How the Internet Saves Us Money

I'm sure some of you don't even really remember when there was no Internet.  Back in the day (when we walked uphill to school both ways in snow.......), unless you were super handy, a repairman was always called when an appliance went out.  Now, instead of calling a repairman, we head straight for the Internet.

This morning my husband woke me up with the news that our dryer was not heating.  When I managed to finally pull myself from bed and confirmed for myself it wasn't heating (what can I say, I'm from the Show Me State) I headed to the Internet to try and find a solution.  The number one response that came back was a blocked vent from to much lint.  Since we just bought new towels (and they were throwing off A LOT of lint) this seemed like a possible problem.  Before I left for work I checked the exhaust but didn't see a blockage.

When my husband came home I told him the potential solution, he checked and didn't think that was the problem either.  Back to the Internet for solution number two - reset the thermometer.  After following the step by step directions to re-set the thermometer we were back in business - we had heat!

Even though we aren't incredibly handy appliance repair people, by checking the Internet for simple fixes we potentially saved ourselves hundreds of dollars.  Typically the service call alone costs $75 and they may have advised replacing the whole thermostat unit, that seemed to be the usual solution according to the Internet.

Besides that fact that we saved ourselves a lot of money and actually had fun solving the problem together, the best part was how easy it was to get to the dryer since I've been re-organizing.  If you check out the before picture in my organizing the laundry room/storage area, you can see that it would have been a chore just to get a spot cleared where we could actually fix the dryer.  By having the basement organized it literally took us minutes and was relatively stress free and I was easily able to lay my hands on my toolkit.  Because the linen closet was organized I was able to immediately find the flashlight also.  Isn't organization a wonderful thing!

Do you have an Internet saving money story?  Feel free to share it in the comments or link back to your blog.

I'll be linking this up over at Life as Mom and We are THAT Family
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Laundry

Laundry has been the topic of some blogs that I've read this week.  It's been very interesting to read all the different thoughts about laundry and how each family makes it work for them.

We've recently undergone a laundry revolution here at our house.  Back in June I wrote a post about laundry (you can read that here), some things have changed and some things haven't changed since that time.

The "shot that was heard around the world" was the organization that I've been doing in the house.  As I was thinking about my sustainability issues in the past with the laundry/storage room I realized that laundry not being being folded immediately was causing some of our issues.

Here are the basics of our old laundry habits

• Washed every day by my husband
• Folded by my son "whenever he felt like it" (note:  this caused tension and aggravation in the family) which was about once or twice a week. 
• We continuously had a mountain of clean but unfolded clothes and a huge basket of unmated socks
• When the clothes were put in the appropriate owner's room they were placed on top of the bed or dresser, not always finding their way into the proper drawers
• The top of the washer and dryer were barely visible from the laundry supplies and the clean clothes hanging above them
• The clean pile of clothes in the laundry room and the clutter on top of the washer and dryer were creating a lot of chaos in my laundry/storage room that was always the start of my downward spiral into disorganization.

Here are our new laundry habits

• Washed every day by both me and my husband.  Before leaving for work I will put on a load of laundry and fold and then put away (in proper drawers) the previous night's laundry.  When my husband gets home he will switch the laundry and put on a load from that day's wear.  Before we go to bed both of us will go downstairs and fold the last load together.  While I put it away, he will switch the last load.
• Clothes are folded right out of the dryer.  This keeps items from getting wrinkly but the best part is we no longer have the sock basket.  Socks are mated immediately so we no longer have the need for family "sock mating parties"
• We installed a shelf next to the washer for the laundry supplies.  Both of us have been amazed by how much this simple change has helped keep the laundry area clean.
• I purchased hanging racks for my husbands clothes (he likes to hang everything) so that they weren't over the washer and dryer.  The racks have canvas bins underneath that we use for off-season clothes as well as my son's uniforms (don't ask me why - he just wanted them thrown into a basket)
• We created a specific system for hang drying clothes.  There are quite a few items we don't like put in the dryer.  Prior to the change we would just hang them were ever created more chaos in the laundry/storage room.  Once the clothes are dry we are diligent about putting them in their proper place.

Here are the benefits of the change

• Chaos has been tamed in both the laundry/storage room as well as the master bedroom.  Remember my shameful secret about the master bedroom?  I'm happy to report that this new system alleviated the mess of my husband's clothes on top of the dresser.  It's been a month since I've re-organized the laundry/storage area and we've been able to sustain the changes I've made.
• By doing laundry every day we've been able to purge a lot of our towels.  We take between 4-6 showers a day (my son needs to shower after work and my husband showers after the gym), if I only washed towels once a week that would be a lot of towels in the linen closet. 
• As a working mother I don't have a full day available to me for laundry.  Each of us spends about 10 - 15 minutes a day doing our share of the laundry.  This allows us to accomplish a very necessary chore without a huge chunk of time commitment
• The sock monster has been tamed.  Need I say more?

I know that laundry every day doesn't work for everyone but if asked, I would have to say that this is my number one secret to keeping the house organized.

Feel free to share you laundry habits and/or a link to your laundry habits in the comment section.

I'll be linking this up over at We are THAT Family and I'm an Organizing Junkie

You might also like:

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Freezer Cooking - Being Less Wasteful

When I did the Pantry Challenge earlier this year I was quite appalled by our wastefulness.  We throw away so much food on a weekly basis it makes me a little sick when I think about it.  After giving it some thought I've decided rather than throwing the food away every week to find a way to save it either by dehydrating or freezing it.  Here are some of the food items I've converted over the last couple of weeks.

• Carrots - I had some carrots I bought for lunch that didn't get eaten so I made glazed carrots
• Potatoes - My big bag of potatoes had a bad potato in the bunch. Once one of them start going bad I get a little nervous so I pulled three of them out for dinner last week and then I made mashed potatoes for the freezer with the rest
• Bananas - Usually I just throw the banana in the freezer with peel still on. However, peeling the frozen banana gets pretty messy as they thaw. I want to start making smoothies so this week I peeled the banana, sliced it and then threw it in the freezer, we'll see how that works out
• Strawberries - My plan was to core them and use them for smoothies. However the girls sleeping over at our house after Homecoming ended up eating the whole pint of them I don't have any left :( They enjoyed them and that's the important thing.
• Mushrooms - I found a recipe for dehydrating mushrooms on eHow (not much of a recipe, cut and bake in the oven).  I tried it and was very pleased with the results.  However, eHow said it would take about an hour when instead it took probably about 4 hours.  I didn't mind the time but I don't thinking running the oven for 4 hours to cook up $1 worth of mushrooms was very frugal.  The dehydrating mushrooms worked so well though that I may buy a large batch of mushrooms and dehydrate them so that I always have mushrooms around.  Having an oven full of mushrooms to cook won't seem quite so wasteful.The trick will be keeping my husband out of them for his omelets.
• Applesauce - My MIL has an apple tree with an abundance of apples this year.  So far we've made three batches of applesauce and prepared enough apples for three pies.  We still have well over a grocery bag to process.  Ugh!  We'll appreciate all the work this winter when we're eating our homemade applesauce and pies.
• Tomatoes - I received two big bags from a friend a work. I simply wash, core, dry and then put about five tomatoes in a freezer bag. I throw the bags in the freezer and then use them for future recipes. Because there were so many tomatoes in the bags and I let them sit for a few days I did have to throw out some of the tomatoes that had split and were starting to go bad.

I would have liked to have the time to get some actual meals in the freezer but this was quite an accomplishment and I feel pretty good with my results.


How about you? Have you done any freezer cooking lately?

I'll be linking this up over at Life as Mom

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Menu Plan - Week of October 3

Weekly Menu Planning

Wow - I hate to admit this but we strayed so far from our menu plan last week.  I could try and put a positive spin on it by saying we had the brats, pizza, fend for yourself and dinner out but I didn't make the spaghetti, Italian Chicken or chicken casserole so that's a pretty weak argument given how easy those items were!

On Monday my husband and I thought we would sneak out for a date after driving our daughter to dance.  Our son got whiff of our plans and wanted to come along.  It's not very often that he gets time by himself with us so we did take him with us.  We found out that one of our favorite restaurants offers half price burgers on Monday nights.  Unfortunately one of us insisted on getting salmon instead of a burger which made a bill bigger than it needed to be.  Let me tell you, she's going to get a talking to this week!  We are planning on going out again this Monday and I am going to try the walnut burger this time.  Besides saving money it looked pretty yummy.
Grocery shopping and menu planning was pretty easy this week given I had the ingredients for three of the meals.  My bill was definitely cheaper than it has been for quite a while but I still can't seem to get it down below $150.

Here's the menu.

Breakfast

Cereal
Breakfast sandwiches
Egg scrambles
Cinnamon Rolls
Blueberry muffins
Veggie Burgers (I know this sounds crazy but I enjoy heating up an Amy's Veggie Burger and eating it for breakfast on my way to work.  I splurged and bought some this week)

Lunch
Kashi frozen lunches
Sandwich, Gogurt, string cheese, mandarin oranges, brownies plus a granola bar for a late morning snack (daughter’s lunch for school)
Bagel sandwiches
Lunch out
Leftovers

Dinner
Chicken and stuffing casserole, ciabbata bread, glazed carrots, pineapple, salad

Brats, grilled potato, onions & mushrooms, homemade applesauce

Crispy Italian Chicken, rice, mashed potatoes, biscuits, salad

Spaghetti & Meatballs, strawberry salad, corn, bread
Pizza
Dinner out (x2)

That's our menu plan, what are you planning for the week?  Feel free to leave a link to your menu in the comments.

I'll be linking this up over at I'm an Organizing Junkie

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Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

8 Chicken Breasts
Swiss Cheese
1 14 oz bag of stuffing
2 cans Campbell's Garlic Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/2 stick melted butter
1 cup milk

In a bowl mix stuffing, 1 1/2 cans of soup, butter and milk.  Mix well (mixture will be wet but stuffing will not be soft).  Spray bottom of 9 x 13 pan with non-stick spray.  Evenly spread chicken breasts on bottom of pan.  Place a dollop of mushroom soup (1/2 of can) on top of each chicken breast and then cover with Swiss cheese.  Spread stuffing mixture on top of chicken.  Bake at 400 for approximately 60 minutes (or until chicken is done). 

Optional:  Add broccoli on top of cheese before adding stuffing.

To keep stuffing from over browning I will usually cover with tin foil for the first half hour. 

Linen Closet

Things have been a little chaotic around here lately.  I haven't had as much time to organize as I would like, however I didn't want to lose my momentum so I did take some time to organize my linen closet earlier this past month. 

The linen closet doesn't get a lot of attention from me because my towels and wash clothes are kept downstairs in my bathroom.  I put my sheets on the same day I wash them (the sheets were expensive so I didn't buy a second set).  When I do go in there I close my eyes so I don't have to see the mess.  At least that was what I did before I re-organized! 

When I decide to tackle an organization project I always ask myself what the fundamental problems are and then try to solve those.  The main problem that I faced with the linen closet was to much stuff.  We have so many towels, sheets, wash clothes and household supplies that it just looked cluttered.  I've noticed that we as family tend to accumulate stuff, much more than we need.

The first thing I did was pull everything out of the closet and sort it. 

Towels - I don't know about the rest of you but we keep our towels for a long time, they tend to get a little ratty and show their age.  Plus we had way too many of them.  We didn't need any more rags around the house so I put them in a bag and donated them to a facility here in town that has a use for old towels.

Sheets - I found sheets in the closet from my son's old bed.  The one we got rid of about three years ago.  I went through all the old sheets keeping one spare set for each my son and daughter.  The rest were donated to Goodwill

Light bulbs - I also found light bulbs from a light fixture we got rid of years ago.  My parents use those light bulbs so I got rid of them

Cleaning Supplies - Years ago I bought a crate to carry all of our cleaning supplies.  For some reason, when the kids clean they are unable to put the supplies back in the crate.  I re-loaded the crate and set the expectation that supplies are to be put away appropriately.

Misc Stuff - We also keep a lot of miscellaneous stuff in the closet that needed to be organized.  After sorting through everything the only other items (besides linens) that we are keeping are: medical supplies (i.e. heating pad, first aid kit, blood pressure cuff, etc), light bulbs, flashlights & candles, my good vase and candle sticks.  Nothing else belongs in the closet.

I'm having trouble with my before picture but here's my after picture.

When I do my organization projects I try to devise a way to sustain it.  The big problem with the linen closet is letting the kids put away laundry.  Since doing the laundry room, my husband and I have taken over laundry duties.  I'm the one who has been putting away the laundry so it's pretty easy to sustain the linen portion.  The penalty of death threat seems to be working pretty well with the cleaning supplies!

My next step is to go out and buy new towels.  The trick is that I'm only going to replace half of our current towels with new ones and then get rid of the rest.  The new towels will be so thick that I don't think anyone will notice :)  Since we do laundry every day having enough clean towels in the house really isn't a problem.

That's my project for the week.  How about you?  If you've organized something recently feel free to either post a link in the comments or write about it.

I'll be linking this up over at A Slob Comes Clean and I'm an Organizing Junkie

Meal in a Bag

As busy moms sometimes we need to think outside of the box to find solutions to our problems.  One problem I recently solved was how to get my family to put a complete meal on the table without a lot of calls asking what they needed to do.

I've shared my solution, a "Meal in a Bag", over at Life as Mom.  Head on over and check it out.  I'd love to hear your creative solutions for getting dinner on the table.

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