Favorite DIY/homemade money saver...

[pocomom]

Really love making things at home! From food, to cleaning products to gift wrapping and tags. There is just a certain pride in making something yourself, and many times items are cheaper, healthier, bettter for the environment and better quality as well. So what are you favorite do it yourself, make from home items that save you money. My new ones are homemade cleaning products! Tons of savings, cleaners work just as well, and I don't have to be afraid to have my kids and pets around them!

[JessB320]

Food and cleaning products are great. Now I'm trying out homemade personal care products, shampoo conditioner lotion lip gloss and deodorant . We will see how it goes!!

[beansmom]

i make my own laundry detergent, bread and tortillas. we cook soups from scratch. cost is part of it but i like the taste of homemade better than store bought.

[clm10308]

Homemade dog treats

I also make my own bis quick style baking mix

[auntmeme7577]

I make our fabric softner, we make wet dog food to add to purchased dry food, I make freezer jam and slow cooker apple butter which we also freeze
I regularly make and freeze chicken stock to use in soup or dog food

[englishteacha]

Well, not a homemade thing, but I've gotten pretty good at mending!

[disprincessatheart]

Originally Posted by clm10308

Homemade dog treats

I also make my own bis quick style baking mix

I'd like to make dog cookies. Do you have a good recipe?

[pocomom]

Originally Posted by JessB320

Food and cleaning products are great. Now I'm trying out homemade personal care products, shampoo conditioner lotion lip gloss and deodorant . We will see how it goes!!

Love these too, although I have a hard time making them cheaper... too many yummy scents/flavors to try out!

[cjnix29]

Ok, I want to start doing this....so could anyone share their recipes, and the ones that work the best?! Especially cleaning products....would love to not have the chemicals!!

[pocomom]

Originally Posted by englishteacha

Well, not a homemade thing, but I've gotten pretty good at mending!

It counts! I wish I were better at that stuff.. Tried to take up knitting but I don't have the patience! Ended up giving the yarn balled up to the cat for Christmas ... I guess that counts as homemade, right ?

[clm10308]

Originally Posted by disprincessatheart

I'd like to make dog cookies. Do you have a good recipe?

I use one I found on my All Recipes app for Pumpkin-peanut butter treats.
I don't follow the recipe exactly any more, but it is basically
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (I have used homemade pumpkin purée also)
2 eggs
1/2 or 1 tsp of cinnamon
2 TBS peanut butter (I usually add more though)

Mix that all up then add whole wheat flour to make a really thick and not sticky dough. 2 to 3 cups depends on the day

Roll it out about 1/2 inch thick and cut how you you like. Before I got the cute dog bone shape cookie cutter I just cut 1 in squares using a fuller and a pizza cutter.
Bake at 350 for about 40 min.

When I make the I usually bake a double or triple batch and store some in the freezer. They will get moldy if left out for too long.

They smell really good when baking. One of the neighbor kids was over one day when I was baking some. He insisted on tasting them himself. He thought they were really good and wanted some to take home. I hope he gave them to his dog and didn't eat them all.

[pocomom]

Originally Posted by clm10308

I use one I found on my All Recipes app for Pumpkin-peanut butter treats.
I don't follow the recipe exactly any more, but it is basically
1/2 cup canned pumpkin (I have used homemade pumpkin purée also)
2 eggs
1/2 or 1 tsp of cinnamon
2 TBS peanut butter (I usually add more though)

Mix that all up then add whole wheat flour to make a really thick and not sticky dough. 2 to 3 cups depends on the day

Roll it out about 1/2 inch thick and cut how you you like. Before I got the cute dog bone shape cookie cutter I just cut 1 in squares using a fuller and a pizza cutter.
Bake at 350 for about 40 min.

When I make the I usually bake a double or triple batch and store some in the freezer. They will get moldy if left out for too long.

They smell really good when baking. One of the neighbor kids was over one day when I was baking some. He insisted on tasting them himself. He thought they were really good and wanted some to take home. I hope he gave them to his dog and didn't eat them all.

I've made that recipe too, pups love it! Fun for the kids to make too!

[pocomom]

Originally Posted by cjnix29

Ok, I want to start doing this....so could anyone share their recipes, and the ones that work the best?! Especially cleaning products....would love to not have the chemicals!!

I started with recipes on One Good Thing by Jillee - most are really simple like put some leftover lemon rind in vineger let it sit for a couple of days strain out the lemon, dilute with water you've got a general household cleaning spray. Liquid laundry soap was great - little dawn, couple teaspoons of borax and washing soda (find all at walmart) water and essential oils for scent ( love this part) Love the scent I made, and I was always a tide user so this saves me a ton! Right now we are making a homemade enzyme cleaner (basically homamade vineger) from fruit scraps, takes two weeks to mature but I can't wait to try it out!

You probably have everything you need to make most of the cleaners in your house already - baking soda, vinegar, dawn dishsoap are major ingredients in most.

[mrodgers]

If you want to save money on DIY stuff, figure out how to repair your car and repair your home. I have had a shop touch my car twice in the last 20 years.

Car repair isn't rocket science. With the internet, you could tear your car down to individual pieces in the driveway and put it back together.

I replaced the clutch in my old truck a long time ago. $1200 to have it done, a weekend and $125 for a heavy duty clutch and it was done.

I replaced the headgasket in my Honda a few years ago. Shop wanted $1100. Took me about 4 hours and $29.99 for the gasket. Granted, I didn't have the heads shaved as they looked good enough to me with a calibrated straight edge from work, but I also wasn't worried too much about it because it was pretty much at the end of it's life for me anyways.

Brakes would be the most common and simplest maintenance item to do yourself on a car. Less than an hour of work and $20-30, brakes are done instead of paying a few hundred for a shop to do them.

No one will ever touch my car to change the oil. Not much of a savings in doing it yourself, but the peace of mind knowing I replaced the oil and put the drain plug back in is priceless. Too many stories of shops not doing that.

Exhaust is a tough one because of the corrosion on the bolts. It's much easier to cut off and weld the new one on and is relatively cheap just to have an independent shop do that. Wheel alignments can be done with a length of string and a good tape measure and would be more accurate than a shop, but it is also relatively cheap just to have that stuff done when getting new tires.

Speaking of tires, I use to mount and balance my own tires on the motorcycle, but car tires are a bit more cumbersome to do, so I have them do that at the shop. They do it cheap for car tires, but with a motorcycle, you can save $50 on a tire by shopping the internet along with the $20 each for mounting, so that is a pretty good savings.

The house, I spent $500 and resheathed and reinsulated my whole house. How much would that have cost to have someone do? Need a new roof? $800 for shingles and a case of beer to your friends and you'll have a new roof. Or you can spend $5000 and have a contractor do it. I figured out what was wrong with my furnace. The furnace guy couldn't figure it out. I wasted $89 on his diagnostic and he still couldn't figure it out. If he repaired anything, it would have been at least $289 to repair. It was a relay, I replaced it for $22.

I've saved thousands and thousands over the years. Far more than I would have by making my own laundry detergent.

[pocomom]

Originally Posted by mrodgers

I've saved thousands and thousands over the years. Far more than I would have by making my own laundry detergent.

FYI the laundry soap for my family of five who swim (towels!) 6 days a week, easily saves me hundreds and hundreds a year- Big bottle of tide costs me $22 regularly (ok you know I use coupons and sales, but still!) and I can easily use one+ a month. Plus, it takes maybe two minutes to make.

Not knocking home repairs though, I'm a big fan and I think there is a project in almost every room in this house I have done , from tile to plumbing to painting to replacing molding- just won't touch electrical!