Turn Your Home Into A Mini Factory

by Hannah Walton aka The Cheapskate Mom

A frugal practice of mine that has become very important in our budgeting is making absolutely everything I can make. I know I post a lot of DIY tutorials and crafts because I like to focus on making stuff both because it is fun to do and because making stuff saves us money. Not only that but I feel strongly that by making things you would normally buy , you increase the quality of these things…. think about the following:

When You Buy A Product From A Store:
- you are paying for packaging
- you are paying for marketing
- you are paying for the raw ingredients
- you are paying the factory assembler
- you are paying the truck driver that drives it to a store

When You Make Your Own Products:
- you are paying for the making, shipping and selling of the raw ingredients only

The Baby Wipes Example:

I make my own baby wipes. I buy paper towels (the cheap ones) for .64 cents a roll.I use a bit of water, a bit of baby oil and a bit of baby wash -
so I would guess that 100 wipes comes out to around .75 cents for me.I can buy 100 generic wipes for around 2.50 if I find a good price.

By making my own wipes, I save about 1.75 per 100 wipes … that’s awesome. 

I saved money but I also increased quality:
Store bought wipes do not cost .75 cents in raw ingredients : manufacturers are using the absolute cheapest ingredients possible because their overhead is so high whereas I am actually using brand name baby oil and brand name shampoo.
Therefore, my baby wipes, though far less expensive than store-bought wipes – are of a much higher quality. Yay, me!

I Have Turned My Home Into A Mini Factory & So Should You:

Disclaimer: I know not all of us do have the time to make everything even though you may be struggling with money – my mother was a single parent and would have loved to make everything but she was stuck working the night shift and overtime whenever she could. If she could manage to make coffee in the mornings, well… that was a blessing. She worked very hard – she just didn’t have the luxury to take the time to make things.

If you are like me, and you do have the luxury of time to make products you regularly use – well you are in luck. You can lower your monthly expenses while increasing the quality of said products. I will post more about this in the weeks to come, but I’m going to list out a few of the things I make in my mini-factory and how they are of a higher quality than store-bought.

Making things myself frees up money to buy the things I can’t make myself (like a house or my son’s college education).

Yogurt: Making my own yogurt requires just milk and vanilla extract. Instead of paying $2.79 to $5.00 a tub of yogurt – I can now afford Organic Milk and actual vanilla extract making my yogurt ultra high-end.

Salad Dressing: We now make our own salad dressing with olive oil, vinegar and playing around with different spices. Instead of spending $3.00 to $4.00 every other week on salad dressing – we can now afford to use organic olive oil and health store spices for our dressings – all for a fraction of the cost of plain jane store-bought salad dressing!

Laundry Detergent: I use three ingredients in making my laundry detergent : Fels Naptha bars (that I shave), Borax and Washing Soda. It’s so easy , cheap and my clothes have never ever been cleaner or brighter , and I feel confident knowing I am not lathering clothes I wear all day up in the big mix of chemicals that store-bought laundry detergents contain.

Fabric Softener: I used to use Vinegar (now I use Woolzies dryer balls) because I can get a tub at wal mart for $3.00 – enough to last a month. Vinegar is one ingredient – instead of traditional fabric softener which has a long list full of chemicals no one can pronounce!

Lettuce: Using organic seeds from Urban Farmer, Dirt and an old plastic lettuce tub – I started my lettuce garden for about 8.00 total. This is awesome because I will now be eating organic lettuce all summer for that initial investment of 8.00 – instead of the 5.00 a week I usually spend on non-organic lettuce!

Pizza Dough: I always have yeast, flour, water, oil and sugar in the house now because these are the only ingredients I need (other than man power and an oven) to whip up my own pizza dough. As long as I have tomato sauce and cheese (easy to keep fresh in the freezer) in the house, I will always have a frugal answer to that question, “Should We Order Some Pizza?”. Having worked in a pretty good pizza parlor FOREVER – trust me – you get a much higher quality pizza dough by making your own.

Popcorn: Now that I have a popcorn maker, I never ever pop microwave popcorn. I can not believe the mark-up one pays for microwave popcorn (what is it? $4-5 for a box of 6 bags?) when you can buy a big old bag of generic kernels (I’ve had the same bag for six months now) at Wal Mart for around $2.00.

Soda: I use a Soda Stream to make my own soda – and I use limes to flavor the water.  Tasty and frugal + I love that I am not paying for packaging and tons of the scary chemicals they add to soda!

Room Spray: Using a spray bottle, water and essential oils I easily make my own room spray – I know it is of a high quality and I love that I am not spraying formaldehyde around the room!