How to Refill Foam Soap Dispensers Inexpensively

I don't know why but bars of soap just wig me out. They look beautiful (well they do until they are on their last legs), but the thought of using the same one others use to wash their hands just bothers me. I know that it is irrational. I am not a big germophobe so I don't get it. But there you have it. We all have our interesting quirks. Because of this liquid soap is for me.

Liquid soap is great. You just have to pump a little on your hands and a way you go. You don't have to worry about the bar slip sliding around and landing on the floor. I love how easily it lathers. To me it is amazing. But the thing with regular liquid soap is that you go through it like crazy. Or at least we seem to in my family. I think I was refilling the container once sometimes twice a week. That is with the older two at school for most of the day. The kids would use a full pump when only a half pump would do. And the refill jugs were pricey. I think the last one I bought was $6.99 and that lasted only only a few weeks.

Enter the foaming soap. I love this stuff. It is already lathery straight from the bottle and it uses way less soap. The container usually lasts two weeks with my family, so that's great. But once again, what to do about the refills?

Well lucky for me I have brilliant friends who show me all their nifty tricks of the domestic engineer trade. The following tip is brought to you by my friend Sherri. She truly is incredible!

All you need to refill your foaming soap dispenser is an empty soap container with foaming pump and your favourite kind of gel body wash. It has to be the gel kind. It cannot be the white creamy kind. That will not work.

Add about 1/2 an inch to an inch of the gel body wash to the container. (I am usually under an inch.)

Fill the rest with water. Make sure you leave space at the top for the pump and for the water and soap to move around.

Secure the lid tightly and gently rock the bottle back and forth to thoroughly mix the body wash and water. (You don't want to see any of body wash chunks.)

That's it. It takes a couple of pumps to get the foam at the beginning but then it is perfect!

The gel body wash I used I got for $2.99. I have refilled my soap dispenser six times and I still have gel left for probably 2 or 3 refills. (The body wash that I have in the pictures is bigger then the one I have been using so it will probably refill a lot more. I used it because the colour contrast is greater and thus easier for you to see.)

So if I get a full 9 refills from this bottle it will cost me $0.33 per refill. Not too bad. Even if I only get 8 it is still only $0.37.

I found another recipe online that makes it a bit more eco/people friendly. You can get that recipe here. I am going to try it out someday, I just don't have the materials on hand. So for now I will stick to the body wash.

What kind of inexpensive domestic tricks do you have that you get excited about?

A Way to Manage Your To-Do List

So we are finally at the original post I wanted to write about. To-do lists. But, what is funny is that when I was starting to edit my original musings and tried to get this post ready my to-do list exploded! I had a billion things that needed to get done. Hence the delay in posting. Oh, the irony of life. Well, let's get on with it.

Anyone who has any kind of responsibility has one of these. The dreaded, or the liberating, depending on your out look, to-do list. It doesn't matter where your responsibility lies, whether it is in a workplace environment or a home environment, to-do lists are part of life.

As a person, where the workplace is my home, I find the to-do list essential, yet daunting. When you work outside the home, you have a specific task which you are hired to do. At home you are the one who sets your tasks and sets your timetable. While this is liberating as you are able to do what you want when you want, it can be hard to do.

As stated in an earlier post, I really struggle with not having a defined set role. If I was just a cleaning lady, it would be much easier to get on with the cleaning. If I was purely a nurturer, then I would get on with nurturing the children. But because I am both, and more things besides, I feel guilty when I don't get all the cleaning done, or when I am not being the best mother, or when I let other things fall through the cracks.

There are so many things that I could do at home. Some of them are fun, such as, reading, playing games, going for walks, watching youTube and cleaning the bathroom. Some of them not as fun, such as, cleaning out the garage, dusting, scrubbing the tub and finding library books. And then there are other things that fall in between. Housework is never done. The mess is always there. It can be hard to be motivated.

Making a to-do list forces you to prioritize what you would like to do that day. If you need a day of leisure, your to-do list may comprise such things as a bubble bath, reading time and working on a craft. If you need a day to be industrious it may comprise such things as, cleaning the toy room, doing laundry and organizing the pantry. This helps you know what to focus on next and helps you make the best use of your available time.

Now I know that the list is never done there is always something you can do next. But you also don't want to get overloaded and burnt out. You need some guilt free time for you and your interests and goals. So this is how I manage my list.

Make your list the night before, if possible
When the kids are in bed and you have had a few moments to just breathe, you are in a better frame of mind to know what is essential to get done the next day. Things that didn't get done that day may not be as important as something else. You will be able to reflect on the day and figure out what the next day will be like. You also will wake up in the morning with a sense of purpose, instead of wondering what they heck you should do. It is always nice when you have a plan of attack then flying by the seat of your pants.

Only put 5 items on your list
I know you could probably put 100 items on the list, but don't. You can always add more when your list gets cleared. But, for now just think of your top 5. If your list is too long and you only accomplish 3 things, how are you going to feel? My guess, you will feel like a total failure, and that is not good. Seeing too many items on my list, makes it hard for me to stay motivated. It makes me feel guilty if I take a 5 minute break. It makes me stressed, when I do my mom stuff, and don't get the other items on the list done. I know a happy child is more important than a clean floor, but if I have a long list and I am playing with my little one I am not as present as I should be because I am worrying about the list.

So to keep myself to 5 items this is what I do. I do not use paper to write my list. If I get a piece of paper, unless it is really small,  it is big enough to write more things down, and that is a temptation I could fall into. Also, with paper, my little one will walk off with it, or I will write other things on it making it a jumbled mess. Paper is just no good.

My solution, a small chalkboard. At Staples they have the Martha Stewart line of Avery products.  They had a chalkboard sticker that fit on my pantry door perfectly. It is also just the right size for me to write five items down. I think it looks super cute and it is super functional.

When I complete a chore or item on the list I erase it off. If my list is done, or pretty empty and I still have plenty of energy and day left, then I can add on more items. It can act like a revolving door of sorts.

Have a mix of items
An important thing in my life right now is getting in shape. That means I need to have time for my workout. I put exercise on my to-do list everyday. While that may seem redundant and exercise should just be part of my life, I know that if it is not on the list other things will get in the way and I will be putting on my pyjamas and realize I didn't exercise. Having it on my to-do list ensures I will make time for my workout.

To-do lists do not have to be all about work. It is about finding a balance of work and fun. To-do lists for me help me not waste time during the day doing nothing. Believe me, if doing nothing all day was a talent then I would be an all-star. But then, I would feel frustrated because nothing would get done. And, the only one I could truly be frustrated at is myself.

So put on some of the housekeeping items, but also put on things you enjoy to do. This gives you the permission to do those activities without feeling guilty.

Be flexible
Things come up in life that are unexpected. If you had something on your list that you find just isn't going to work out that day, change it. Nothing is set in stone. If you think you can only get three things done, because one of the items will be more time consuming, that's fine. Just have the three things on your list.

It is also okay to have items that are on your list everyday. As stated above I have exercise on there everyday. Others may have sweeping or reading or laundry.

The to-do list is not there to make us feel guilty or stressed. It is supposed to be a tool we can use to help streamline our days and to help us prioritize what is the important focus for the day. I find that the to-do list helps me keep focus, helps me to stay motivated, and helps me feel accomplished. Nothing feels better then when you erase your last item on your list. It is great!

Do you use to-do lists? What helps you use them effectively? If you don't use to-do lists is there another system that helps you stay on track and not wander aimlessly through your day?

The Junk - Hosting a Yard Sale

A few weeks ago we had a yard sale. We had collected enough stuff from around the house that we decided it was time to see if we could make some cash. Even some friends of ours donated some items that they didn't want and told us we could keep what we made. Now if that isn't a friend I don't know what is. The weather was rather chilly for June so that might have prevented some people from coming out but on the whole it was a successful day with a steady stream of people, at the end of the day we were $170 richer. That was enough to pay the piano movers to move in a piano the aforementioned friends were giving us (for FREE!). I am sad that my friends were giving their stuff away, because they are moving across the country and we won't get to see them as much. But, I'm happy I was able to sell their stuff! :)

So after slogging through my first (personal) yard sale these are the tips I have.

Tip #1 Set Up Early

Even though we had advertised that we were not going to start our yardsale until 8:00, we made our first sale at 7:50.

My husband and I woke up around 6:00ish and started moving tables out to the drive way getting the stuff out of the boxes and made sure we had good flow and placement of items.

Before the actual day we moved all the stuff we were going to sell into the garage and priced it all. That way all we had to do was open our garage door and move the stuff right out. That little bit of pre-gathering of all stuff for sale helped save us some time and hassle.

So setting up early on the day of is important but so is getting everything ready before hand. It takes an hour or two of time commitment but it is worth it.

me putting the finishing touches on

Tip #2 Price Everything 

While this may sound like a daunting task, especially if you have a lot, just trust me on this. While you may have a sign on the table saying "all books 25 cents" you will be amazed how many people will still come up and ask how much it is. So just hunker down and put a price on it.


For our yard sale I did not go out and buy special stickers or labels. I used a marker and painters tape. I have a lot of painters tape and it is easy to remove off the item once it is sold, so there won't be any residual stickiness.

And know that the price on the item may not be the actual price. While most people, in my experience, wont negotiate some will. So have this be your top price and leave some wiggle room for those who want to negotiate.

The only time that I wouldn't put a price on stuff is if you are having a charity yard sale. I have learned when you are raising money for charity just say "by donation". When they know of the cause they will usually feel more generous and give more then what you would get if you actually had a price on items. Yes, you will get some cheapskates, but they are few and far between and are more than made up for by others. Two months ago my friends and I had a charity yard sale to raise money for our friend's daughter who has a brain tumor and needed financial assistance. By saying by donation we were able to raise over $1000. Not to bad for a yard sale.

Tip #3 Be Ready to Negotiate

Before you start your yard sale you need to decide why you are having it. Are you having it to get rich or are you having it to get rid of junk. If you are having it to get rich you are probably better off to sell some of the bigger items on free sites like kijiji or craig's list or whatever may be in your area. People who go to yard sales are looking for rock bottom prices, at least I am when I go yard saling.

If things are priced too high people will not buy and you won't make any money. Also if you are looking to get rich you probably won't be willing to negotiate and that could mean not as many sales.

If your goal is to get rid of stuff and the extra cash is a bonus be willing to negotiate. At our yard sale I did not try to play hardball. If they offered a price I took it. Most people are reasonable and if they offer a different price than listed it is usually not too far off. Also if people wanted to buy a lot of stuff I would round down to the nearest dollar, or made it a nice round number thus helping the change situation.

To go along with negotiation, at the end of the day make everything 50% off. We did this with an hour to go. This did help motivate some people who were sitting on the fence. This is a great tactic if your goal is to get rid of the stuff. And believe me getting rid of the junk is great!

Tip #4 Make Sure You Have Enough Change

This is the trickiest bit about the yard sale. How much change is too much or too little. You don't want to run out, but then you don't want to be taking it all back to the bank either. We had $160 in change and that seemed to work out perfectly. We had $50 worth of $5,  $50 worth of twoonies (Canada's two dollar coin) $50 worth or loonies (Canada's one dollar coin) and $10 worth of quarters. We had lots of change and we didn't have to run to the bank to get more.

Most people who are seasoned yard salers will make sure they have small bills already so you won't be dealing with too many big bills and so that amount of change be excesive. But I was sure glad I had a lot of change when someone only had a $50 on them and the item they were buying was only $4.

Tip #5 Keep Signs Simple

You can buy signs, but I find them hard to read at times, especially when I am in my car driving by. I made my own signs by using bright pink bristol board (I think it is called poster board to those who are not up with Canadian lingo) and garden shepherd hooks that I got at the dollar store. Using my word processor I made big letters and then cut them out and then made an arrow and cut it out. If you have a cricut machine or something similar you can just use that. I then glued the letters onto my boards and then taped the boards onto the shepherds hooks.

These signs were easy to see were at a higher visual plane than other signs making it easier for potential customers to turn down the street and were cheaper to make than buying actual signs.

I kept the words simple. It simply said "YARD SALE" and then had the arrow pointing the appropriate way to our house. We had them at the main streets and where turns needed to be made. The uniform colour and printing made sure people knew where we were.

I even had matching duct tape on hand, what luck!

Tip #6 Decide What to Do with the Leftovers

No matter how much you might want to think everyone is going to want your junk, you will have things leftover. Decide what you are going to do with it. For us, somethings we were on the fence about. Those we decided to keep. Those items were mainly things that were our kids. Everything else we decided to get rid of. Most of the items went to a secondhand store. Other things like furniture and baby items we put up on kijiji.

If it is important for you to just get rid of the junk put the items directly in your car and take it to a donation centre. Otherwise those items will migrate back into your house negating all the hard work you did to make your house simplified.

Tip #7 Involve Your Kids

Involve your kids in not only contributing some of their stuff to the yard sale, but figure out what they can do to help. My kids are pretty young still, (my oldest is seven). Money is still a weird concept for them especially when making and understanding change. But, I also needed to give them something to do so they wouldn't be watching The Winx Club on YouTube all day. So, we let them have a lemonade stand. They loved it. They drank most of the lemonade themselves but they felt a part of what was going on. They probably would have made more if 1) it was warmer that day and 2) if they weren't distracted by other things and kept abandoning their posts, but when they were their they were quite the entrepreneurs. (People thought they were so cute they would give them money without taking the lemonade. I wished that worked for me!)

the girls at their lemonade stand. it was so chilly we had to find the winter coats

Tip #8 Have Fun

Make this a good experience. Put some fun tunes on, smile and enjoy the time in the sun. There are so many ideas you could do to make this a fun morning; have a friendly competition with your spouse, every hour do a sale, have a special item that if bought they buyer gets to pick another one for free, have your neighbourhood involved etc. You are only limited by your imagination. Think outside the box and have fun!

Liquid Laundry Soap

Last Friday my husband was at a leadership training. The kids were all asleep. I had the night to myself. So, what should I do? Why, make Laundry Soap of course.

Laundry Soap was one of the first things that I learned how to make when deciding to live more simply and hopefully frugally. You can make a powder, but I prefer the liquid as our front load machine has a liquid soap dispenser.

There are only three ingredients needed when making laundry soap.

• Borax
• Washing Soda
• Pure Soap

If you are making a powder you just mix those ingredients together and you are done. If you are making the liquid you need one more ingredient. Water. That's it. Pretty simple and pretty cost effective. There is some upfront cost, as you have to buy the box of borax and washing soda and the bars of soap, but they will last you a long time. I finished making my third batch of detergent and I still have enough soap left to make one more batch and enough Borax and Washing Soda to make many more after that. 

I found the idea for this detergent from the down to earth blog by Rhonda Hetzel. If you have not been to her blog yet you must go. She is my simple life guru. She keeps me motivated and always gives me something to think about. Her blog is my treat everyday.

So what do you need to do.

1. You will need to grate up your soap using the fine grater option. You will need to have 1 cup (About 1/2 the bar). I used sunlight laundry bar soap. It smells lemony while grating but the finished liquid does not have a lemony smell. You can also use ivory or any other kind of pure soap.

2. Measure out the rest of your ingredients. You will need 1/2 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup borax.

Now when i was researching how to make laundry soap, one of the most common questions I cam across was where do you buy washing soda? The answers that were given were not helpful to me. As when I went to the stores where they said it was I could not find it. But now I will let you in on the secret of where to find washing soda, at least in Canada, and I'm talking anywhere in Canada. (If you are outside of Canada, sorry can't help. But keep the faith, I'm sure you can find it too.) Home Hardware! Honestly is there anything that that store doesn't carry? I go to the Home Hardware in St. Jacobs and they had washing soda in their laundry aisle. Now not all Home Hardware's carry all the products available to Home Hardware Dealers. But they will order any product in for you. So if your local Home Hardware doesn't carry washing soda, ask them to order it in. They will be happy to oblige. They are all about customer service. So now you will always be able to have washing soda. No matter where you live. Home Hardware is in every small town and large city I can think of. You can also get Borax at Home Hardware too, but you can also easily get it at your local grocery store in the laundry aisle.

 3. Put all ingredients into a largish pot and add 1L or so of water. Heat up mixture until all ingredients are dissolved. To get them all dissolved you will get your mixture to almost boiling. Don't let it get to a real boil as it will totally boil over. While this will help get your stove top nice and clean, the soap mixture will get everywhere, and I mean everywhere. This does not make for a fun clean up job. Trust me I know from experience.

4. Once everything is dissolved pour into a 10L bucket and fill it up with water. Give it a good stir and voila. Laundry Liquid. You can now divy it up into containers and get ready to do some laundry. I use some old pop bottles we have lying around. When filling your containers leave some head space as you will want to give it a shake before using the detergent. Some day I will put them in pretty glass containers, but for now this is what I have, and they work.

Some websites that I have seen say to let it sit in the bucket overnight. I have never done this but I will give it a try next time I need to make it, which won't be for a few months.

To use the liquid I add between 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup per load. The detergent does not sud up so it is safe to use in HE washers, though if you are warranty conscious you might want to see if that will void your warranty or not. I have used this laundry soap for over a year now and I find it gets my clothes clean, it is cheap, and it is like doing a fun chemistry experiment every time you make it. You will save money by making your own detergent.

This detergent does not have an smell. If having a detergent smell great is important to you you can add some essential oils. They don't serve a purpose except for smelling good.

So have fun making homemade laundry detergent. It is a little thing but it makes you feel pretty cool!

How to Make a Budget - Tutorial

Everyone processes information differently. Budgets are the same. My husband and I do budgets differently. He likes to download the data every month using a budget program, ex. quicken. He likes making different graphs and he likes to make very specific categories for all the purchases made. I, on the other hand, like using a spreadsheet and input expenses as soon as I make them. My categories are more broad. If it is bought at the grocery store it is grocery, so that would include diapers, serviettes, garbage bags. Otherwise it will go into household, so purchases made at a department store etc. Otherwise I would have to go through all my receipts, itemize every item purchased and recalculate associated taxes. I like doing math, but not that much.

The current spread sheet I use was from the W network money show called Maxed Out hosted by Allison Griffiths. You can still download the spread sheet here. Click on the heading at the top called budget template tool.

I tweaked it to make it work for me. I changed some of the categories, got rid of some added others, made it a 12 month spreadsheet, so I could look at the whole year and see trends, and got rid of the percentage calculations, as that was not important to me. I like this spreadsheet template as a starting point as it is colourful, the formulas are already plugged in for you and at a glance I can easily see how we are doing for the month. You don't need to use the template, you can make your own. This template just helps you think of categories you might not have thought of on your own. It really is the jumping off point.

If you are not familiar with excel or do not know how to manipulate existing documents, go to youtube. There are tons of tutorials that will help you figure it out.

So to the budget!

The first step of creating a budget is to keep track of spending over a period of time. I would say at least 4 months. The longer time you track your spending the more data you have to use. BE HONEST. No one will see it but you. There is no one to please but yourself. If you have a bad spending month, that's okay, just keep going and keep tracking.

Once you have tracked your spending take the averages. These averages will be your monthly budget amounts. So take the average of your groceries, the average of utilities, the average phone bill, the average savings, the average other. Some months our car fuel amount is higher because we went visiting family or went into Toronto for a Blue Jay's game. Keep those higher amounts in your average. It will make your average higher, but if you don't spend the amount allotted you can set it aside and have it ready for the months when you do.

Once you have your averaged amounts for your categories add them up. You now know what your average output is each month. Subtract that amount from your monthly income. Hopefully there is a surplus. If you have a deficit it is time to look at where you can makes some cuts in your spending.

When I made my budget I added and averaged only items that needed to be paid every month such as the mortgage, hydro and phone. That way I knew what I had leftover to use to purchase the non-essentials, like clothes and eating out.  Non-essential things vary from month to month or you may have to save up for some of the non-essential items, like new shoes or house repairs. You can use this leftover "slush fund" to prioritize spending, for either fun or functional, without compromising your necessities of life.

I hope this helps and didn't make budgeting more confusing. To quote Red Green - "Keep truckin'. We're all in this together."