Day 29: Adventures in Cloth Diapering

So how's it going...Our November Challenge has been interesting.

We got our electric bill for October, and well for the 2 weeks that we were using cloth on this bill, we really didn't see a difference in cost. Plus for that.

It hasn't really increased the laundry load that much. Since there are 4 people in this house, there is always plenty of laundry to do on a daily basis. So it is not a problem to toss some diapers in with a load. When I actually do an exclusive "diaper" load, I am finding it to be the best and easiest laundry that I do. Hang dry shells, toss inserts into the dryer and forget. No wrinkling, even if I forget them! It takes 5 minutes to stuff all 12 dipes. If I do the wash at night, they are ready to go by morning. No worries!

Now onto stains, well, good 'ole mother nature takes care of this one for me. I don't waste time on trying to "get" the stains out because frankly it's bad for the dipes and futile. But for this person with OCD, stains are just...not supposed to be there! So after pulling the dipes from the washer, I check for stains, if I see them, they go out in the sun. Voila, no money spent on drying the inserts in the dryer and everything becomes stark white, just like they were shipped to me in a couple of hours!

How's the Gator doing? Great. No more rashes from dipes! He did have a reaction to something I or he ate, but it was gone the next day after an oatmeal bath. Had we not have been using cloth, the disposables would have exacerbated the problem.

Now the cons we have experienced.

Poop dipes...Not really a con.

Not a real problem. No blow outs, no dunking. Since Gator doesn't eat "real" solid foods, it's still typical baby poop with out smell. I am sure this will change overtime, but as long as I take care of it just after it happens it shouldn't be an issue. Plus the Gator has become accustomed to alerting us when he does go #2. He doesn't want to sit in it anymore than we want him to be in it!

Getting used to getting the dipes clean.

After the first couple of days of washing the dipes, I had to seek out help as to the funk smell, that was happening that was retained in the dipes. Ok I am not stupid, I washed like I was supposed to, but was about to give up with the smell of the clean ones. I didn't know if there was any lingering bacteria or something else, so I was getting paranoid. I couldn't expose my baby to them! So turns out that the Charlie's soap I was given to clean the dipes and my washer, released some bent up smells from the washer. Not only did it change the P.h. in the washer but it also affected the Gator with redness (he is in that small part of people that it actually burns them),We changed our soap and added some sun and Batta Bing! Smell Gone, Heiny is Happy.

Heavy Wetting.

Mostly, the Gator is not a heavy wetter. But there have been times that well, I feel that I have failed him in this cloth experience by not noticing how much he has eaten to prepare for heavy wetting. We had gotten into the habit of doubling his inserts at night to prevent such disaster, but after noticing a few mornings that this was pointless, well we stopped the extra fluff. Guess I should have taken note to some of the not-that-heavy dipes just after changing him before bed. One screaming Gator, one set of wet sheets, one cursing Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer at 3 am and a few changes of wet clothes. So now we definitely double at night to prevent this from occurring again. At first, I thought that it had to be the dipes, and well after careful inspection...not so much. Some of them are bigger in the legs on him, and those we are staying away from at night, but during the day they seem fine.

So in conclusion week one of extreme observation of cloth diapering, I feel we are doing really well.

Day 28: Inquiring minds for Couponers Part 1

I have received many questions on how we save money using coupons, so I am going to try to let you in on a few of my secrets, but let me just say this...stay away from MY Teeter! Lol!

I am going to break this up into a few segments, as I do have children and I could so talk about this forever!

Firstly, you HAVE to retrain your brain. If you are a brand Wh*re, guess what? To save money, you won't be. But in retrospect, by trying other brands, you might find something that is sooo much better. This is how I fell in love with some of my new fav's!

Then, whist you are retraining your consumerist brain, you must understand that if you do not have a coupon for something that is in the "inside" aisles not the perimeter of the grocery aisles, you will not buy it. What we consider to be items of acceptance for buying without a Q is produce and meat. I might add in that sometimes, we will have run out of our milk Q's. Yes, there are Q's for "ANY BRAND" milk.

Disclosure: For those of you who think that you can't eat nutritiously while using coupons, let me just say NOT! It's ok to let coupons expire. Don't let yourself fall into the pattern that many shopaholics do...you don't have to buy it just because you have a Q for it. If it's not good for you and you typically wouldn't eat it or you just don't like it...DON'T BUY IT!

Secondly, to succeed in the reducing your grocery bill world, you will have to take a notepad and a pen with you every time you go to the grocery, so keep one in you car. You will want to walk up and down all the aisles spot checking for the little flags that grocers put out telling you "hey it's on sale". If they are out of that product, write it down, continue on your merry way. At the end of your shopping, take your heiny up to the customer service desk, hand them your list of products and price, get RAIN CHECKS! They never expire and are awesome to pair up with Q's at another time, especially during mega events like super doubles and triples, so start your collection now!

Thirdly, start thinking about what you are willing to pay for something. The majority of people can tell you that they "know" that something is cheaper here vs. there so use those known price points to your advantage. Now understand, I am not saying run your gas tank all over town. What I am saying is know your low prices and then you will come to know the rock bottom price deals when you can pair stuff up with a Q.

When you figure out what you are willing to spend $$$ on and what you are willing to wait til' it goes on sale, then you will see your grocery bill decrease.

Next, you have to understand that grocers operate on cycles. Typically every deal that you typically see in the grocery store each week comes around again 6-8 weeks later. You will notice that the price for something that is on sale this week is ok, then 2 weeks later there is no sale to be found, then 2 weeks later it is even lower than it was 6 weeks ago! Though there are things that grocers do put on a great sale just once or twice a year, and these are known as seasonal sales. For example, a seasonal sale at my grocer is B2G3 (buy 2 get 3 free) on boneless skinless chicken. This sale is bi-annually and you should stock up.

Disclosure: When it comes to food, for those of you who like to eat the freshest of things like we do, you might want to invest in a stand up freezer and a vacuumn sealer. There are many places online that you can read about preserving the freshness of freezable things!

Now to start you off with "collecting" your Q's...
There are a few places that you can "get" them
1. The Sunday paper
2. Gas Stations
3. Magazines
4. The internet
5. Blinkies: those coupon shooting things at the grocer
6. Catalinas: those print outs with your receipts

More on Collecting Q's in Part 2

Day 27: Q Crazy

Hello again! I feel like I have risen from the dead again, just like the old Shelley Long 80's movie! In one of my last Consumerism posts, I had mentioned the fact that our local grocer was doing super double coupons and well that is just how I have spent my last week. So I figured I would clue y'all in as to how it went.

What is super doubles? Once every few, very few months our local grocer offers to double manufacture coupons up to $1.98 in value. This means that they will double those high dollar Q's that say save X amount of $ as long as they do not exceed $1.98. So a $2 off Q will not double but a $1.98 one will. So can we say HELLO! You are coming home with me today! Most of what we got was free or pretty darn close!

We had to break super d's up into 2 grocery weeks so that we wouldn't bust our weekly grocery allowance. This allowance is $50 and I had more than enough Q's to make this happen and restock some of our out of supplies and low-on-hand- supplies from our October Challenge. Armed with my list in hand, I headed to the store, knowing what I knew I wanted to buy, knowing exactly how much I was going to spend.

FYI: If your grocer allows you to "shop online" for pick up in store, you are privy to their prices, so those crazies walking the aisles of grocery stores for their extreme couponing flat out have way too much time on their hands!

Disclosure: We are not extreme couponers, though we believe in a good deal, there is no reason why you have to hoard in your home, and hoard so that no one else gets to get a great deal!

Here is how it went: We made 3 trips total over the course of Wednesday through Tuesday Night

Trip 1:
Amount of Groceries Bought: $65 and some change
Amount spent Out of Pocket: $13 and some change
Savings: $42

Trip 2:
Amount of Groceries Bought: $118 and some Change
Amount spent Out of Pocket: $41 and some Change
Savings: $77

Trip 3:
Amount of Groceries Bought: $117
Amount spent Out of Pocket: $36.99

Grand Totals:
Amount of Groceries Bought: $300
Out of Pocket: $90.99
Over 70% savings!

For those inquiring minds that want to know what we bought:
2 bottles of Olive oil
2 (3)pks of sponges
18 cans of soup
4 loaves of bread
2 pkgs of butter
2 pkgs of cookie dough
6 boxes of pudding
1 pkg of Sweet sausage
4 gallons of Milk
1 pkg of cheese
2 pkgs of tupperware
1 bunch of celery
1lb of carrots
1 pkg of dried fruit
4 bottles of coffee creamer
6 frozen pizzas
2 jars of spaghetti sauce
2 boxes of teddy grahams
2 boxes of crackers
2 boxes of pasta
1 box of rice
2 pkgs of Chai tea
1 deoderant
10 jars of baby food
10 cans of cream soups
2 boxes of cereal
2 bottles of dish soap
16 rolls of paper towels
5 5lbs of Sugar
2 pkgs of Turkey
and so much more that I can remember!

We really have so much fun couponing! Our wallet won't allow us not to, but the hunt and the challenge is the best. Plus we collect rainchecks like crazy during these events so that we can get the uber good sale prices all year long!

Day 25: Adventures in Cloth

Since our consumerism challenge has come to an end, Adventures in Cloth Diapering has begun.

Lesson One: Some of these need covers and some do not

When Monk was a baby, I had seen many of my SAHM friends using cloth diapers on their babies and we had briefly talked about the advantages of using them; less irritation, less diaper rashes, money savings, environmentally conscious...and the lists they gave me went on. They weren't using what looked like your mom's white dish cloths with pins and stuff. They were using one that looked like a disposable diaper with velcro tabs, they just happened to look a tad bulkier on the hieny. Apparently, there are considerable differences in this growing going cloth world. Well since we have had our own tribulations with baby Gator, plus our consumerism challenge, we knew that we had to make the switch to cloth.

There are CD's (Cloth Diapers) that need covers and some that do not, we learned this on day 1 of changing to CD's. After putting one on that didn't need a cover, then changing the Gator into one that apparently did, and again and again...having to clean up the mess, I pretty much psychologically broke down and almost said screw it. It just wasn't for me. All I knew of CD's were that they were "new age" and easy piezy, well yes, if you know what you are using!

Both types of CD's that we were given have velcro tabs on the outside and looked very similar. We were not given any "covers". We were given ones that had prints on them and when I found out that they needed a cover, I thought well "why put a design on them if you are just going to cover it up?". I apparently had so much to learn and I had to do it quickly. The CD's that did not need covers soon became my favorites to use. They had a pocket inside that you just "stuff" a cloth retangular pad into and you are off and running. They also have velcro or snaps, so it makes them easy on easy off. Voila, diaper change in 2 minutes, same as with a disposable! Soon these became my favorites to use. Ya know in the first 48 hours!

We had 4 no-covers on hand and 4 need covers and well I knew that Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer wouldn't be that into changing the Gator if it took him more than the usual 3 step process of remove, wipe, put one on. So 4 just wouldn't cut it. I found myself washing one as soon as it was used. I began losing my mind. My friend Mrs. P, who had used CD's on both of her babes, came over with 6 dipes from her stash that she could share! WaHoo, we now had 10 and I could possibly make it from morning to night and then wash! Life was so much easier in tushy land! The Gator, took well to CDing and we have had no reactions since!

I began looking into getting my own stash of our CD's. We knew that we wanted ones that had the built in no cover. To my surprise, I found a whole marketing mecca of CD's. So many options, so many different varieties, each with their own must-have tweaks to make your CD life easier. I feel like I have learned a whole new language with all the terminology that comes along with learning about this. Terms and Abbreviations amuck! It was mind blowing. More on this later in another blog.

Lesson 2: $$$$
Then came the cost of these suckers! Some of them range from $9-$29 each! WTF? Could there be that much of a difference in these pee and poop catchers? Our new found favorites, Bumgenius, as we have come to learn are some what of the cadillac of CD's, they are about $18 each, luckily they are not the coveted Shelby Mustangs or Ferrari!

At the tail end of our challenge, after scouring the internet for the best prices to buy some Bumgenius to build our stash and give Mrs. P back hers, I came across a giant sale. Buy 5 get one free! Cha Ching! My discount shopper beacon went off! Apparently, this type of sale is rare in the CDing world! So, I began navigating around, and another new vocabulary lesson into colors and prints of CD's began. I thought that ya know, staying away from colors and prints, and staying with white ones would be cheaper, but nope the ones without prints cost the same as white. I filled a shopping cart with 12 of these suckers. Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer began to think I was nuts. He would come home and find an open window on the computer tuned into dipes. I would ask him about what colors he liked, I wasn't going to leave him out of this new found bargain! But guess what, I got another odd look, because frankly he didn't give a flying. "Why should I give a flying about what color the poop catchers are?".

The night before our consumerism challenge was coming to an end, he checked the total in the shopping cart, his mouth dropped. "Are you kidding me" I heard him shout from the other room. "You can't possibly think that we are going to fork out almost $200 for 12 Diapers! We're coming off a saving money sprint!" So as quick as those words left his mouth, I reminded him that we would not have to buy diapers again, even if we had another baby! Quickly this lifestyle, when put to dollars and cents, and considering the fact that the Gator would be in dipes for another 2 years at minimum. That's a pretty good deal compared to the $60 a month we were spending on dipes, then throw in the money we were spending on rash and redness cream for Gator's allergic reactions, at $20 a month...all this even with coupons!

So here's the math:

2.5 years or 30 months x $60= $1800 on dipes

                                30 x $20= $600 on cream

                           _________________

                                     $2400

vs. $180 

Since we were already running our washing machine with 4 people in the house, it really wouldn't change our bill there, by throwing in some dipes.

So...Hello...Buy now!

Day 23: The November Challenge

The November Challenge: Trials and Tribulations of Cloth Diapering

As we have come to learn, our little Gator has developed an allergy to disposable diapers. It doesn't matter what type I try, how long we have tried it for, what types of creams we have used, changing him every hour. Dollars just began running down the drain.

So during our October Consumerism Challenge, we enacted a trial of Cloth Diapering. We tried 4 different types of cloth diapers, all with tribulations of their own. I have used my cloth mamas resources and scoured message boards trying to learn as much as I could on the "these are not your mom's cloth diapers" anymore. So for those last 2 weeks, I think we did fairly well.

So for the entire month of November we bring you the Trials and Tribulations of New Age Cloth Diapering. 

Day 22: Anti-Consumerism comes to a Close

So how did we do on our first 365 Changing the Way we do month-long Challenge? Personally we did great. Here are a few things that we learned to appreciate along the way.    

Saving $$$ and Spending less afforded us more time as a family, more volunteer work, ability to eat what we had on hand, retrain our brains on the way we think about stuff we spend $$$ on!

Gas:

-Without the usual outings to the multiple grocers & pharmacies, you know, some of us can't just shop at one to get everything we need. One trip to the farmer's market every 2 weeks and one to the grocer for milk.
-No unnecessary gas guzzling trips for fast food for lunches or quick suppers
-No driving around the block or leaving the car run in the driveway when our children wouldn't sleep or fell asleep in the car

Time:

-We gained more time as a family
   - We gained 12 more hours with Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer. I know it doesn't seem like much, but  
     really it was. That time not spend running around town, afforded us the luxury of lounging at home.
   - We learned to really utilize family movie night. Blockbuster gives out free codes each week on sites
     such as southernsavers.com and coupondad.net. We would blow up the air mattress and pop a bag
     of popcorn and Voila!
   -We worked on projects around the house together. Monk enjoyed setting up the playroom and
    putting decorations up for Halloween.
 
-We re-learned the joys of cooking together
   - Having missed this past-time, we had to get creative on some of the meals that needed preparing.
     So, it took some thought and opened up more communication for us as a family as to what and how
     we were going to make our meals and we did it together!
   - We actually ate more and more nutritiously. We were more apt to try new things. Oldies and
     goodies from the farmers market were bought, but if something looked interesting we tried it out.
     Last night we had purple sweet potatoes! They sounded interesting, looked very interesting and
     tasted Grrreatt! But we came up with more combinations for food and new recipes were born!

-We volunteered more hours for our favorite cat rescue Alley Cats & Angels alleycatsandangels.org
   -We got re-involved with cleaning the petsmart adoption centers. Yes. We did this with 2 kids in tow.
    So it can be done! Monk has learned the art of caring for animals that are not ours, and that they too
    need time, attention and maintenance.
   - We did this between once and twice a week, and that little hour and a half went along way in the
    lives of these kitties!

Clearing out:

-We cleared out most of the stand-up freezer
   -Those dreadful potatoes are down to 2 bags from 10!
   -Wow, you really can put together a dinner straight from the freezer in 20 minutes!
   - It is primed and ready for the winter soup, stew and veggie collections!

-We cleared out most of the pantry
  - We traded in quick take-out for can be made quick in home!

  - The depths of those avoidance foods are gone. Now we just know not to buy them again. Good 

     deal or not!

  - Nothing was wasted. No having to bring out the trash can and dump expired foods in the next few 

    weeks!

- Our garage stock pile 

  - Has plenty of empty shelves 

  - Plenty of empty bags of toiletry items

All in all this was a nice life lesson for our family. 

* We gained an appreciation for our couponing lifestyle that though we may do it out of necessity to save money in the long run, it affords us the capability to be able to take a month off of spending and utilize what we have on hand. Even when you have company!

* We gained an appreciation for trying new things and adapting our eating styles

* We gained an appreciation for repairing what was on hand with what was on hand instead of taking the easy way out and just buying new.

* We learned that the best things in life are actually free and are accessible, you just have to seek and find them. 

* We spent more time as a family. We are teaching our children the value of time together, creativeness and the value of a dollar. We are becoming better parents. 

Day 21: Happy Hallows

When I was a child, Halloween was one of the most coveted and anticipated holidays of the fall season.  My dad Bah Humbugged his was through Christmas, but not Halloween. Spooks, stories, goblins and gorries, I can remember my dad saying. We would searchhigh and low for things just laying around, to create our porch masterpiece, the Jack-o-Lantern.  Opening cans and jars of stuff in the pantry. Climbing trees to get moss and picking up straw. So much fun searching. Then came the transformation of our garae into the neighborhood haunted house. My poor mom, eventually the haunted house migrated to encompass not only the garage but also the kitchen and dining room too. You never ran out to buy things you used creativity and whatever you had lying around the house and yard. You knew your neighbors, had costume contests and enjoyed pleasant tricks along with treats.

Nowadays, people use stencil cutouts for Jack-o-lanterns, and I will admit that we have succumb, but we will be changing that for next year. People don't really know their neighbors, so there isn't really that mystery of who is under that costume. My anticipation for Halloween is changing. Sadly. So for Changing the way we do, Halloween 2012 is on the list.

During the past years, we have had contests going in multiple states and cities to see who had the most trick or treaters. It was a highlight to the night. Everyone gets involved. Some of us even get up on our roofs to throw down candy to the treaters. Sadly this year, we did not participate. Due to our consumerist challenge, we did not turn our porch light on to hand out treats.

So how was Halloween 2011 for Chez Stoneford?

We took our children to the library and let them hear stories, play games and enjoy the spirit. We carved pumpkins after our visit to the farm, they "died" over the course of the week. We decorated the house with what decorations we had and made some crafts to decorate next year even more. We had friends over to join us too, and a yummy birthday dinner for Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer.

All 4 of us dressed in costume to go trick or treating in the cold and pouring rain. We armed ourselves with umbrellas and boots. We were going to make the best of 2011 Hallows. With the few houses that had their porch lights on, the kids rang and banged away. "Trick or Treat" Monk and the Edge would say before someone would come to the door. It was cute. But as we walked uphill both ways...saw parents driving their kids from house to house...saw kids unchaperoned...and speeders on the streets...the cold and wet got to us after about an hour. We came home, but the kids had fun.

So, now our porch light stayed off but that didn't stop the banging on our door even upwards of 11:00pm. Maybe it's just a few of us that follow the etiquette of Halloween, but you don't bother people who don't have their lights on and you don't dare knock on a door after 9pm, and if their light is on you are pleasant ...say thank-you and Happy Halloween. A couple of the times we opened the door to check to see if the weather was lightening up, but we were met by a race of people to our door and when we told them "I'm sorry our porch light is off and we do not have any candy" we were returned with not-so-nice pleasantries. F-bombs and other 4 letter words and the occasional "they ain't got no candy" was appalling by children of all ages. Excuse me. These parents were in their cars and condoning this behavior. This can't be the generation of tomorrow. This can't be the generation of parents today. It took everything out of me not to go knock on the window and tell them what profanities their children were saying.

Hopefully Halloween 2012 will be so much better, but despite it all we had a nice holiday and hope you did too!