Back on track?

Whew...it has been a pretty crazy 2 weeks of the new year.  I hope that is the extent of excitement like that we have for the rest of the year.

I don't feel like i have been very frugal this last week with all the trips to the hospital and the added cost of medication for momma.  Anyway, we have been doing well at keeping up with where we spend our money and using what we have in the freezer instead of running to the store everyday for something for dinner. 
Another thing we tried and it really seemed to work (don't laugh) I made home made fire starting logs. Yep I know it sounds silly but really, with the cooler weather (and snow last night) we use lots of the store bought ones. they are not cheap either.
 

I bet you have this around the house



 So here is what I did.  I took empty toilet paper rolls (house full of girls we have tons of these) smeared the inside with petroleum jelly (less than $2) and stuffed them with dryer lint.  

the jelly soaks into the tube & lint

 The petroleum jelly soaks into the tube and into the lint which makes for wonderful burning power :)

 

I store them here

I store them in an empty plastic tub that my favorite candy comes in.  that way the jelly doesn't soak into anything except for what it should and for next to nothing we have fire starting logs for the wood burning stove. 

A box of the logs(from walmart) run around $10 and up & they don't seem to last us very long at all.  So I think I will continue to make the homemade ones because it goes along with my desire to be more aware of what we use and becoming more frugal.

Every little bit helps.  I have only made a few so far and It doesn't even look like I have used the petroleum at all, so with this being so cheap to make I can't give you a price per log or anything like that, I just know we are going to use up some stuff otherwise bound for the trash can and save some $$ that I can put away to eventually pay for a vacation or another cow or 2    :)

  

Reduce, reuse, recycle, re purpose.  I am loving this way of thinking.  If you have great ideas to share please do. I would love to try them in our family.
Also, I am still thinking of ways to introduce a give-a-way for my blog-a-versary, so keep checking back.

Have a great day.