If you take a look at most any interior decorating book, magazine, or website you usually come away rather discouraged at the amount of money that it takes to achieve the look you want your home to have. It seems that anything resembling that glossy magazine photo is going to cost some serious green. But quite frankly there is a simple and effective method for attaining the look that you want without spending a fortune; all it takes is a solid knowledge of the style you have in mind, an empty car trunk, and a free Saturday morning for yard sales, thrifting, and time to pick up some Craigslist booty.

I do not happen to have the desire to turn my house into a magazine photo. There is nothing wrong with that but it just isn’t my thing. I like simple decor that screams “a family lives here” not “I have an interior decorator”. Plus my tastes are eclectic… I like farmhouse decor, modern, retro, bohemian, and new age and I am not afraid to mix, LOL. Either way you decide to go though… second hand shopping can get the job done. Garage and yard sales particularly are a great source for second hand items, but don’t overlook second hand shops and thrift stores as well as moving or estate sales or auctions that you can find advertised in your local newspaper. In fact, you never know where you are going to find awesome second hand objects and sometimes friends, neighbors and family will be more than willing to give you items they are looking to get rid of or that have been taking up much-needed storage space for years.

Avoidance Issues - There are plenty of people who shy away from decorating their homes with second hand furnishings or decorations because they somehow feel that purchasing something second hand will somehow give them a negative reputation; that somehow people looking at an object will know that it was purchased second hand. Success means having the money to buy the best and buy it brand new right? Whatever…

There are still others who won’t consider second hand decorating for reasons that range from quality to safety, but for those who can get past their aversion to having something in their home that once belonged to (or was used by) someone else, the benefits of decorating your home with second hand items is fairly self-explanatory.

The Benefits of Second Hand Decorating

The primary reason to purchase second hand furnishings and decorations is fairly obvious; price. Buying second hand items almost always costs less than it would to purchase the item new (unless you’re dealing with an antique – in which case all bets are off). Not only can you save yourself a great deal of money, you can also find high quality, even unique, one-of-a-kind items at a fraction of the cost they would cost you in a regular store. Items that would normally cost you hundreds of dollars can be had for a bargain; especially if the individual selling them is anxious to be rid of them. When we moved into our current house almost a year ago we had no kitchen table. Our previous one (which we had since we got married) bit the dust in the move. Anyway I knew I wanted either a farmhouse table or a vintage table from the 50s/60s. The farmhouse tables were over $800 used and the vintage ones were hard to find. I saw new vintage-style tables like I wanted for around $500 but I had serious doubts if the quality would be the same. So I waited almost a year but eventually I got what I wanted at an estate auction and the cost could not be beat… ready for it… $1.00. Yes, I said one dollar! It is a retro/vintage kitchen table set from the 60s I would say. I LOVE it!!!

This baby is metal and sturdy as heck. The color combo is brown/beige/mustard which also pleases me. But the table will match many different cushion colors so someday I might redo the cushions to mint and butter yellow. Some of the chair fabric is ripped or otherwise I wouldn’t even bother. It also fits the space better. Who was I trying to fool thinking a  farmhouse table would even fit there or look good? I am not Martha Stewart and I don’t have a farmhouse near a vineyard. I live in a rented duplex that kisses the outskirts of a large city. This table is me… simple, practical, no frills.

A few weeks back we got a white leather recliner from a sale for $5. We got it home and quickly realized why it had been sold so cheap. The cushion from inside was disintegrating and throwing up everywhere. Every morning it looked like someone had thrown popcorn all over the place. So, we freecycled that one and found another the same day via Craigslist for $15. It is even better suited to us and our brown couch… olive green, cushy, and cloth covered. The lady who sold it to us also gave us a nice metal filing cabinet and sold us two large dressers for $5. An older find is this old time school desk that was only $3 and serves as a homeschool nook for us:

I LOVE second hand stuff!

One of the least recognized benefits of purchasing items second hand is in knowing that what you are purchasing has already ‘proved’ itself. If the item is still usable and looks good after having been used for a length of time, chances are that it will serve you will and not wear out or fall apart as so many ‘new’ things tend to do fairly quickly after being purchased.

For art work we have purchased second hand of course but since I take pictures I like to hang my own art. To make that cheaper I use Group deal sites like Groupon and MamaSource and get them half price. When you refer friends you get credit too and all three of the canvas photos on my family room wall were FREE. I like that price!

It really isn’t hard to decorate your home, even if you are on a shoestring budget, it just takes a little creativity and a willingness to consider purchasing items from places you normally might not consider buying them, but by thinking outside of the box you can make your home into a truly original work of art.

For many families antibacterial cleaners are a fixture in the home, whether they are in the form of hand soap or cleaners for your kitchen and bathroom. We are bombarded by marketing hype about the need for these products in sterilizing our homes and protecting them from harmful germs. But are these cleaners actually doing more harm than good?

Why Do We Need to Kill Bacteria?

No one likes the idea of bacteria and germs laying in wait around our homes. We’ve been conditioned to think they are bad and that we must get rid of them to maintain health. It is true that some bacteria can cause disease, illness and food poisoning. And with that in mind it is easy to see why we gravitate towards a product, like antibacterial cleaners, that promise to kill around 99% of bacteria. After all, we all want to protect ourselves and our family from getting sick.

So Why Are Antibacterial Cleaners Bad for Our Health?

Many bad things happen when we try to get around nature’s design. Just look at how whole foods become unhealthy when we process and fragment them. Look at how a natural substance found in the earth can wreak havoc on the planet when processed as fuels and used to the extreme by the population. Antibacterial cleaners are not as good for us as they may initially seem. In the short term, their ingredients are known to irritate or even damage the skin (this is more of a problem with those that have been developed for cleaning purposes).

The FDA is currently looking into one of the major ingredients of antibacterial soaps: triclosan. Although the evidence isn’t cut and dry yet, it suggests it may have a harmful effect on humans  and especially children. In the past, the FDA has also stated that there are no extra health benefits to using antibacterial soaps over regular soap and water. If there is no added benefit and the ingredients are even slightly suspect then why the use them?

A long term result of using antibacterial products is that they make bacteria more resistant. This means that, over time, these antibacterial products will no longer be able to kill the germs they set out to kill in the first place. We are essentially taking normal strains of bacteria and and giving the the means to get more powerful and potentially more harmful.

You simply don’t need to make your home sterile to protect yourself and your family. Bacteria is all around us, and being exposed to small amounts of it is what our body needs in order to build up its defenses against stronger bacteria. Studies have shown that sterile environments in childhood can actually lead to more allergies and other problems later in life.

The American Medical Associated (AMA) has warned against extensive use of such antibacterial cleaners for these reasons. When it comes to killing germs, simple measures like washing your hands often with traditional soap, is the best way to protect against germs… and the safest.

Instead of having a bottle of antibacterial soap next to the sink try a bar of Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap. For cleaning household surfaces the liquid version is amazingly effective. Combine that with a homemade disinfectant with vinegar, water, and tea tree oil mix in a spray bottle and you will be set. If you need a quirt bottle for meeting the demands of school supplies lists try Clean Well All Natural Antibacterial soaps. They have no triclosan.

Easy, safe, and green.

Just saw this morning that the awesome glass water bottles that usually accompany me outside for summer play are on sale for only $7.95. Just had to share a deal that good! Enjoy!

Canning and preserving food is no longer the necessity that it used to be before the age of grocery stores and pre-packaged convenience foods. In fact, there are plenty of people who look down on the art of canning and preserving as being unnecessary, time consuming and pointless. However, for those families who understand the cost and health benefits of preparing your own foods; learning to can and preserve can go a long ways towards cutting costs and keeping your family eating healthy, even during the winter when fresh foods aren’t available. Food preservation is especially important for families that like to keep it green by eating local.

What Exactly IS Canning?

The concept of canning food is simple enough; you put food in jars and then subject the filled jars to very high temperatures for a long period of time. This process kills all sorts of nasty microorganisms and puts a halt on a whole host of enzymes that can cause your food to spoil. During the heating of the jars also drives the air out of the jar causing a vacuum seal as the food in the jars cools, keeping the food inside as fresh as when it was processed.

There are dozens of websites and books that provide excellent directions and recipes for canning different kinds of foods, but there are a few things to keep in mind before starting any sort of canning or preserving project. For further reference I happen to like The Art of Preserving and Preserving Nature’s Bounty.

Canning and Preserving Tips

Choose Your Foods. Just about any kind of food can be subjected to canning or preserving, but your best bet for both cost effectiveness as well as health benefits is to preserve the foods fresh (both fruits and vegetables) when they are in season, so that you can benefit from having 100% natural foods year round.

Know Your Process. Be aware of what sort of method you are going to want to use when canning or preserving your produce. Do you want to preserve the produce in its uncooked or raw state? There are preserving processes specifically designed for ‘raw packing’ your foods. If you want to hot pack your foods (heat your food before it is put into jars) then you will find that there is a whole different set of steps you will need to follow.

Make Sure You Have the Right Equipment. Canning requires some specialized equipment. First off, you will need a canner (The kind of canner you need will depend on what foods you will be canning so be sure to check which sort of canner is recommended for which kind of food), canning jars, new lids and rings, a jar lifter, a funnel (preferably stainless steel).

Start Small. If you are just starting out with canning and preserving, don’t get over-ambitious to start with. Begin small; simple vegetable or fruit canning can be an excellent (and easy) way to start and will give you much needed practice. As you become more comfortable you can move on to more complicated methods. Make as much as you can your first year without feeling overwhelmed and keep track of how long it took you to eat those items. Then the next year if you went through all 10 jars of jam by October then you know that you need to double the amount you preserve the following year.

Other Preservation Methods

Ice is Nice. If you have a large freezer or even a dedicated stand alone freezer then you have the perfect opportunity to freeze your seasonal fruits and veggies as you buy them for later use. Look for tips online specific to eat type of produce. That way you will know how to freeze strawberries and blueberries for instance, without having them stick to each other in one frozen lump. Once again make a checklist so that you know you started the year with 3 bags of green beans and see how long they lasted so you know how many you will need next year. Freezing is probably the easiest preservation method but sadly it relies quite a bit on plastic bags. I have frozen food in glass ball jars though with much success.

Vacuum Pack. I have never tried this myself but I know many moms who swear by their FoodSavers. I imagine though that most of what they seal still ends up in the freezer, as above.

Salt Preservation – I have a copy of the book Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning and it highlights ways to preserve meats with salt in lieu of nitrates and nitrites. I love this book but have never tried that particular method. My husband, however, would love to try preserving fish with salt.

Cold Storage – Some produce can be preserved simply by keeping it in your root cellar or another suitable place for cold storage. Some things that do well with this method are potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, apples, and onions. Some need to be stored in specific ways though. I know some put carrots in barrels full of sand and apples are often individually wrapped in newspaper.

Dry Your Foods. Using a dehydrator to preserve food is actually pretty simple if you have a good dehydrator. I recommend the Excalibur with its is nifty trays and temperature controls. It allows me to dehydrate foods at low temperatures so that technically they are still living, raw foods. You can dry lots of fresh fruits and veggies and put them in jars for snacking all year long. Healthy school lunches are MUCH easier to pack when you have dehydrated goodies on hand. You can also dehydrate goodies for camping and backbacking trips. Whole meals can be made for this purpose so that you only need to add water at the camp site.

What is YOUR favorite thing to preserve?

Americans are notorious for wasting food. While over 1 billion people on our planet do not have enough to eat per day Americans throw away approximately 1,400 calories of food per person per day. Put another way, America throws out 40% of the food that it produces.

Not only is this fact about waste disturbing in relation to those around the globe who are starving to death, but when you consider the volatility of the economy and how expensive food is becoming at the grocery store you would think that it would make more sense for people to guard against waste.

Think about the last time you cleaned out your refrigerator. Did you throw out moldy cheese, produce bags gone gooey, or bowls of leftovers that now resemble some sort of science experiment? Did the leftovers even make it to the fridge or did you just toss them out right from the start?

The problem is, our society has become so immune to the concept of waste; so used to throwing things away, that perhaps part of the problem is in not understanding how to avoid food waste. When we throw out that bag of spinach that has gone bad we know that the next bag is only as far away as the nearest grocery store. We won’t go hungry because we bought too much and/or failed to eat what we had on hand. How can we re-train ourselves to be more conscious of food waste? Here are seven basic tips that can be followed which, when taken together, will significantly avoid the amount of food wasted in your household each day.

1. Only make what you need. One of the biggest problems with food waste is that we often make more food than you need for each meal. If you are in doubt as to how much constitutes a serving, check online. You should be able to gauge how much you will need to make for the number of people you will be cooking for. Cooking only what you need will cut down on leftovers and potential waste. And if you do decide to cook extras make it a family rule that lunch the next day is leftovers from the evening before.

2. Prepare your food correctly. Many today are so used to pre-cooked and prepared food items that they don’t know how to prepare fresh food properly. They may buy up some fresh foods hoping to make some old family favorites they had as a child but since their cooking skills have fallen by the wayside in favor of boxed mac and cheese the foods may sit and go bad. Many times people waste large portions of these items because they don’t understand how to prepare them or they don’t have the confidence that they can do so. Now though, you can look up recipes online and get step by step pictures even. If you buy the food, put the effort into actually making it.

3. Cook your favorites. You know what you and your family members like so come up with a list of favorites that you can cook from scratch and cook well. Serve those meals once or twice a week and make a habit of buying the items you need to make them. When you see those familiar ingredients in the fridge you know what you need to make before things go bad. Occasionally I make a vegetarian version of chicken scallopini for instance and it uses white wine and cream (2 things I usually don’t buy or use). I will often make this meal 2-3 times in a single week until I use the wine and cream up. I do the same thing with Potato Leek soup when I have potatoes and leeks to use up.

4. Use your leftovers. Leftovers have a bad habit of sitting morosely in the refrigerator until they sprout mold and have to be thrown out. No one seems to want to take the time to put the items together to make a new dish. A key to avoiding waste is to devise new meals out of leftover items. There are lots of websites that give ideas for dishes that can be made out of common leftovers and if you get creative I’m sure that you’ll find a way to make something new out of something old. Produce that you know you won’t use in a meal can often be used in green smoothies too.

5. Get Creative – Freeze your cutting board scraps like onion skins, carrots, celery, garlic, mushroom stems, etc and reserve them to make your own veggie broth. Produce that is about to go bad can also be used for this purpose. Stale bread can be used for bread crumbs and coutons.

6. Do a pantry/fridge challenge once a month. This means you avoid going to the store and figure out what you can eat from what you have. Spending a week or more eating this way gets rid of older foods before they can go bad and it saves money too!

7. Compost. As a last resort, compost all the biodegradable items that you are not able to eat or use. While technically this IS waste, it is waste that is being reused for something productive; in this case fertilizer for your garden and is not entering the standard waste/recycling system. We had had great success with our Worm Factory Compost Bin.

By following these seven simple steps you can significantly reduce the amount of waste in your household and, hopefully, will serve as an example to your children about curbing food waste.