goal.

Now, here is the tricky part. The whole family has to be on the same page. I will just say up front that this is not the case so far for our family. My husband is a great provider and a hard worker, but he has no interest in this lifestyle, and pokes constant fun at me. I can take it, I have 3 brothers. Bring your weak game mister. I also have two boys, 19 and 15. The younger is the only one a home right now, and he doesn't give me as much of a headache as his father, but I'm still trying to get him on board.

I decided to try zero waste when we made our last move,being a military family we have made a few. This last time we bought a home, and the cost that goes into home ownership needed to be made up somewhere, so I originally started for financial reasons. After I started though I found the lifestyle exciting, and challenging. I have started thinking about everything that we put in our trash can and thinking that we are being pretty minimal, but when I drive up our street I see everyone else's trash cans out on trash day, and they are overflowing. That trash has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is filling up fast. I decided that I want to do my part to reduce the amount of waste that is going into the land fills.

I am hoping that this blog will inspire some of you to do the same. So enjoy the tricks and tips, and take the ride with our family.


- Monica