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homemade laundry detergent

This post is selfish. I mean, it's not that I don't want to help you all out by telling you how to make your own laundry detergent for super cheap. But the main reason I'm posting it is because for some strange reason, every time I go to make this, I've forgotten how much of everything goes in it. And when you see what goes into it...well...you'll laugh. How could I forget something so simple?

(Truthfully, I think it's because I tend to confuse it with the homemade dishwasher detergent I used to make - almost the same ingredients but different amounts.)

What you see up there is everything that goes into it - borax, baking soda, washing soda and fels naptha soap. There's a big gallon-sized glass jar back there that I store it in, and my trusty food processor to speed up the process. (Not necessary, but helpful.) You can probably find all of these ingredients at your local grocery store or perhaps Target. They generally live in the laundry aisle, except, obviously, the baking soda, which is in the baking aisle. If you think you don't see them, look again - they tend to be either on the top shelf or the very bottom, sometimes hiding toward the back. Not big money-makers, these.

Fels naptha soap! The smell takes some getting used to but I'm accustomed to it now. It's a very hard soap, which is one reason I use my food processor to grate it. You could always use a handheld grater, it'll just take some muscles and a bit of time. I've heard of people using castile soap bars as well, but have never tried it myself.

First step - grate the soap. One bar per batch. Not cheese. Don't eat it... Because my food processor is not that large, I then dump the grated soap out into a bowl to hang out for a bit while I mix the rest of the ingredients.

See that big lump? That's why I always dump the rest of the ingredients in the food processor and pulse a couple times. I invariably end up with lumps in my raw ingredients, probably because I store them under the kitchen sink and they end up getting damp. So, what's in here? One cup each of borax, baking soda and washing soda. (See? I told you you'd laugh. It's so easy!)

After I've pulsed the white powders, I slowly add back in the grated fels naptha soap. It processes the grated soap into a fine powder and distributes everything (relatively) evenly into a pale yellow powder.

Voila! Laundry detergent! This jar is currently holding three batches. I usually make multiple batches at the same time, since I've got everything out already. But I do mix them up separately, due to the size of my food processor. To use, I keep a small coffee scoop that has, I believe, a 2 tablespoon capacity, right in the jar with the detergent. For each load I use less than one scoop of detergent. Smaller loads get a little less, but our usual load of laundry is pretty large.

laundry detergent

• 1 cup borax
• 1 cup baking soda
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1 bar fels naptha soap

To make - Grate the soap. Combine the powders, either in a food processor or large bowl. Add in the grated soap and process or stir to combine.

To use - Sprinkle 1-2 tablespoons into your laundry, depending on the size of the load and how dirty it is, and wash as usual.

Notes:

Yes, the fels naptha soap has a strong smell. It dissipates slightly once combined with the other ingredients and frankly, I just got used to it.

How long does it take me to make this? I made three batches in under ten minutes. It's super quick.

How long does it last? I generally make multiple batches, so I can't say exactly. Also, it will be highly dependent on how much laundry you do. We do a LOT of laundry and I don't make it more than once every couple months, if I remember correctly...

How much does it cost? The powdered ingredients cost a few dollars each at my local store. I don't believe any one of them costs more than $4 or so, probably less, and they last for a good long while. The fels naptha soap is about $1/bar. A note about the cost of ingredients - in my experience, they will cost much, much less if you can get them locally. When I couldn't find borax in our usual grocery store, I looked online and it was more than twice as much. The fels naptha soap is almost 4 times as expensive if you have to get it online. So how much does a load cost me? Not much. That's about as far as I can narrow it down!

Baking soda? I've seen people say that the baking soda is unnecessary. It might very well be. I figure, as cheap as it is, I might as well add it. It certainly isn't hurting anything!

Whiter whites? Nope, sorry. One thing this homemade detergent does not have is what they call "optical brighteners." These are chemicals added to laundry detergents that don't actual make your clothes cleaner, they just make them look like they are. I have noticed some of our lighter colors tending to look a little dingier than they used to. This doesn't bother me immensely, as most of our clothes are dark anyway.

Happy laundering!

saving money: travel

I admit I don't have a ton advice regarding saving money while traveling, since most travel, even the most basic, is generally out of our financial reach. (Also, traveling with a toddler? Not easy. It can be fun, for sure! But not easy.)

My one big tip for locals (and others?) is to check megabus.com for bus tickets. For my recent jaunt down to Boston (to catch a train to Connecticut) I paid a grand total of $13.50 for my round trip bus tickets when I would normally have spent $36! Same bus service, same everything - just a cheaper price! I must admit I was wary at first...would they treat me like a second-class citizen when I showed up with my megabus confirmation? Would they even let me on the bus? But I needn't have worried. It was just as easy and seamless as having purchased my tickets at the station, from the carrier.

The other recommendation I have is that if you have a baby, travel with them before they cost any money! Generally speaking, this means before they turn two. I took E on a train trip when she was 5 months old and it was great fun. She was still little enough to be highly portable but old enough to sit on her own and not fuss too much. (This will, of course, depend upon your particular baby's mobility and temperament...every baby is different!)

Good luck and have fun!

saving money: baby

Everybody wants the best for their child. Of course. But the best doesn't have to be the most expensive. Sometime it is, true, but not always or even, dare I say, often. Here I'm going to share just some of the ways we've managed to keep costs down with our kiddo(s).

We cloth diaper. You knew I was going to lead with that one, didn't you? Smartypants. If you are interested in cloth diapering, I did a whole little series on it a while back, so I won't go into all the details again here. Cloth diapering can, if done frugally, save you a ton of money. (You could, of course, buy all very expensive, beautiful, handmade, coveted-by-all cloth diapers and spend an absolute fortune. But we won't get into that.) We use mostly prefolds at home, with Thirsties covers. For daycare and others who aren't as familiar with cloth as we are, we use almost exclusively Fuzzibunz pocket diapers. They're easy as pie to use and fit our girl just fantastically. We used a few other brands of pockets diapers, but always come back to the Fuzzibunz - they just work best for us! I've kept track of every penny we've spent on diapering - actual diapers of all kinds, cloth purchased to make diapers, wet bags, pail liners, snappis, everything. (I have not included any of the washing costs, because I wouldn't really know how to separate that out...but we don't have a dryer, so the washing costs are minimal.) The grand total (so far) for just over 25 months now of cloth diapering is a bit over $700. I bought used diapers and accessories, made my own diapers, took advantage of sales, seconds and other special offers when I did buy new things and picked up more than a few things off Freecycle. The only downside to cloth diaper expenditures is that they do largely come all at once, near the beginning of baby's life, or before they're even born, if you're a planner like me. One major bonus now is that once baby #2 makes his arrival in July, we will have next to nothing in diapering costs for the rest of the time he's in diapers! (We may need to replace a few...we'll see!) Another bonus is that there are a few diapers I already know I'll be selling, so not only will we not be buying anything (or much) new but we might also be able to make some money! $700 (give or take a bit) to get two kids from birth through potty training? I'll take it.

We buy used/get hand-me-downs. For an outfit a baby is going to only wear a few times before they outgrow it, why buy brand new? If it's something you particularly love, go ahead. Splurge. But an entire brand new baby wardrobe? Do people actually do that? We got most, and by most I mean probably upwards of 90%, of our baby clothes/accessories and gear used. Second hand children's shops can have great deals - we got a $60 playmat for E for $7. I think the only new baby gear we bought was the carseat - and a carseat is not something to mess around with. They expire and there's no way to know if it was in an accident, so a carseat is one thing that I never recommend buying used. (I'd make an exception for buying one from someone you know really well - close friends or family. You'd probably have known if they were in a car accident, right?) We have second hand nearly everything, and it all works just fine.

We make things. I'm including a lot of "things" here - diapers, clothes, plaything, etc. Yes, I made diapers. Clothes for babies, especially girls (dresses!), can be pretty easy and cheap to make. It's easy if you pick the right (simple) pattern and it's cheap because, well, they're still little and don't need much fabric to adequately cover them! At some point, probably soon, the cost of store-bought clothes will be less than the cost for me to make my own for E and that will be a sad, sad day indeed. I made several of my own stretchy wraps - for the price of a couple yards of discount jersey fabric, I have 3 lovely wraps that would have cost me an arm and a leg if they were all brand name Mobys or Sleep Wraps. (Bonus: No sewing involved!) There are a variety of other things that can be handmade, depending on what skills you and/or your loved ones have - tag blankies, wooden teethers or rattles, soft blocks and other small games and toys. And related to this...

...tissue boxes make great toys. Have you ever given a kid a nice gift only to have them be much more interested in the wrapping/box/bow? Not only can you make your own toys but you can probably repurpose lots of things in your house for a baby or small child to play with. I keep a canister of the safest kitchen utensils on the lowest shelf in the kitchen for E to play with. Rubber spatulas, wooden spoons and the like. She loves it! (Of course, I invariably end up finding kitchen implements all over the house...) Pots and pans, cardboard boxes, there is no end to a child's imagination...

We made our own baby food. E is past the age now, but for a while, I would simmer some pears, whir them with the blender and pop them in ice cube trays to freeze every week or so. Making baby food, especially simple fruit and veggie purees, is really, really easy and so much cheaper. Plus, you have the added warm fuzzy of not buying a million little jars and packages that might end up in a landfill.

These are just a few of the ways that fit with our lifestyle to save money with a baby. There are tons more! Do you have a favorite? Share in the comments!

cooking and food blogs!

My last money-saving post was about cooking and eating, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite resources here. I tend to stick to only a few basic books and websites, because I usually find what I need there and/or just can't handle information overload. I used to subscribe to a whole bunch of beautiful food blogs, but found that they weren't practical in terms of actually cooking and eating. Some of them had beautiful photography or wonderful witty writing, but when it came to the recipes, I either didn't like them much or the ingredients were too expensive or hard to find. This (short) list is a few that I have found over time to be reliably inexpensive (at least most of the time) and suit my taste in food:

Budget Bytes - This is my newest addition to the bunch. It is what it says it is - budget conscious eating! I've tried quite a few of the recipes here and found them all to be tasty and not too difficult/time consuming to make. Plus, it gives you a cost breakdown for each one. Your costs may vary, of course, depending on where you live, what substitutions you make and a variety of other factors, but you get a general idea.

Catherine Newman - I've been following her writing/blogging progress for years. I started reading her blog over on Babycenter, back in the days before I was even contemplating having kids of my own. I followed her over here and then on to her own blog. Hers is one that I don't go to solely for recipes, though they are always good and simple and cheap. I love her writing, and always have, so check out not only the food, but the thoughts as well!

smitten kitchen - Do I even need to talk about this one? If you haven't read any posts over at smitten kitchen, just go. Do it right now. (And, um, where have you been?)

Food in Jars - For the canners and preservers among us, this is a nice resource for canning recipes. Yum!

As far as cookbooks go, I tend to stick to a few that have reliable, basic recipes. I use the Joy of Cooking to look up most anything I need to figure out. Usually they have it in there, sometimes they don't. I have several King Arthur flour cookbooks that I use for most of my baking needs. And for canning, I love this Ball book on canning.

That's just a very few of the (probably) millions of resources out there for home cooks, bakers, canners, etc! Do you have a favorite budget-friendly source of recipes? Share it in the comments!

saving money: food!

Now this is a post that could go on and on...but I will try to refrain and stick to the basics.

Food is something that is very adjustable for most people. If there's wiggle room in a budget, it tends to be here. It's a necessity, for sure, but there are a million ways to reduce your food costs. I'm going to go over a few of the ways we save money (and don't!) in the food realm.

Please note: I feel like I need to confess that I haven't been doing many of these things since getting pregnant. While I don't feel sick exactly, I still almost never want to deal with food. I have food aversions to, well, nearly everything. *sigh* So lots of these suggestions are best case scenarios right now but I've done them all at one point or another!

We garden. This is not necessarily a money saver, but can be. We have two 4x6 raised beds in our (rented) backyard and over a dozen large pots or buckets on the porch. There is definitely skill, and a lot of luck, involved in making a garden come to life and produce edibles but if you have that skill (and good luck!) then it can make it all worth it. Last year was our first year here and if you factor in the cost of the wood to construct the raised beds, the soil, the seeds, etc. then we certainly didn't come out ahead, financially. But it is an investment. This year, we have virtually none of those costs - the beds are constructed, the soil is in place, we composted over the winter and are still using many of the seeds we bought last year. (We did need to replenish a few and of course I ordered some more because it wouldn't be my garden if I wasn't trying to fit too much into it...) But you never know how things are going to produce - our tomatoes, for example, didn't do well last year. Some of them caught early blight and others just didn't flourish. Luckily, the seedlings were a gift from a farmer friend, so we hadn't wasted any money, only garden space. On the other hand, I bought two tomatillo seedlings for a couple bucks in the spring and by fall we had baskets full of tomatillos. So many! We're still eating salsa verde I canned from those fruits.

We cook. Yes, we cook. Shocking, I know. In a world where there's a drive thru fast food joint on every corner, we make most of our meals at home. We use simple ingredients - beans, rice, pasta, veggies - and are able to keep our food costs down that way. Cooking at home can be super expensive, if you choose to cook filet mignon and out-of-season asparagus at every meal. But it doesn't have to be. And again, there is some skill involved. But with all the food blogs, cooking shows and cookbooks out there, there's really no excuse for not being able to learn. And you really don't need to stick to Kraft mac 'n' cheese and frozen food either.

We bake. I (used to) bake all our own bread products. Every loaf of bread, every tortilla, all the English muffins, any necessary cakes or pies. Recently, we've taken to buying that cheap fluffy wheat bread because I just can't seem to make a good fluffy PB&J-worthy sandwich bread at home and, well, I have a toddler. So there you go. (But that stuff is terrible for any other type of sandwich...blech.) If I have time, I make regular loaf bread - I usually use a recipe from the Joy of Cooking. And if I'm busy, but don't need the bread immediately, I make no-knead bread, which is excellent for hearty ham sandwiches and takes mere minutes to mix up. Yum. I refuse to buy store bought tortillas anymore - homemade ones are so! much! better! Seriously. If you've never had a hot, fresh, homemade tortilla...GO. Make them. Now. I'll wait.

So anyway, now that you've had some tortillas...I also make our own burger buns, for the relatively rare occasion we eat burgers, and have made our own English muffins but don't do it often as the cooking process is a bit time-consuming. Cakes, pies, cupcakes, cookies...those all are homemade too. I admit to having a weakness for boxed brownies though. Ghirardelli...yum. I also have to admit my weakness for toaster waffles. I hadn't had one in years and recently bought some and I love them. Why don't I make our own waffles and freeze them? Well, largely because we don't have a waffle iron and I don't need one more large-ish specialized kitchen gadget taking up space in my house.

We buy in bulk. Sometimes. Buying in bulk can be cheaper. But not if you buy too much of something perishable and end up throwing most of it away before you can eat it. Also, check the unit price - sometimes bulk items are not actually cheaper! For instance, at our local grocery store, organic white rice is $2.99/lb from the bulk bins but when you buy it packaged it's half that. We particularly benefit from buying larger bags of flour (for baking) and, if you ever make bread, don't ever buy those teeny packets of yeast. We buy 1 lb bricks that last most of the year in the refrigerator but even if you can't find those, buy a jar. Trust me on this. The price difference is astronomical.

If you have a co-op in your area, look into joining. Sometimes they can be very beneficial. We briefly joined our local co-op, but found that it actually wasn't cost effective, so we stopped using it. Oftentimes, it will depend on precisely what you buy from them so check it out and see if it could help your budget!

We don't eat a lot of meat. Meat is expensive. We're not vegetarians but our meat intake is low and what meat we do eat is a treat. I'll often get meat when we're out for something special (added bonus - not having to cook it!) or if we do have it at home, we buy larger packages, split it up and freeze it into smaller portions. Where do we get our protein? Lots of other places - dairy, eggs, beans, etc.

We use dry milk when we can. I know...what? Are we in the depression here? Seriously though - I buy a big box of dry milk and store it in an airtight container. When I need milk for baking or cooking, I reconstitute what I need. In situations like that, where taste isn't really the issue, it works just fine. We save our "real" milk for drinking and other occasions where it's needed. (We still go through a ridiculous amount of milk but it cuts down a little!)

We buy generic. Mostly. Through some trial and error, it's pretty easy to figure out what stuff your local grocery store stocks that's just as good (or better!) in a generic version than "name brand." Most of what we buy is generic, unless there isn't a generic option or we've discovered that the generic version is really awful. (Our local store's generic pudding for example - blech.) This comes in particularly handy at Whole Foods - I've found that many of their generic products are really good and often quite inexpensive, less than our regular grocery store often!

We rarely eat cereal. (Um, except while I'm pregnant...) Boxed cereal is expensive and much of it is highly processed and sugared and not necessarily all that good for you. It's easy, this much I admit. (And I actually love cereal. Especially right now in my lazy, food-averse, hungry-at-odd-hours pregnant state. Lately, I've been buying big bags of this all-natural Lucky Charms-type cereal and loving it. I'm embarrassed.) Usually, I make our own granola and instant oatmeal. I've blogged this granola recipe, but the one I find myself defaulting to lately is from this book - there's a honeyed granola in there that I am absolutely loving. And I can't recommend the oatmeal enough - it's super easy to whip up and if you do two batches at once, it saves even more time.

We (sometimes) make our own yogurt. It's really incredibly easy. (Just Google it - I've cobbled together a method from various blog posts and this pamphlet, which I picked up at a general store in rural Texas.) Making yogurt is very inexpensive - all you need is milk and a little bit of starter (yogurt). It sure beats paying big bucks for quarts of yogurt at the grocery store, let alone the little single serving cups. 

We can. Can! Canning, again, is one of those things that can (heh) be cost-effective, but isn't necessarily. I generally only can in-season fruits and some vegetables that I can get for relatively cheaply at our local farmers market or from my own garden. For instance, I desperately wanted to make raspberry jam last year but with raspberry prices the way they were, there was no way it would be worth it. (Financially speaking, my tastebuds think it's always worth it.) But I made blackberry jelly instead because we have blackberry bushes in our yard and thus the fruit was free! Check out my little series on canning here.

If you need some recipe ideas, feel free to follow my food board on Pinterest. I intend to pull together a list of my favorite budget-friendly food blogs, recipes and cookbooks in the near future.

So there you have it. There are probably more things that we do that I don't even think about, but these are the ones that my poor addled brain can come up with at the moment! Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments!

saving money: cleaning, part 2

Aaaand I'm a scatterbrained blogger these days - I forgot one of our key money-saving lifestyle choices, with regards to cleaning!

We don't own a dryer.

I know. Most of you probably already hate doing laundry, why make it more difficult and time consuming? Well, the irony is that once I stopped using a dryer and started hanging all our clothes to dry, I found it a much less bothersome task. Crazy, right? I think it has something to do with everything already being all neat and tidy and separated. I don't know for sure, I only know I hated folding laundry from the dryer. Now? I totally don't mind. (And it really takes a surprisingly small amount of time to hang a load of laundry. I swear.)

Now, I don't want you thinking I have an easy time of it with this no-dryer thing. We live in Maine. For large parts of the year it is too cold to dry outside. We have several drying racks that we use inside, when that is the case. When it's nice, we have clotheslines strung across our porch and use those instead. We have a small child (soon to be 2 small children!) so I generally do a load of laundry every day, between regular laundry and diapers. Because, oh yes! We cloth diaper too! And those all get hung to dry as well. (We have separate drying racks for those that take up less space.) So it's not like I'm a single person in a warm climate where air drying would be incredibly easy. But still, I do it. It saves us money, saves electricity and as an added bonus, saves our clothes as well. Less fading, virtually no shrinking.

But I do need to plan my laundry carefully to avoid having nowhere to hang wet clothes. We have a washing schedule that I stick to religiously that allows for everything to dry fully before doing the next load. (Depending on the weather that can take anywhere from an hour or two to over a day.) We do diapers 3 times per week (MWF), then a load of whites, a load of darks and a load of baby clothes on the other days. The remaining day (Sunday, as it happens) we do whatever is left - delicate wool things, comforters, whatever is needed, though usually we don't need to wash anything on Sundays at all. It works for us!

I admit - we do on occasion bring laundry to the laundromat or my parents' house to dry, if needed. Sometimes, in January, when the baby spits up on the comforter, you just have to have it dry quickly. But do I wish I owned a dryer just for the handful of occasions every year when we actually need it? Nope.

Some interesting statistics on air drying and energy consumption by tumble dryers over here...

I know it's not for everybody but give it a shot sometime this summer, if you haven't already!

saving money: cleaning

Because I blogged our little financial history here, here and here, I thought I'd start a wee mini-series about how we make ends meet, just in case the info would be helpful to any of you out there!

We scrimp and save in a variety of ways and splurge in others. To each his own - we all need something we don't have to worry about spending money on. But I'm going to share with you some of the ways we save. This first post will be about cleaning. Household cleaning, that is.

We use cloth. We use mostly cloths that we wash and reuse to clean up basic spills and stuff around the house. Generally, they're made from old towels and whatnot that were getting too threadbare or torn to be functional anymore. We cut them up into whatever size suits us and store them under the kitchen sink. We do still buy paper towels to use for a few things, but largely we use cloth. (I really like paper towels for cleaning up at least the first pass at particular disgusting and/or greasy messes. Also, for draining bacon. *ahem*) We also use some sponges, particularly the Magic Eraser type sponges, which are awesome.

We make many of our own cleaning supplies. While we don't make everything, there are quite a few that we do. Lots of stuff can be cleaned with very hot water, castile soap (like Dr. Bronner's), borax, vinegar and a host of other simple, inexpensive ingredients. I have a Pinterest board dedicated to DIY cleaning solutions, if you'd like to check it out. There isn't a ton of stuff there yet, and I have not tried all the recipes, but the ideas are great to have! Two of the pins I use regularly are the one for dishwasher detergent and the one for the four separate cleaners, of which I am most fond of the grease cutter. (Spray that stuff on the dirty stove top, wait a few minutes, then wipe with a Magic Eraser sponge? Miraculous.)

We go natural. Some of the main cleaning ingredients we use are essential oils that have antibacterial properties. And while a small bottle of an essential oil may be fairly expensive, you generally only need a few drops of the oil in a whole container of cleaner for it to be effective. (A side note - M bought some all-purpose cleaner today, mainly because all of our spray bottles happen to be broken at the moment. The active ingredient? Thyme oil. I'm entirely sure we could have made something similar at home for a fraction of the cost.)

We don't buy things that need special cleaning. For instance, I make a point of avoiding dry clean only clothing. Not only do I not have the money to spend at the dry cleaners, but with a toddler in the house and my own tendency to spill things on myself, I don't need the hassle of running to the dry cleaners every other day. Also, chemicals. Ick.

We don't clean obsessively. This may sound like an odd one, but hear me out. By cleaning only when needed, we save on cleaning products and we save on effort. (If you're using conventional cleaners, not cleaning all the time can save you money and exposure to chemicals! Win!) Which is not to say that we leave our house dirty, we certainly don't. (Usually.) But frankly I'd rather my child(ren) be exposed to some small amount of dirt and dust than the constant presence of chemical cleaning products. (We generally don't use chemical cleaning products anyway. But you get the picture.)

And those are just a few ways that we save around the house! If you have any favorite cleaning supply recipes, please leave a comment to share, I'd love to see some more!

I am just like you. Part 3: Why? And the future.

This is part 3 in a series. Read the first part and the second part.

Well, this is (probably) the last in the series and I'm posting much more quickly on the heels of the previous post than I did before, largely because I don't want that last post to be out there too long without me explaining why I did this. I feel like it sounds...kind of pitiful, oh woe-is-me, but it was definitely not intended to be. (Nobody has told me this...it's just what I think. I actually got a tremendous amount of positive feedback. It was wonderful.)

Anyway! Why did I write this little series containing an honest look at our financial life? Well, the idea first came to me as the Occupy Wall Street protests were just getting started and I was reading a lot of stories from average people that sounded a lot like mine. Then things started snowballing from there... We had a book club at work where we read Caitlin Shetterly's memoir Made for You and Me - it was so similar to our own story that many places had me in tears. I wept for them, for us, for all the people who were losing their homes, their savings, their sense of dignity and purpose. (It's an excellent book, by the way, read it if you can.) At the book club, perhaps a third of us had experienced situations not unlike hers where we found ourselves jobless and dependent on family and friends. There were young people who were experiencing it firsthand and older folks who were seeing their children go through this (and often housing them too). There was some talk on Twitter about how people don't talk about this kind of stuff and it seems that folks really appreciate when someone shares their honest story. So I decided to share! If it makes one person out there feel a little less alone in their situation, then I will be satisfied. It certainly made me feel less alone - thank you for all your tweets and comments and messages!

More than that, I hope I'm contributing in my own tiny way to a growing dialogue about what is happening in this country right now. In the grand scheme of the history of humankind, yes, we have it pretty good. Really excellent you could even say. Even compared to the majority of places on earth right now...we're doing fantastic. We are not in the midst of a civil war. I have plenty of access to fresh water. I have a roof over my head. I have heat, though we certainly keep it colder than I'd like in our house these days... I have enough to eat. I don't have to contend with wild animals, 16 hour workdays, brutal dictatorships, landmines or any number of other awful things. I have the luxury of sitting in my heated house, with my wireless internet and typing away on my laptop. I know. I get it. But in a country that tells you that if you work hard and get an education, you will be "successful?" When so many people are doing just that and...failing? (At least temporarily.) Knowing that I'm lucky compared to so many other people in the world may help me keep perspective, but it doesn't make paying the bills or rent or putting food on the table any easier.

And that's part of why I feel so frustrated.

I feel like I did everything right. I was told certain things growing up - if you're smart and work hard, you will be successful. I am smart. Smarter than the average bear, I'd say, if you don't mind. I took all those AP classes in high school, did the honors program during college and graduated with honors. Did well in grad school. I'm always learning new things of my own volition. I read. I consider myself relatively financially savvy. (But when you don't have anything to work with, it's hard to make some of those smart financial decisions. Have a nest egg! Right.) My smarts have allowed us to subsist on less than we might have otherwise. I credit my willingness to learn how to make stuff - clothes, dishwasher detergent, bread, granola - with saving us quite a bit of money over time. I use my brain to navigate the world of coupons, money-saving deals and government programs - and that last one is no small feat, trust me.

And I like to think I work pretty hard too, though of course I always feel like I could be working harder. I've always had a job (or two...or three) or have been looking (hard!) for one. I worked more hours in college than most people I know, but usually not at jobs that were any good for my future career. Money held me back there - I could never take those unpaid internships that many of my peers held in order to further my career-related skills because I couldn't afford to be not earning money for that length of time. (Or reducing my paid-work hours to the degree I would have had to in order to do both. I did eventually find one paid internship in college, but it was short-lived.) I consider myself very lucky just to have been able to attend college and grad school at all, trust me.

But if I'm smart and I've always worked hard...what gives? Am I just unlucky? Is there something wrong with the system? Is there something wrong with me? Was I lied to my whole life? How come, at a time in my life when I thought for sure I would have everything all figured out, do I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing or how I got here?

I can't, with any surety, answer those questions. I will say that I know I've made some bad decisions in my life and that I'm far from trying to blame my problems on anyone else in particular. For instance, I quit a job once because it was so horrible that when I pulled into the parking lot in the morning, I would start to cry. I didn't wait to find another one, even though that would have been the responsible thing, because I just had to get out of there now. As it turns out, I didn't find anything for a good long while. Should I have waited? Probably. And I know that I've purchased things I shouldn't have on credit just because I wanted them. Who hasn't? The drudgery of budgeting every penny can really wear you down and I truly believe that everyone needs a little treat every now and then. But how big a treat? Are we talking a latte or a PlayStation? My recent splurge was to order two scarves that I probably shouldn't have. But we couldn't afford gifts for Christmas and my birthday is coming up so I decided to spend the $20. Should I have done that? Financially, no. But it was good for my peace of mind and I'll just have to deal with the consequences. Another of my downfalls, not exactly a decision, is that I'm horribly socially awkward. OK, maybe not horribly, but I don't have that certain something that some people have that allows them to succeed in spite of their inherent idiocy. I always sort of assume that the fact that I'm not a blathering idiot will be clear to people, but that's not always the case and I have a really hard time advocating for myself when I think it should be apparent. (I really need to get over that...)

So why did I title these pieces "I am just like you?" Because I am. The regular, average "you" of middle-class America, if such a thing exists anymore. I walk down the street wearing decent clothes, a nice haircut and respectable looking shoes with my adorable toddler in tow. I carry a gorgeous handmade bag, that I bought years ago and saved for. I drive an ordinary older car. I accessorize in this wintry time with beautiful hand knit hats and scarves and mittens. You would never look twice at me. You wouldn't see me and think, "She's poor." You would see me and think...probably nothing at all. Or if you're a knitter, maybe, "Hey, that's a nice pair of mittens." But probably nothing at all. (You wouldn't see me and think, "She has money" either, but that's a different story.) I feel like I fit in with my friends, though I know some of them "have" substantially more than we do. It usually doesn't bother me until it comes to doing something with or for our similarly-aged children and I can't afford to do it. I know I'm not alone - I've talked with other mamas who are equally unable to send their children to expensive classes or daycares, much as we all might like to. But it doesn't make it any easier.

So what does the future hold?

I have no idea. Ideally, M will finish school and land a great job. I would love to work more but I would also love to spend as much time as possible with my kiddos. If it's a matter of paying the bills, and daycare doesn't eat up all my paycheck, I will have to accept that I may have to work more hours, if I can find something. If we can get by on less (which I think we can, because, well, we are) then I will continue working part-time and momming part-time. I know that we have family and friends that won't let us starve or be homeless and for that I am eternally grateful but I am always so hesitant to "take advantage" even though I know they are more than willing to help.

If we only could ask.

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There are a number of great books to read about this issue. I prefer personal narrative types, like Caitlin Shetterly's memoir that I mentioned above, or Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch. (Or any of her other books, for that matter...) There are others that are slipping my mind at the moment. As someone said to me about the previous post, people don't really understand until they hear personal stories. Especially stories from friends. We never think it'll happen to us or to people we know. But it does. Every day.

This website has been making the rounds on Facebook recently and it's worth mentioning. It makes you take a hard look at poverty and what you need to do to make it through a fictional month. Our budget is really quite close to that in reality and the questions addressed are things I at least think about, if not actually deal with, on a daily basis. Take a look. It may be eye opening.

Then there's this post on Why You're Always Broke. This is exactly the kind of post that pisses me off. Yes, this may be why you're always broke if you're a twenty- or thirty-something with no kids and a decent job. It's not that the reasons given aren't valid - they totally are - but they are just so superficial. It barely scratches the surface of why people are broke. And it leads off with the tired old "Don't buy that morning latte" suggestion, which...really? We've all heard that a million times before. If you are in a situation where buying that morning latte is really all that's making you broke? You're not doing so bad. They are good suggestions and we practice every single one. But let's go deeper people!

I'll be doing a follow up post soon about ways that we save money...it will probably include things on that list! But I hope that I'll be including some more substantial things you can do as well. And it certainly won't be titled "Why We're Always Broke" because the answer to that has nothing to do with our coffee consumption and everything to do with our paltry income and our current inability to increase it.

To everyone who wrote to me and left comments or tweets - thank you for your support! And to those of you in the same or similar situations - hang in there! There's not a lot else we can do but be there for each other.

Hugs.

I am just like you. Part 2: Present day.

This is the second in a series. Read the first part here.

I've let this stew for a long (long) time, as you may have noticed. While it's true that other things did get in the way - the holidays, etc. - I've just been putting it off for fear of...well...what people will think. It's hard to admit to some of these things. But my aim in putting it out there is that it will make it easier. For myself and others.

From this point on if you've read my blog carefully, you'll already know parts of the story.

I left off with us hightailing it out of Texas with a belly full of tiny baby, a UHaul truck packed to the gills with us, all our earthly possessions and two very unhappy cats...

We stayed with friends when we arrived in Maine. And as much as I loved living with them, and would do it again in a heartbeat if I had to, having 4 adults, 3 children and one baby-to-be under the same (small-ish) roof was a little intense for us, having just moved from our apartment where it was just us and the cats. (Oh yeah, in addition to the people add in two cats and a dog. Plus, chickens and ducks and turkeys and a sheep or two, but they're outside so do they really count?) We moved into our own place a few months later and here we remain to this day. We're fortunate that our landlord is a little lax and didn't check our credit or jobs or anything, since we didn't, well, have any. We used our unemployment to pay the rent and qualified for MaineCare for health insurance for me and baby-to-be, but not M.

Things haven't changed much. M has only been able to get a few temporary jobs and so decided to go back to school to hopefully improve his prospects. I started a job working from home right before E was born and have been doing that ever since. In addition, I was lucky enough to get a very part-time job in my field (wow!) when she was about 7 months old. That job has increased in hours over the past year but I'm still only a half-time employee. I love my job. I love the people I work with. I make decent money, per hour, but since I only work half time, it doesn't add up to quite enough to pay (all) the bills. The yarn business brings in a teeny amount, mostly just enough to be able to sustain itself, pay for unexpected bills or an occasional indulgence. The photography business has barely brought in a cent. (Yet! Tell your friends! Please!) And now M is trying to maneuver around his school schedule and find a job that will work around it, or switch his schedule up to make full-time employment work. So, again, I find myself living off student loans, credit cards and my meager earnings and relying on various forms of government assistance.

Hi, my name is Laura and I receive food stamps.

That's another one of those things nobody talks about - help. We don't talk about how broke we really are and we don't talk about who or what is helping us through. (And God forbid we have to ask for help...but that's another story.) I know a few people around us are aware of the fact that we get food stamps. (Which aren't actually stamps at all - the money comes on a preloaded debit card that you swipe just like any other at the grocery store.) But it's not common knowledge that we receive this assistance. And, frankly, without it we would be either very hungry, more in debt, or...something. Our food stamp money covers about half of our food expenses in any given month, more if we need it to and can be extra frugal. (I'm tempted to do a project to see if I can stretch it to cover all our food expenses...stay tuned...) We do not eat lavishly. We do eat fresh, organic when possible, local food. But I am fairly food-savvy and can cook well, which helps. Heck, you've seen my blog - the recipes here, especially in recent months, are pretty inexpensive. I don't tend to use exotic ingredients, or even much meat. (Meat is expensive, yo!)

Our other main source of financial assistance is health insurance. Like I mentioned before, we qualify for MaineCare, which is the state of Maine's insurance program for us po' folk. Without it, I don't know where we'd be. (Well, besides completely uninsured...) They paid for all of my prenatal care with E, her birth, and now for all her well-baby checkups and miscellaneous doctor's visits. M and I are covered too, for the time being*, but as relatively healthy adults, we don't make nearly as much use of it as she does. If I had to pay for insurance through my job, it would cost me well over half what I make to cover our whole family. Even just to cover E and I, it would mean a hefty bill. Between that and daycare, I'd be spending more than I make. I am eternally grateful for the MaineCare program, despite its drawbacks and difficulties and I sincerely hope that it can continue to help my family and others like us, while we need it. I have high hopes for getting off food stamps, but insurance is another issue. Without a major change in our situation, there's no way we could afford it on our own. Hopefully that change is coming sooner than later! We're working hard to make it happen, but it doesn't seem any closer than it was a year ago.

Despite it all, I feel lucky. We're all in good health, we can (so far) afford to keep a roof over our heads and stay warm. Thanks to food stamps, we can eat relatively decently. We live near my family and they are all in relatively good health. I don't feel like I'm lacking for much, as long as I don't put my wanty pants on.

But we economize in almost every way. We almost never go out and when we do it's with a coupon or somewhere cheap. We rarely travel. (My Rhinebeck trip was my big trip this year and the whole thing cost me less than $200.) Most our gifts are homemade, which I would probably do anyway. I make most of our bread products. I've started making our own yogurt too. We don't buy breakfast cereal, but instead make our own oatmeal and granola. I cook almost all our meals from scratch, using aforementioned inexpensive ingredients. We cloth diaper. We don't have cable or smartphones. We have one cell phone that has prepaid minutes, for emergencies, which costs us about $40 per year. Yes, per year. I only get my hair cut once or twice a year. The vast majority of E's clothes, toys and other items are hand-me-downs and/or gifts. We don't buy books, but go to the library. I make our dishwasher detergent. So when I hear suggestions to save money by, say, not buying that morning latte? I get a little frustrated.

Because even though I feel pretty lucky, sometimes I start to think about our financial situation and I get all stressed out. I wonder when, if ever, we'll have enough money to just be able to afford to buy, say, a new pair of shoes when we need them. (And I do mean need, not want.) Or if I'll ever not have tens of thousands of dollars of student debt hanging over my head. (I currently owe more than 3x my annual salary.) Or if we'll ever get that credit card paid off. (I have high hopes.) Not to mention big picture things - will we ever be able to afford to buy a house? Give E the things she needs and wants as she gets older? Get a new(er) car? Save for retirement? Meet any of our life goals that remotely involve money? Those are questions I can't answer and they make me nervous to think about. We are one large car repair or unexpected health issue away from really and truly not being able to make it. As it is, I'm rather thankful we don't own a house and therefore don't have to worry about losing it...

How many people are in the same situation? Uncountable numbers, I'm sure. I know I'm not alone, but sometimes it feels like it.

Stay tuned for the next installment - why? And what does the future hold?    

*For the time being, we are covered under MaineCare but the governor is working hard to change that. We are exactly the people who will lose coverage if the proposed cuts go through.

I am just like you. Part 1: History

Or am I?

I've thought for a long time about this blog post. What I would say. What I would feel comfortable divulging about my life. What I would feel comfortable divulging (in a roundabout way) about the lives of some of those related to me. Whether or not I should even write it to begin with.

Why am I so hung up about it? It's about money. It's not pretty. It's not a nice quilt. It's not a pattern for a baby hat. It's not a delicious new recipe to try. It's not about anything comfortable and cozy and fun. It's about the hard reality of not quite having enough. It's not something we always discuss with our friends, or even our family. I know I don't feel comfortable letting on that maybe I can't quite afford something, unless it's to someone that I know (or suspect) might be in a similar situation. Or someone who has been there in the past. Someone who will understand and not look on me with a (however well-intentioned) pitying eye when I say that no, I can't afford to meet you for coffee. If you're not one of those people, I'll come up with another excuse - the baby is sick, I have to work...something.

So why am I writing about it now? The Occupy Wall Street protests and the folks over here have inspired me to.

There are so many people struggling right now and I don't for a moment think that I am any different than any one of them. This is just my story. And I almost feel bad for sharing it because I know there are tons of people doing so much worse than we are. And yet, I want to. Because when you see me walk down the street, you don't notice me. I look like everyone else. I look normal. I look like someone who has a relatively comfortable life. (And trust me, I do realize that in the grand scheme of things, I do.) It makes me wonder how many of the people that I think are doing so much better than us are, in reality, not.

This is my life.

I had a comfortable childhood. We were poor, but I didn't know it. I always thought we were middle-class, though when I mentioned that to my mother, she laughed. We had food, even if on a few occasions it came from the government in white-labeled cans with black line drawings of green beans on them. We always had a roof over our heads. It was usually warm. I had toys to play with and books to read. I, like most children, wanted more than I had, but who doesn't? My parents were divorced and my mother worked more than full time to support us. (My father was better off than we were and was always there for us. I don't want this to sound like he wasn't around - he was. I just didn't live with him.) I had homemade dolls before that kind of thing was trendy and was somewhat embarassed by it. (This is something I sincerely hope never happens to my little girl! She has plenty of homemade toys, I just hope she is proud of them!)

I lived in a crappy part of town and went to a not-so-great elementary school. Middle school was a step up and our town only had one high school, so there you go. I was smart and I was lucky enough to get a half scholarship to the college of my choice. I took out the maximum amount of loans I could get and I worked a lot. My parents covered whatever was leftover. Looking back, my mother covered more of my expenses than I probably should have allowed, but I couldn't see any other way. I worked all through college, often close to full time, and during summer breaks I usually worked two jobs - one during the day and another in the evening. I had little free time, but I was young and resilient and energetic. It didn't matter.

Then my senior year, my mother had to declare bankruptcy. This, for me the student, meant that I was now considered an "independent" student, as far as finances are concerned, and allowed me to take out even more student loans. This was good and bad - bad because, well, more loans, but good because it allowed me to finish school. I literally would not have been able to without those additional loans.

So I graduated with a degree in art. (Practical, I know.) Got married. (It was a very DIY affair.) Moved to Oregon in 2001 at a time when the economy was terrible and at its worst in Oregon. My husband was in grad school and I desperately searched for a job. I remember applying for a position as a barista at a drive-through coffee shop and in the interview the hiring manager told me they had received literally hundreds of applications in the few short hours the position had been posted on Craigslist. I didn't get the job. I looked into unemployment, but since all my recent work had been while I was a student, I didn't qualify. Jobs in graphic design were scarce and very low paying. We're talking about $7-8/hour. No lie. I finally found a part time job as a bank teller. It was horrible. I hung in there for about a year and then quit because I couldn't stomach having to sell people credit cards who were worse off financially than I was. It was unethical and I just couldn't do it.

I continued to look for work while we racked up credit card debt just to buy groceries. I finally decided that I would go to grad school and enrolled in some preparatory classes. I also started volunteering at the university library, which thankfully led to a (low) paying position, at least briefly. Husband graduated and we moved to Texas so I could go to school.

There, I racked up more student loan debt, taking out loans to live on. We managed to pay off a good chunk of our credit card debt, but not nearly enough. Then in 2004, I got divorced and was out on my own. Scary, but it had been my choice. I had my student loans and my credit cards to live on. I had to live with a roommate "under the radar" because I couldn't get an apartment of my own. It only took me a month or two to find two jobs that I could work around my school schedule and for several years I did just that - worked two jobs, increasing my hours whenever possible, and went to school full time. Finally, in the summer of 2007, I graduated with my masters degree and was fully trained (heh) to be a librarian of some sort. Unfortunately, one of my jobs was dependent on my student status, so I was down to one job. Not to mention, M (boyfriend at the time...now husband), whom I was living with, contracted meningitis that summer and while he is now fine, could not work for a time. So me and my one part time job were stuck with all the bills. Plus, now we had thousands in medical expenses for M's hospital stay since his job didn't offer health insurance. Luckily, most of the hospital bills were taken care of by the charitable arm of the hospital because were were so broke. The rest took years to pay off.

I did eventually get another part time job to add to the one I already had, which lead to an actual full time job-with-benefits! A first! I had health insurance! A retirement plan! A decent paycheck! It was awesome! M was working a decent job then too, so we were living a perfectly average lifestyle. I could buy a pair of shoes if I wanted. We bought each other birthday gifts. Went out to dinner occasionally. Paid off credit cards. Bliss.

It lasted about a year.

Then my job came to an end. It was a grant-funded position and we did not get our funding renewed. Several of us lost our jobs, not just me. Then M's job came to an end. Almost immediately before these two events, we found out we were expecting! Oh, the timing... So there we were, unemployed with no real prospects and me with a belly full of tiny baby. Using a newly paid-off credit card, we rented a UHaul and hightailed it out of there.

To be continued...