Saving money

I've had this post running through my head all year, but have never sat down to write it.  But, now that I'm writing more, so here goes.

Really, we shouldn't still be hanging on to our 4 horses.  We're pretty much broke.  Nate's pay checks go to all the house bills, my small social security check goes to the horses, and we're on as much government support as they'll let us have... which is pretty much medicaid for the kids and me, sometimes food stamps when Nate has to cut his hours more for him to go to school.  Oh, and our house and nearly 7 acres was purchased through a subsidized loan program.  Anyway, things just keep getting more expensive all the time, and we found out how to make our own detergent when we moved last year and that helps not to be adding THAT expense.

 Here's the recipe we use:
1/3 bar of Zote soap

1/2 cup of Borax

3/4 - 1 cup of Washing Soda

You blend the Zote in a blender, it's best to cut it into small pieces as you add it in the blender because it likes to stick up the blades.  Then add all 3 ingredients together in a bowl/container, we use old formula containers that we can shake it up in and we ultimately store it in too.  I do NOT suggest blending all three together in the blender, it REALLY gumbs up the blades!  Two table spoons does the trick.

Then, with the horses, I've been letting their feet go longer in between trims and then Nate and I have really cut down on our grain.  Two years ago, almost everyone got some sort of grain.  This year, just Firecracker, Nate's old mare and that's only because she's missing a bunch of teeth and has too much trouble chewing hay.  Senior feed has increased in price almost $10 a bag in the last 2 years too.  So, we've been combining alfalfa pellets (for forage) and another pelleted grain.  It was Safe Choice, but that's been climbing too, so now we're doing a sweet feed that's somewhat pelleted.  And now Nate tells me THAT is going up in price, and that we may be putting her down soon just because of how expensive it is to feed her.  (and no, the cats do get their own food, this picture was from when Firecracker was on senior feed, and our new kitten at the time loved it)

Also, we're both VERY consistences of our fuel mileage.  As long as we keep our RPMs at or below around 2000 we both get around 30 miles a gallon, as long as we keep up with repairs - so we figure out our mileage every time we fill up either of our cars and know to look for things needing repair if the miles per gallon go down drastically.  I've also noticed that my Stratus gets better fuel mileage if I fill my tank before it gets much below half empty.  Since starting to watch my RPMs so closely, I've been amazed at the number of people who lay on the gas taking off from stop lights, etc.  I seem to notice it more with bigger, low fuel mileage vehicles like pick-ups and suburbans too. Wonder if they realize how much more money they're costing themselves in fuel use?  If they can afford to drive them daily, they probably don't care.