creme de la creme.

you know what really gets my goat?  expensive natural creamers that are used up so fast.  my husband and i, we like coffee.  him more than me, but i do drink it pretty much on a daily basis.  so when our "good" creamer is used up so fast, it makes me not want to get more.  because i'm lazy.  but i love my creamer!  so what should i do?!  oh, and did i mention that it's about $2.50 for a 16 oz bottle?  herein lies the problem.

lazy + cheap = diy coffee creamer!  okay so i guess i have to be a little unlazy to actually have to make the creamer, but it beats going out into the snowy tundra that is western, pennsylvania just for some coffee creamer.  and it makes so much more creamer!  i was spending $5 on 32 oz of creamer, where with this i spent about $6 for 56 oz.  and it tastes just like the sweet cream flavor the brand carries!

and all it is is sweetened condensed milk and whole milk!  and i added a bit of vanilla (because... vanilla).  it's that easy.  i conveniently also had an old Aldi coffee creamer container that only had a drop left, and we neverrrrrrrrr used it so we washed it out (and by "we" i mean adam did all the cleaning) and we used that for most of the creamer. the rest that didn't fit i just left in the bowl i mixed it in, and added it to the container when it was emptied a bit.  as far as containers go, i imagine you can do the same with an old container!  or maybe the dollar store sells some, i have no idea!

i love this recipe so much, because you can really play with it.  if it's a little too sweet, add more milk than the sweetened condensed milk.  want a new flavor?  idk, add some extract with a flavor you like.  so simple, so fun and so cheap.  

pancakes, anyone?

okay i admit, i am slightly if not obsessed with pinterest.  you got me.  but most of the time, pinterest is not just a tool to motivate me to get off my butt, it's my saving grace.  it's been there for me in times of trouble.  like when i was bored, and really wanted pancakes, but had no mix!

one pancake recipe i pinned included corn starch, and shoot, i had none.  but alas, i found another, corn starch free recipe!  and my friends, my friends.  they were the most freaking unbelievably amazingly delicious freaking pancakes i've ever had the joy of munching on.  and my husband and his friends thought pretty much the same.  go make this.  now.

not only was it fantasticly delicious and better than any pancake i've ever had, but this mix lasted a while!  i don't know about how many pancakes it made, i can estimate around 30, but they were all different sizes so it's hard to tell.  either way it stayed in my fridge for a few weeks and the last batch was just as delish as the first.  i also added some vanilla (because, vanilla) in the wet ingredients and some cinnamon and those turned out yum.

after i made these pancakes, i went out with my husband adam's grandma to her favorite restaurant where i ordered blueberry pancakes.  dude, it was like $4.99 for 2 pancakes. i then had the realization that this pancake mix recipe was so worth it.  it probably cost $3 for my 30+ pancakes!  i'm more than likely exaggerating but you get the point.  the best part of the recipe was that i had all of the ingredients, and you probably do too!

cleaning, cheaply.

it's been so long, oh my gosh!  hey!  i'm back!  and today, i am going to talk about cleaning products i've been using.

i guess it's good i've been gone for a while, it's given me a chance to really use my homemade products and test them before i blabber on and on about how great they are.

but they really are great!  it was shortly after i settled in to our apartment that i realized one of the first, more important things was to make some homemade cleaners that leaned more toward the natural side.  my husband has allergies, and i have read that not having all sorts of chemicals in your everyday cleaners can help with allergies and asthma.  so because i'm trying to live cheaply, i headed to the dollar store with my list of what i needed.

(by the way, i played with her recipes, and i found her on pinterest, so i need to give credit where credit is due!:
http://littlemsrobinson.blogspot.com/2012/03/homemade-cleaning.html)

so i found everything i needed at the dollar store, for $12.  that was about 6 spray bottles, 2 baking sodas, vinegar, ammonia, dish detergent, and the alcohol.  seriously.  and oh, it's true that the biggest ingredient is water.  i only made the window cleaner, the multi-surface and the kitchen magic.  i keep the kitchen magic in the shower (shower magic?) and have used it in there and on the sinks and whatnot. the window cleaner goes slowly because we don't have really nice windows that need to be cleaned so i just use it on the bathroom mirror and it's fantastic, no streaks. and the multi-surface, or the "cure all" as she calls it, i freakin' use it on everything. everything! it's so wonderful.  i don't even really mind the vinegar smell (that's the new clean smell to me!), but if you do, add some nice smelling essential oils.  i've just been too lazy to remember to buy the oils, and like i said the smell doesn't really bother me much anymore.

those $12 i spent at the dollar store in october have stretched until now, and i'm not even close to out of cleaner.  okay i admit i came close to running out of my multi-surface and i just added more vinegar, so it's a tad diluted now but i don't mind that much.

also, i know i have no children or messy, slobbery animals so that's another reason these sprays have lasted longer in my home. but it's so, so much more worth the price.  without the cost of the spray bottles, the ingredients would have came to $6, for 3 cleaning sprays.  i don't think you can beat that, man.

the dollar store, so legit.

i swear i wasn't paid to do this...

hello!

so my last post was all about the wedding.  we now move forward to... the apartment!

this was adam's apartment so we pretty much had everything we needed as far as appliances went (his mom bought the fridge, and the stove was given to us for free).  all we needed was a washer and dryer.  adam has lived here for nearly two years with no washer and dryer.  he lived at the laundromat because he's a germ-a-phobe!

as we settled in a bit, we decided we had to get a dang washer and dryer.  so we did some shopping around, and settled on a set we just loved.  it was $699 each at lowes, where the delivery was free but installation was $145.  we kept it in the back of our heads and moved on to home depot.  unfortunately they didn't have the set there, and the comparable ones were just not as nice but we were open and kept them in mind as we went on.

our search ended at a wonderful little place called h.h.gregg.  to my knowledge, there are none of these on long island.  i mean, i've never heard of it.  so we are looking around and voila!  we found the set that we fell in love with at lowes!  but this time, they were each on sale for $629.  the sale ended the next day, but we didn't want to make that the deciding factor.  we talked to the salesperson and he informed us that h.h.gregg does the price match guarantee thing.  if they find that set for cheaper anywhere else, they'll match it.  so while he's looking it up to see if he'll be matching this price, i'm doubting that he'll find it cheaper.  and because i'm oh-so optimistic (sarcasm alert), i was assuming he would just lie and tell us that was the cheapest anyway.

mr. john salesperson comes over with the news.  he found the same set at sears (this was going to be our next stop), but for $575.  damn. we were sold.  but, h.h.gregg didn't stop there!  they don't match prices, they beat them.  he sold us the washer and dryer for $550 each.  stfu.

oh, and did i forget to mention that the installation was only $79.95, and you get that money back if you send in the rebate?  you can choose the $79.95 visa card, OR $100 h.h.gregg gift card.  we went with the latter, so we can get our tv there too!

i know this will sound super cliche and a bit lame, but shop around.  i wasn't too happy to go to h.h.gregg at first, because it's not as big a chain as the other stores so i did not think for a second we'd get a better deal.  they showed me, that's for sure.  oh also, these guys sing when they're done!