Sally's Kitchen & Stuff

Spring Cleaning? Drop that Windex!

I don't know about you, but as a person with spring allergies, spring cleaning is the LAST thing I want to do with my nose. The moment I try to spray anything out of a bottle, I sneeze, leaving a film of whatever-it-is-that-comes-out-of-your-nose-when-you-sneeze behind. Gross. Kind of defeats the purpose, no? To combat my allergies (and I'm allergic to everything, come spring time) I'm switching to natural products this year.

You know those masks that you can get for cleaning? Forget those. Dust gets in the side, and you can't really breathe in them. Buy yourself a microfibre cloth, fold in half, stitch the end line together. Pull a string along the top, and another along the problem and voila! Homemade mask.

Here's a link to a bunch of stuff you can shake up for your cleaning needs.

Spring Cleaning 101 - Ceramic and metal surfaces

Thanks to my last landlady, the 90 year old Wonderwoman, I've learned how to clean the bathroom without scrubbing.

Regular laundry detergent can be used to clean any ceramic/metal surfaces. It contains both soap and mild bleach - get the cheapest powder detergent you can find and stash it under the bathroom counter. Add one scoop to the bathtub, half a scoop to the sink, and half a scoop to the toilet. You can even use it on the floor around the toilet. Fill the sink and the bath halfway and let it soak for 45 minutes and up. Then just empty the sink (rinse it), empty the bath (take a shower!), and flush the toilet. If there's anything left of the dirt, it should wipe off. Works on both metal and ceramic, and should be gentle enough - if it's good enough for your clothes, it's good enough for your tiles!

The same trick works with the walls in the bathroom as well. Just spritz a mixture of laundry detergent and water on, leave on for 15 mintues, and wipe/rinse. All those commercials about "scrubbing" the bathroom be damned: I haven't scrubbed anything in ages!

How to budget effectively and also, how to stick to it.

Ok. Here's what you need:
1. A printer. You don't have to print it, but it's much more effective if you do.
2. One sheet of paper.
3. A copy of MS Excel or similar spreadsheet software. Stay late at the office to do this, or get yourself a copy of:
    - OpenOffice, or if you want something standalone, give Gnumeric a try. Both are free and open-source. Calc rocks.
4. Have a paper calendar ready to pick out dates. A mini card one will do.

And here's what you do:

1. Start a new spreadsheet. Title them your first 5 columns DATE, EVENT, DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, and balance.

2. Figure out all your paydays, 3 months in advance. Point them out on the calendar, write down the dates. Write down how much each paycheck would be next to the date.

3. Write down a list of expenses - Date/title/cost. EX: 12-dec-05 Phone bill -40 - again, 3 months in advance. Make this only NECESSARY expenses - phone bill, rent, utilities, groceries. We'll work on the "want to spend" section later. If you're not sure how much you're being paid (if it varies), work out and average and -$50. Always add $20 on top of variable bills - such as the phone and util bills.

3. Select the money rows (depot, withdraw, balance) and change its number format to "currency." Right click > format. I choose the "-" sign over using brackets simply because it takes up less space when printed. If you like, add a row on the bottom with how much cash and money in the bank you have RIGHT NOW, and label it under today's date.

4. Now we sort the list by date. In excel, it's select fields > menu data > sort > sort by date, ascending, with header row. Now the magic begins.

5. In the balance row, add this function to the E2 field "=SUM(C2:D2)" and in the E3 field: "=E2+SUM(C3+D3)"
What you're doing is adding your above balance to the mix of "deposit + (-withdrawal)"

6. Now select that second balance field (assuming that the first one is cash-in-hand), select the remaining fields and choose fill from the edit menu, then down. Voila! The bottom right corner number is how much you'd have in the bank if you only spend on necessities, by the beginning of march. According to this budget, if you're a single bachelor making the average $500 a week, and sharing a house with someone, you can save a whooping 5k in three months. Of course, if you make less than this and sometimes run into trouble paying bills, just check your balance. Any negatives would be automatically highlighted in red.

Now you can customize it! Simply add the fields in the bottom of the list and re-sort to see WHEN and HOW MUCH you can spend on entertainment, clothes and etc and still save a bundle.

Now to stick to said budget.

It's harder than you might think. A cup of coffee every morning at Starbucks could run you $60 a month. Grabbing lunch instead of making it? $5 x 5 x 4 = $100. Going out for dinner? There goes another $20. So, how to stick to that budget?

1. Use cash and keep all the receipts. This might seen like an oxymoron, since cash in hand goes faster than cash in bank. The problem with cash in bank is that once you have that bankcard, you could spend anywhere from $20 - $2000. If you budgeted $200 for that shopping trip, take out the $200 and put it in your wallet. Leave the bankcard and credit cards at home.

2. Still got that budget sheet? Keep your goal in sight. Select the whole thing and change the font size to 8 pts. Then move the fields around so it'd fit on a nice little card about the size of your wallet. Take all your bank cards out - you'd only need one, and that only on occasion - and tape the card over the inside of your wallet. Now every time you pull it out to buy coffee (bad girl!) you'd be reminded to not spend that money.

3. Shop with a list. ALWAYS. Stick to the list. ALWAYS. Check the flyer first, ALWAYS.

4. When you're online shopping, instead of adding it straight to your shopping basket, save it to a wishlist. Most of them will wound up impulse buys. So check the wishlist in two weeks - if you still want it, go ahead...get it if it's in your budget.

5. Freeze your credit cards. Spend what you have, not what you will have. That's a Chinese proverb, actually, taught to me by my grandmother. A friend taught me an alternative - put it in a zip-lock baggie, fill it up with water, and put it in the back of the freezer. So it's still there for a rainy day, but impulse buys will have to wait.

6. Pay yourself. No, seriously. You've got to have money for fun. Budgeting is like a diet - you're more likely to binge if you deprive yourself. So DO budget for entertainment and clothes, or even your morning coffee, just make sure you take it out in cash and don't use that bankcard. Saving it nice, but put aside some money for a splurge on dinner once a week or a movie day out on Tuesdays.

And finally, here's a download for you. Sample Budget - Excel file.

 

Got roomies? Organize those chores!

When you have roommates (or even if you're living with a partner), sometimes we complain of them being sloppy, or they complain of us being sloppy. The best way to end this dispute is to get organized.

Sample list of chores

When I was younger I lived in a co-op house and we had a complete system of chores - clean the bathroom, vacuum, take out the garbage, running the dishwasher at night. There were always at least 7 of us, so the frequency of chores are cut down to every 8 days, really. We just each picked a day where we have the most time free, and dedicated an hour or so to cleaning up. The chores would change every week, so one Friday I would be responsible for the bathroom, another vacuuming the rug. Each Friday I'm responsible for putting away the dishes from the dishwasher int he morning, and running the machine at night. It was an ingenius system thought up by our 90 year old landlady, and she was using it for years.

When you're in a couple situation, things change a bit. You might want to do your laundry together because you don't have enough for a load at the end of the week, and you don't want to waste water. You might want to share the cooking as well, since some days are late days. So over the years, I've developed the points system. Every two weeks, sit down and pick out the chore that NEEDS to be done in the next two weeks, then divide the points equally, plan them out with stickers on a stickerbook calendar (so you can reuse them, if you like.) and work out beforehand who's doing what on which day - especially when it's a recurring task like cooking and doing the dishes.

At the end of the two weeks, take a digital photo of the calendar, remove the stickers, and start over. You can either use a mini-whiteboard or a sheet o wax paper; both work equally well. One thing that really work well is the waxy on one side freezer paper. It's translucent so you can draw a calendar (backwards) on one side, then turn it onto the waxy side to receive stickers.

The sticker system works well with the rooming situation as well. The points system (printed out and posted next to the calendar) provides a flexible way of doing housework - you can always swap for equal points.

Good luck getting things done, and enjoy a clutter-free home!