Ruby's Rubbish

Several years ago I stumbled across a t-shirt brand called Ruby's Rubbish. I bought a shirt from them and quickly went back for more. I now have more shirts from them than I would like to publicly admit! 😆 I ask for them for pretty much every Christmas and Birthday. They have Christian, Southern, Holiday, Country, and Texas themed shirts. Here's just a sampling of my favorite shirts from them...

Save time on laundry

With four kids, we have a lot of laundry! I have tweaked our system over the years until it really runs mostly smoothly now. We will be adding another member to our household (my mom) in the next year so we will have 7 people's clothes to wash, plus food towels, sheets/towels, and whatever else ends up in the laundry room. Here's some tips I have that will hopefully help you as well!

1) Have your kids help if they are old enough. Even a little kid can pick up the clothes out of their laundry and hand them to you one by one to put in the washer. I always made sure my kids had a hamper and reminded them daily to put their clothes in the hamper. Even a two year old can throw dirty clothes in a laundry hamper. When my oldest was little, he had a hamper with a basket ball goal design which encouraged him to make a game of it.

2) If your kids are older, have them do their own laundry! Our kids have been doing their laundry since they were about 8. At that age most of them could fully understand how to do their laundry and could reach all the buttons. They had already been helping so they knew how much soap, spread out the clothes inside, etc. The only problems we ran into were not being able to easily lift and pour the big jug of soap. Our house wasn't set up where a big jug with a pump built in would fit near the washing machine. So we found a small pump bottle of method laundry detergent that they could easily hold. We refilled it with our regular laundry detergent when it got empty and it has been going strong for years! We figured out how many squirts were needed to equal the correct amount of laundry detergent and wrote that on a piece of masking tape on the bottle. Unfortunately, Method doesn't sell that bottle anymore, but I suspect a regular liquid soap bottle would do the same trick.

3) Put your family on a schedule. We used to just wash clothes whenever someone's hamper was full and were always playing catch up. So we assigned each person a day to do laundry. Monday - Thursday are kid's laundry days and my husband and I wash our clothes and any other laundry on the weekend. When my mom comes, we will probably just put her on Friday and keep rolling with our regular schedule.

Tips To Resist Spending Money You Don't Need To

I wrote this several years ago, but it still holds true. It was a good reminder for me! I just added a few more things as well before posting today. I hope this helps some of you!

1) Take extra time to get ready for the day. Fix your hair, do your makeup, paint your nails, and put on jewelry. My favorite accessory is my cowboy boots! Everything you can do to feel better about yourself will make you feel less "deprived" which will make it easier not to buy things you don't need. 

2) Keep your clothes washed. As a mom, I know we usually put everyone else first. One way that plays out in my house is that my clothes are always the last to get washed. Which means I don't really get to wear my favorite clothes that often because they are always at the bottom of the hamper. 

I hang a lot of my own clothes so they wont shrink and will look nice as long as possible. So for me, keeping my clothes clean means running a small load of my laundry a few nights a week and hanging it up in the shower so it can be dry and ready to get out of everyone's way in the morning. If I try to wash a big load of my clothes, that always ends with either wet clothes hanging off of everything in the house, or me hanging it up in batches which results in half getting stinky waiting in the laundry basket to get hung up. My point is figure out what works for you, but do find a way to keep most of your clothes clean at all times. What does this have to do with not spending extra money? I've found that if I'm wearing my "it's laundry day" clothes too often it makes me feel like I don't have any clothes I like so I want to go buy clothes I actually like. Even though in reality, I have plenty of clothes I like. They are just always dirty! So try to keep your clothes washed.

3) Take time to make your bed nicely, put your table decorations out, etc. The more you enjoy how your home looks, the more you will feel like you have plenty. It will help you resist buying home decor when you are out buying groceries at Target! Or wherever your weakness is!

What to do with all the boxes!

I wrote this post four years ago, but forgot to post it. I’ve added a few more uses that we have found over the years since then.

Recently moved? Here are 5 uses for those extra boxes!

We moved a month ago and as we unpack the boxes, our house is not getting much emptier because we still have boxes everywhere! At our previous home, we were allowed to pay for extra recycling pick up service. We had two recycling carts that were picked up every two weeks so we never had a problem with extra recyclables. However, at this new house, we are only allowed one recycling cart which is still picked up every other week. Fun fact: we can pay for as many trash carts as we want...yeah, doesn't make any sense to me either. So...now we have to be more creative with our recyclables because it just hurts too much to throw it all away! I HATE being wasteful! Anyway, if any of you also need extra ideas on what to do with all those extra boxes, keep reading!

1) This one is the easiest option! Think about how much you would have appreciated a pile of boxes for free when you were packing like mad! Thankfully, I had friends who had just moved and passed boxes on to me! Gather up any of your boxes that aren't super damaged and can still be used for someone else's move. If you know anyone moving, offer it to them! If not, take a picture and post them on your favorite neighborhood or classified site. For our area, we use Nextdoor, Offer Up, Varage Sale, and Letgo. I also use Craigslist, but I've gotten spoiled to the ease of use of the apps so I tend to post on the other sites first. Post your big stack of boxes with any extra packing supplies for free and I bet you'll have them gone in no time!

2) If you have kids, nieces, nephews, or even close friends with kids, I'm sure they would love to play pretend with some of your larger boxes! My kids were fighting over who could build a house out of which boxes. I quickly nipped the squabbling in the bud, but I love feeding their imaginations!!

Go on a Junk Run to Find Treasures

In our neighborhood, we have bulk pickup every other week. So every other week, people put out items on the curb that may or may not be working that they no longer want. On face value, you might think, "so what, it's probably all broken and worn out items that should go to the land fill." But, you would not believe how much good stuff we have found on the curb. Here is just a sampling...

Vacuum cleaners

Giant wall mirror

Lamps

Weed eater

Lawn mowers

Computers

Flower Pots

Tvs

Small outdoor tables

3 drawer units

Upright fans

Ceiling fans

Cooler/Mini fridge

Scooters (manual and battery powered)

Power wheels

Bike trailers

Bikes

Light strands

Speakers

Wireless smart phone charger

Guitars

DVD, VCR, receivers, etc.

Sports equipment

Mini Christmas trees

Storage containers

Shoe organizers

Book shelves

Storage cubbies

Chest of drawers

Desks

Office Chairs

Futon

Misc. kids toys

Over toilet bathroom organizer

Kitchen cabinets

Fishing poles

Nice metal outdoor chairs and a bench

Buy and Sell Used Clothing on Poshmark

The other day, I wrote about Kidizen, but today I'm going to tell you about the other second hand app I use for clothing. Kidizen is great for kids and they even have some stuff for moms. But, my 10, 13, & 14 year olds are all wearing adult shoes and my 14 year old is in men's clothing now. Kidizen isn't a big help for that.

We have been shopping on Poshmark for about the last year. We have bought clothes for everyone as they even have kids clothes. We have bought...

Cowboy Boots

Tennis Shoes

Steel Toe Boots

Rain Boots

Bras

Swim Suits

Work Shirts

T-shirts

Jeans

Shorts

Purses

Dresses

Skirts

Otter Box iPhone case

Small House Organizing Tip #3 - Turn a half bookshelf into a shoe rack

In our old house, we had a closet just inside our front door that needed to serve a few functions. It was tiny, but we needed to keep 6 people's shoes, jackets, gloves, and scarves. Our master closet was about double the size of this so we also didn't have room to store any shoes in there. So when I say 6 people's shoes, I mean ALL the shoes. Thankfully none of us were shoe addicts, but I definitely had more than anyone else! I thought I would share our solution in case it would help anyone else.

We had a half bookshelf left over from college days that we didn't need for anything else that just so happened to be the right size to fit in the closet. We adjusted the shelves to maximize usage and even added an extra shelf from another bookshelf we had. It worked really well for our purposes!

To keep things semi organized, we assigned a shelf to taller shoes, one for flip flops, and one for the kids. That way the kids wouldn't bury my husband's shoes where he couldn't find them or get my nicer shoes covered in dirt.

Mom Tip: High Chair = Car Seat Holder

This is an older post, no more babies in this house! My baby just turned 6 years old! Man, time flies!!

Did your sweet baby fall asleep in the car? You don't want to take her out until she wakes up, but where do you put the carrier? You don't have a good place to sit the carrier that is out of the way but still where you can keep a close eye on the baby. Try the high chair! Our infant carrier fits perfectly into our high chair. It doesn't click into place but actually fits so well inside it that it doesn't need to!

Buy and Sell Used Clothing on Kidizen

I have saved a lot of money on my kids clothes by accepting hand me downs, shopping sales, clearance, and second hand. Definitely let friends and family members, with kids a few years older than your kids, know you are happy to accept any clothes they don't want anymore. I always let my kids veto anything they don't like, except when they were really little and we were really hurting for money. Remember you don't have to buy true pajamas to be comfy while sleeping either. My kids have often slept in hand me down sports, church, and camp shirts from friends and family. They may not have had any attachment to those activities but the t-shirts were great for sleeping, painting, or even eat messy foods in! For pants they can sleep in any leggings or shorts that aren't good enough for regular wear (stained, small holes, or too short).

You can look at thrift stores or yard sales for second hand, but that takes a lot of time to fully clothe four kids. Kids specific second hand stores are much easier even if they are a little more pricey. My favorite place to shop for kids clothes in our old town was Kid to Kid. We were able to bring the few things my kids didn't wear out to sell to help offset part of the clothing budget. The kids were able to walk around and shop with very little limits which was fun for them. It was really helpful to try on all different brands and styles to see what fit them best. And they got to really pick out what fit their tastes better just shopping the clearance racks or just wearing hand me downs.

Meal Planning Tip #2 - Meal List

One thing that really helped me was creating a list of meals my family likes to eat. It's easy for me to get stuck cooking the same things over and over and forget things we used to eat. It's like we get in a rut for a little while, try some new things, and then get in a rut eating those over and over. I easily forget things we haven't made in a few weeks. Making a list of meals is a big help. 

One clarification, in our house, my kids make breakfast for themselves. I'm not a morning person and this helps me out a lot! I make sure they have plenty of healthy things to eat that they can make for themselves. Yes, this list includes cereal, but I only buy them the healthier ones. They each get a box a week and after that, they have to eat something else. So the breakfast list is just to help me make sure everything is in stock in our house. They know to eat one serving of a main dish, one fruit, one yogurt tube, and one protein (cottage cheese or sausage links) along with a glass of milk. About milk, yes there are a lot of choices listed! My kids that are growing like weeds drink whole milk, my kids who aren't growing much at the moment drink 2%, I drink soy, and one of my kids is lactose intolerant.

Here's a sample:

Breakfast: 

Cereal

Oatmeal

Grits

Cream of Wheat

Leftover French Toast, Pancakes, and Waffles

Yogurt Tubes

Sausage Links

Cottage Cheese

Milk (whole, 2%, Soy, and lactose free)

Meal Planning Tip #1 - Shop From Your Pantry First

Let me start by saying menu planning has been a big learning curve for me over the last 15 years and I by no means have this all figured out. But, I would like to share things I've learned over the years to hopefully help you as well.

I always used to get overwhelmed because the process felt like too many steps and I always got hung up on one. So I decided to just keep trying and every time I felt like I failed, look at where I got stuck, and troubleshoot that step. I have so many tips to share but I will start with this one today.

Look around your kitchen (and house?) to see what food you still have that you may have forgotten about. That random box of pasta, the few remaining potatoes, some meat in your freezer, etc. Then plan meals including those items first. Sometimes I realize I have almost everything I have for a meal and just need to buy a side item. 

Use Your Leftovers!

A great way to stretch your food budget is to use your leftovers on purpose. We've done this a lot of different ways over the years.

When my now teenage boys were toddlers, leftover bits from meals were the perfect portion size to serve them for lunch the next day. When my now 10 year old daughter was a baby, I would puree leftovers for stage 3 baby food.

If we have some pancakes, egg in a hole, waffles, or french toast left over after a breakfast for dinner meal, we'll put them in our freezer where all of our kids can reach so they can heat them up for breakfast.

We also use ingredients leftover from the previous meal in another meal. This works well if you keep things separate when you serve the food like fajita chicken and peppers or taco meat and rice. I can put the fajita chicken meat with cheese in a tortilla and make quesadillas. I can re-use plain rice in a homemade fried rice meal. I can put taco meat and cheese on tortilla chips for a yummy nacho meal. We also use leftover eggs, bacon, sausage, and tater tots to make breakfast burritos.