The Changes...

Ok so lately I have been obsessed... We watched Food Inc. and I decided that I wanted to eat better and make better purchases. They said that the types od food that you buy at the store "vote" for what types of food the store provides. I am already kind of a hippy but I waver...this is why...It's expensive! So now I'm obsessed with finding a way to be healthy on a budget. Here are a few changes that we are making.... 1. Oatmeal for breakfast. It's inexpensive and I add much less sugar then they put in cereal. Some nights when we eat brown rice I make a lot and we eat that like oatmeal...YUM! 2. Cloth Diapers. They make them so easy to use now and we are doing prefolds so they are very cost effective. 3. Home made cleaning agents. 4. Home made whole wheat bread and tortillas. 5. Meat...that's a tuffy...We are eating meat less and beans more to have enough money to buy good meat. (Luckily we love beans!) 6. Finding ingredient replacements that are less expensive but more healthy. Ex: For chicken salad sandwiches replace chicken with mashed chickpeas. 7. make better purchases. good eggs and healthier brands. These are just a few things that we have been doing. There are still a few more things that I want to introduce to this family... 1. Recycle (it's hard to recycle around here because you have to drive 30 min to get to a recycle center!) 2. Upcycle things. I have seen where people fix up thrift store purchases so that they can use them and I want to try! Maybe clothes or home decor. 3. I am thinking about going back to rice milk vs cow milk...we'll see what Brandon says about that! I have also been looking for recipes that have less sugar and fats...more veggies. I think we will have more vegetarian nights. Wish be luck! Any suggestions???

40 Degrees!! Woo Hoo!!

So I took the kids outside to the park today since it's warming up...sorta. Well at least the snow is gone. I bundled them up and they had a blast! I froze but they didn't seem to. We were out for 45 min when we decided that we needed to go home for hot chocolate. What a fun time! On another note...I am on a decluttering rampage!! I feel like I want to get rid of everything and get organizers for all the closets. We'll see how far I get before I get tired. Also I baught diapers for the baby. I ended up getting size small all in one cloth diapers that will fit till the baby is 16 lbs. Then I'll use the ones that I'm using with Atti. They had them for $9 because they are discontinuing that style. Woo Hoo! I also get a wet bag so they threw in leggings for free! $123 total! I figured that we'd have it paid off in less then 2 months. Brandon doesn't know this yet but I'm going to take our old towels and cut them up to use as cloth wipes too. I figure I'm washing poopy diapers...why not poopy wipes? Sounds crazy I know... Atti is trying to potty train and it is going well so far. Whenever I put him on the potty he goes #1 and I'm so excited that he's doing so well. I don't have my hopes up that he'll get it done in 3 months but I don't think he'll wait till he's 3 like Nix.

Cloth Diapering...here's how I do it and how much I spend...

I decided that since everyone is asking me how I'm cloth diapering I would blog about it. I wasn't sure if I was really serious about doing it so I decided to go the easiest and least expensive way possible. First of all there are lots of different ways to cloth diaper... cloth diapers with inserts all in one diaper covers one size hybrids I chose to go with the diaper covers because I already had one and I didn't want to wash the entire diaper each use...just the trifold. The All and Borax are both from Walmart. I have read that they aren't the best for cloth diapering (3 stars out of 4) but I don't want to pay tons for detergents and shipping. Most people get a wetbag for their diaper bag but I havn't yet so I just use an old grocery bag and a cloth bag that I had around the house. The Cloth Diaper inserts were from Walmart at $1 each I think. The Diaper covers run from $10-15 each but I got 3 for $41 including tax and shipping. So here is how I do it...open the diaper... Put the trifold in the diaper...

Open the top of the trifold (where the baby's back is)...

Add a liner. (I use half of a Viva paper towel but most use rice paper. Again I'm trying to save money.)

Fold the front up...I have a boy!

Close it up!

Here is the finished product!! Cute huh! SO Here is what I do when there's a stinky..

I change him just like normal but leave the wipes in the diaper.

I reuse the diaper cover all day unless it's dirty. (You can wipe them out)

I go to the trash and throw away the wipes and the liner that caught the stinky. (The trash has to be taken out every day!) Then just drop the trifold into the laundry. There it waits till I have a half load of whites or towels. When they come out of the laundry they never stink and I havn't had a stain yet.

So...I didn't spend an arm and a leg to get started and it is working great so far...even at night!! BUT the best news of all is after I use these for 2 1/2 months I will have paid these off and will be saving about 45 cents a day including laundry costs! (Until the baby comes then we'll save LOTS more!)