Olive You Because...

Everyone likes saving money, I know that a strict budget and careful planning have bee a necessity for us over the past few years.  I was talking with a woman today about our cash envelope system that we have been using for the past year.  I explained how we sat down looked at what we were spending money on and found ways to cut spending.  I could tell she was shocked when I told her our budget for house hold items was only $100 a month.  "I can't get out of target for less than that in one shopping trip," say gasped.  Yup that is all we spend on Kleenex, toilet paper, paper towels, dog food, shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, and misc items around the house.  One of my money saving tools has been the Norwex Body Pack. Our entire family doesn't use soap or body wash in the shower, we only use water and a Norwex.  We don't buy household cleaners either, because we use the Norwex EnviroCloth and the Window Cloth for the majority of our cleaning.  These few items have saved my family $$ over the past year as well as helped us live a little greener.  I usually get the question, "what about after using the restroom, do you use hand soap?"  The answer is yes!  But I try to keep our costs down and choose products that are safe for my family.  My goal is to keep as few chemicals in my home as possible, so I make my own foaming hand soap with two simple ingredients Dr. Bronner's Castile soap and water!

All you need are:

1 part castile soap
2 parts distilled water
1 empty foaming hand soap pump

It couldn't be any easier:

Simply fill the bottle 1/3 full of castile soap and then fill the remaining 2/3 with water.  Make sure to leave plenty of room at the top so that it doesn't over flow when you place the pump inside and close the bottle.

On average this will cost you $0.60-$1 for a full bottle of hand soap depending on if you buy your castile soap in bulk or not.
I am cheap, I mean frugal so I spotted nearly empty foaming hand pumps at a local small business that I frequent often and asked if they would keep the bottles for me when they were empty.  They know my money saving addiction so they didn't even blink twice at the request.  I week later they had to pumps ready for me and so the process began.