One of the easiest ways I’ve found to cut diapering costs is to make your own baby wipes. I got sick of paying $7.00-$8.00 for wipes every month on top of what we paid for diapers. So I gave making our own wipes a try and have enjoyed the savings!

Below is the recipe for homemade baby wipes and the cost savings of homemade wipes compared to Wal-mart Generic Unscented wipes.

Recipe for Homemade Baby Wipes

Items needed:
1 durable paper towel roll
1 1/2-2 cups water
1 Tablespoon baby shampoo
1/2 Tablespoon baby or mineral oil 
Round wipes container

Directions:
Cut the paper towel roll in two pieces that resemble toilet paper rolls. Pull the inner core out of both small rolls. Put one roll in the round container and the other away for future use. Mix the 2 cups water, shampoo and oil in separate container. Pour mixture over towels. Let sit 5-10 minutes. Pull out center sheet from roll to use.

Cost:

Wal-Mart generic wipes
480 Wal-Mart generic wipes=$7.50 

Homemade Wipes:
1/2 Scott Paper Towels Roll 60 sheets= $0.27 (8 rolls/$4.29 on sale)
1/2 T Mineral Oil=$0.03 ($1.52/16 oz)
1 T Baby Wash=$0.04 ($1.18/15 oz) 

Total cost for homemade wipes =$0.34
$0.34/60 sheets=$0.006/wipe

480 Wal-Mart baby wipes=$7.50
480 homemade baby wipes=$2.72
Savings=64% 

As you can see there are substantial savings in investing a little extra time and making your own baby wipes. Of course the savings will depend on the prices of items in your area, but even if you can’t find the ingredients on sale you’ll still save at least 40%-70% by making your own wipes instead of buying generic.

Today is part two of my series on “stuffitis”. Last week I talked about the perils of “stuffitis” and this week I will offer suggestions on how to conquer it.

Let me first put in a disclaimer that I am probably as organized/disorganized as the next person. But I have read many books on becoming more organized and I am starting to implement some habits to create a simpler home environment. My home this week was a lot more organized than last week, and that is how I measure my progress. 

I get most of my inspiration from The Fly Lady. She has a list of 31 baby steps to begin decluttering your life. She stressed the power of simple habits to maintain a simple, uncluttered home and life. If you want to learn more you can also sign up for her mailing list here.

Here are 3 important things to consider when you begin to declutter your life

1) Remember that it took you months and years to accumulate your clutter, so it will take some time to organize and eliminate it. Don’t try to do too much at once or you’ll get discouraged and give up. Start with one simple area or room.

As I tackled my decluttering this week I realized I could only do a couple of areas without feeling burnout. My decluttering wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated because we’ve moved within the last year and got rid of a lot of stuff, but I still didn’t accomplish all that I wanted. My towels and kitchen cupboards are now organized but there are a few other areas to declutter in the next few weeks.

2) Challenge yourself to donate or toss as much as you can. Be harsh when deciding if you really need certain items and if you’ve really used them. Like I said last week, when we were without many of our items we really didn’t miss them.

3) Once it’s clean keep it that way. This was my major project of the week. Last Friday I spent a few hours completely cleaning the apartment with the goal to keep all of our living areas clean and clutter free. This meant unloading the dishwasher first thing in the morning, putting clothes straight into the laundry basket and picking up my son’s toys during nap. 

This has been a challenge (and our bedrooms didn’t quite keep up with the rest of the house) but it has been well worth it. I have found I have more time to spend with my family and I feel less stressed knowing that the chores are done and my life is a little simpler.

A lot of times if I’m making muffins, pancakes or waffles I’ll double the recipe, cook it all up and freeze the extra for later. Then future breakfasts and snacks are a snap. Here are some of the items I made this week, in addition to our lunches and dinner.

Tortillas

Chicken Nuggets

Monday:
Homemade Granola

Tuesday:
Banana muffins 
Corn bread muffins 

Wednesday:
Hashbrowns
Tortillas 

Thursday:
Breakfast burritos (with the homemade tortillas)
Chicken Nuggets

Monday: Sausage Stew
Tuesday: Homemade Hamburger Helper*
Wednesday: Turkey Log 
Thursday: Stroganoff
Friday: Pepperoni Pizza
Saturday: Spaghetti
Sunday: Tim’s cooking (probably chicken/rice dish) 

A yummy chicken/rice dish Tim has made

As a note, our son is allergic to milk, eggs and peanuts so many of our dishes don’t have dairy in them or the recipes are modified. In addition, I cook with more fat since he isn’t getting the essential fat he needs from milk and I’ve stopped breast feeding. 

*Homemade Hamburger Helper:
1/2 lb hamburger
2 cans (8 oz) tomato sauce
2 cans (8 oz) water
2 cups noodles
1 Tb Taco Seasoning
1/2-1 cup cheddar cheese 

Cook and drain meat. Add all other ingredients but the cheese to the pan. Cover. Simmer on low 15 minutes or until the pasta is soft. Mix in cheese.

We took him to our pediatrician who took one glance and sent us straight to the pediatric emergency room next door. Our son ended up getting two stitches.

Although this wasn’t a pleasant experience for us it would have been much worse if we didn’t have two things: health insurance and savings.

We have been without health insurance before and it is very scary. We’re very thankful for a job with benefits, but even if Tim’s company didn’t provide insurance it’s important enough to us that we would pay for it ourselves. Medical emergencies can happen anytime and huge bills really put a crunch on your budget.

We also felt calm because we knew where the money to pay for this would come from: our emergency fund. We wouldn’t need to put the bill on a credit card or go on a payment plan with the hospital. We will be able to pay the bill in full, on time, without any interest.

The only affect this bill will have on our budget this month is that we can only put in about 1/4 of what we normally add to our savings because the rest we will use to pay the bill. We didn’t technically have to take anything from our savings because we haven’t yet deposited money to our savings account this month. 

With the development of this bill we will be put back one month on our savings plan, but we know that this could have been much worse. I am truly grateful that we are in a position to have health insurance and emergency savings.

Money Saving Mom
Crystal is truly an inspiration to all frugal livers. She has a practical attitude towards money and through her family’s frugality they were able to get through law school living on $1,000/mo with children and without acquiring debt.

Get Rich Slowly
This blog is perhaps the best known blog about personal finance. J.D. has compelling, well-researched articles about many facets of personal finance. He chronicles his journey of emerging from crushing debt to building a strong financial holding.

Frugal Upstate
Jenn reminds me of Amy, the author of The Tightwad Gazette. She blogs about simplicity and getting creative by using what you have to save money. Jenn shares her triumphs and failures and has a great attitude along the way.

These are just a few of the wonderful finance blogs on the web. Happy reading until I return!

We track our expenses with Quicken and keep to a budget. We share one car. We rarely go out to eat and instead eat nutritious, home-cooked meals. We employ other frugal methods to help us keep saving and paying off our school loan. We have made sacrifices to live this lifestyle and it has been worth it.

Yet we know that we could do better in organizing our finances and reaching our goals more quickly. We need to finish obtaining life insurance and create a will. We also need to have a more solid cash flow. Over the next month we will look at our finances from this year and come up with our financial goals for 2009. I’m excited to have a game plan for the next year. 

Part of being frugal and wise with your resources is learning the value of simplicity and order. Every Friday I will do a post on achieving simplicity. Today’s focus is the first of a two-part series on the perils of “stuffitis” and how to conquer it.

In this busy world of materialism, we can often get caught up in having “stuff”. This is detrimental in many ways to an orderly, peaceful home.

We had an eye-opening experience about “stuff” during the second year of our marriage, before children. We were moving from Idaho to Arizona for four months for an internship and job. We knew we could only take what fit in our Toyota Corolla and we put everything else in storage. 

Our old studio apartment

We ended up living in a small studio apartment. We bought a few pieces of basic furniture from Craigslist such as a dresser and an old couch. We used an air mattress as our bed. We didn’t have a microwave or many of our normal kitchen appliances.

Since we would be there only a short time we knew it would be pointless to accumulate stuff we couldn’t take back with us or sell when we left.

Yet the incredible part of this experience was that we didn’t notice most of the things we were missing that were in storage. We only had half of our clothes but we didn’t miss the other half. We only had half of our kitchen items but we didn’t miss those either. We could truly get by with less.

Now we are in a two-bedroom 1100 sq foot apartment and sometimes feel a little cramped. When we first moved here I was wondering how we would fill all the space but eventually “stuff” creeps up on you. Looking in my closets this week has had me reflecting on “stuffitis” and wondering if I have caught a bit of the bug myself.

I’ve learned that it takes time and money to purchase, store, organize and care for your stuff. The less stuff you have, the less time you need to find things, clean your home and organize your spaces. Also, if you have too much stuff and clutter you are more apt to lose things and then you’ll have to spend the money and time to replace them.

Also space is limited. If you have too much stuff you will need to spend money on either a bigger place a storage unit. Just like any limited resource you need to be wise about how you use space.  

For instance, a few months ago I bought two very large jugs of vinegar for cleaning. But now I’ve only used about 4 cups of one and the other is unopened. I thought that I’d be saving money by buying the larger item at a smaller unit price, but by saving pennies it’s costing more in space that I could use to store something else.

In addition clutter creates chaos and makes it more difficult to achieve a peaceful home environment.

There are different reasons people struggle with “stuffitis”. Some are trying to “keep up with the Joneses”. This quest is never-ending and only leads to discontentment and ingratitude. In addition, the compulsion to accumulate more often leads to buying more than you can afford and getting into debt. Contentment and gratitude are the keys to battling this quest.

Others struggle with “stuffitis” because they find security in “things” and can’t get rid of things because “someday I just might need this”. If this is you, take an honest assessment of items and how much you use them. If you haven’t used an item in 3-6 months, perhaps it’s time to donate it or toss it.

I find myself in the second group, keeping things because “someday I’ll use them”. However, my goal this next week is to do a deep inventory of what we have and what we could possibly donate, sell or toss to simplify our lives.

Debt is a shaky foundation for any household, especially one in which there is only one income. One of the first priorities to get your financial house in order is to get out of debt, especially consumer debt. Reduce spending wherever possible and then attack your debts one a time. 

One of the best ways to attack debt is to create a debt snowball. This process is a focused way to attack your debts without affecting your cash flow. Here are the steps:

1. Put your debts in order by the lowest balance

2. Pay the minimum balance on each debt except the smallest one which you will attack with every penny you have

3. Continue this each month until the first debt is paid off 

4. Once the first debt is paid off, apply the money  you paid on the first debt to attack the second debt and continue with the minimum balance on all other debts

5. Once each debt is paid off continue applying that money towards attacking the next debt and paying the minimum balance on the others until all the debts are paid off

Some financial experts advise using attacking your debts by paying off the loans with the highest interest rates first. This will reduce the interest a consumer pays. Others, such as Dave Ramsey, argue that by starting with the lowest balances one gains a psychological power of completion to motivate them to pay off other debts. This is an excellent article that discusses the merits of each version of the debt snowball. 

No matter how much or little you are able to pay off at first, employing this method will give you the power to pay off your debts and gain more financial freedom.

Here is an example of the debt snowball in action. Let’s say that Jane has a credit card balance of $1,000, a car loan that’s $2,000 and a student loan that’s $2,200. She has cut all extra expenses so that she can use $1,000 to pay down her debt each month. 

Month 1:  
Credit card $800
Car payment $100 (minimum payment) 
Student loan $100 (minimum payment)

Month 2:
Credit card $200
Car payment $700
Student loan $100 

Month 3:
Car payment $900
Student loan $100 

Month 4:
Car payment $300
Student loan $700

Month 5:
Student loan $1,000

Month 6:
Student loan $200