Domesticity (continues)

Is Domesticity really a word? I could be intelligent and look it up, but decided whether it was a word or not, I like it and would continue to use it.
My determination to save a few pennies has continued to grow. We have started making our own bread products. Not just wheat bread for sandwiches, but hamburger buns, fun breads (like the jalapeno cheese bread), english muffins, banana bread, and etc. This Sunday we are having shredded BBQ beef sandwiches and I will be trying my hand at making French Rolls for the sandwiches. It has been fun learning how to make different types of bread and even better...saving money. And yes, it does save money.

Wheat Bread: Don't pay attention to the poor cut lines,
I am still working on it.

Homemade English Muffins. I leave a few out and keep the
rest in the freezer.

Another way we have been saving money is by making our own dishwasher detergent. I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Christine. She had posted about making her own laundry detergent (which I plan on doing once ours gets close to running out). So I was looking online and found a recipe for dishwater detergent for hard water (which we have). Everytime we would do dishes everything would come out with a film on it and we would have to rinse and wipe down just about everything before we put it away. Kind of defeated the point of the dishwasher.  So I thought I would take a chance and make the detergent. What a wonderful day it was when I first used the detergent. The dishes came out squeaky clean with no residue on anything. Needles to say, I have been converted.

Detergent. The mixer on the left is just borax,
washing soda and kosher salt.
The Citric Acid is added for the hard water.

I still have other ideas for penny pinching that I will post later. Like reusable paper towels, more canning, putting together our own emergency mylar meals for food storage, household cleaning products (which won't happen til we get close to running out), and any other possible things I can find.

My wonderful friend Katie made this for me
before we left. I had to include it as it has
become part of my baking uniform.