A Year Without the Grocery Store isn’t just a concept that lives in a void. There are three necessary legs that support it: knowledge with practice, a proper stockpile, and mental and spiritual preparedness, which necessarily includes a sense of humor. Being able to save money is a huge part of the stockpile leg, but all three are needed in order to be able to live for a year without the grocery store, if it would ever prove necessary. Fortunately, one of the cheapest legs of the stool is knowledge with practice! So today, let’s cover each DIY money saver and tackle that ‘Knowledge with Practice’ leg.
DIY Money Saver # 1 – Laundry Soap
Our family uses A LOT of laundry detergent. There are six of us still at home. Did I mention that we use a LOT of laundry detergent, like a TON? Yea. Well that’s enough about how dirty we are. This is an area which we can save a lot of money! Even when I buy laundry detergents, I don’t buy the really expensive ones. I’ve found several recipes that is extremely safe and non-toxic, one which gets clothes clean for less than half the price of the “not-so-expensive” stuff that I usually buy. If you normally buy name brand detergents, you’ll save so much more than me! On a conservative estimate, this saves our family $50/ year.
DIY Money Saver #2 – Salad dressing s
If you can put together a salad, you can make salad dressing. It’s super simple to whip up, and it takes less than five minutes to make most dressings. So not only does it take very little time for you to make them, it also only costs you a fraction of what it would cost to buy at the grocery store. If you use two bottles of salad dressing each month, then you’re going to save yourself about $50 per year!
DIY Money Saver #3 Apple Butter
The rest of these suggestions are very practical – not that apple butter isn’t practical. Apple butter has a definite advantage of being YUMMY beyond belief!! The other advantage of learning how to make apple butter is that you learn the skill of water bath canning, which is a very simple, but wholly practical skill. Making my own apple butter saves my family somewhere in the ballpark of $60/year. I own jars, so I’m not figuring in the first time expense of buying canning jars.
DIY Money Saver #4 – Wool Dryer Balls
If you can roll a skein of yarn into a ball, or point and click you can either make or buy wool dryer balls! Six balls should be enough for your laundry. Besides saving you money, it also gives you the extra advantage of helping your laundry dry faster. Wool dryer balls replace dryer sheets (which, in my honest opinion, are rather toxic). Making and using wool dryer balls saves my family about $60/year. It takes about an hour of active work, but the balls are good indefinitely!
DIY Money Saver #5 – Homemade deodorant
For years and years, I made our own deodorant. Keep your eyes open for an upcoming blog post or making your own deodorant – which is super simple. It will take you about ten minutes from start to finish, but you get a big bang for your buck by making your own. A conservative estimate of net savings is $60/year. Since we purchase ‘natural’ deodorant now, I can tell you that we would save well over $100 with five people in our house using deodorant currently.
DIY Money Saver #6 – Glass Cleaner
I previously used Windex, and then I used Young Living’s Thieves cleaner to clean glass. Each of these worked well, and I felt my family was safe using Young Living’s Thieves cleaner. The problem is that it’s SO STINKING EXPENSIVE! There is a wonderful natural alternative that allows me to spend only about $3 on glass cleaner for an entire year, saving me $70 year (even if we were only talking name brand glass cleaner and not Young Living’s).
DIY Money Saver #7 – Seasoning Mixes
When I say “mixes”, I mean seasoning packets like you can purchase in the store: chili seasoning mix, taco seasoning mix, sloppy joe seasoning mix, or gravy mix. Any type of mix could require only 10 minutes in order to end up with a BIG batch that will last me for 3-6 months. If you only use an average of one mix a week, you could see a savings of around $75 a year.
One of the seasoning mixes that I make up for our family is Spaghetti seasoning mix. This is the equivalent of one packet of spaghetti mix.
Spaghetti Seasoning Mix
- 1/4 C flour
- 1/4 C Italian seasoning
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp basil
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp salt
Mix together and then whisk into your tomato sauce.
DIY Money Saver #8 – sugar Free Hot Chocolate Mix
I don’t often drink coffee. I drink what I call chocoffee which is sugar free hot chocolate mixed with coffee. I have a homemade sugar free hot chocolate recipe which works really well.
Sugar Free Hot Chocolate Mix:
- 5 C powdered milk
- 2 1/4 C powdered creamer
- 2 1/4 C powdered swerve
- 6C sugar free Nesquik
Directions:
Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container. Mix 1/2 C mix with 8-12 oz of hot water. Enjoy.
DIY Money Saver #9 – Granola
Why should you buy boxes and boxes of cereal every week when you can easily make your own? Granola takes about 15 minutes of active preparation to make and an hour to bake. If you buy 2 boxes of cereal per week, you could easily save yourself $200-300/year by making it yourself.
DIY Money Saver#10 – Foaming Hand Soap
This is the EASIEST thing to make! It takes all of one minute to make once you have the two necessary ingredients. Savings, using a conservative estimate, translates into around $175/year!!
These things are so easy to make and can save you so much! We’ll be going through each of these things and more, in order to help you gain “knowledge with practice” AND save money. What better combination could there be?
What About You?
Can you think of other items that you can easily make yourself to save your family BIG BUCKS each year? Share them with us below in the comments so that we can ALL save money in this crazy economy. And as you start becoming a DIY Diva remember . . .
You’ve Got This, Mama!
