Cloth Wipe Epiphany

One day, shortly after I arrived for a short visit to see my husband in West Texas, my son had a huge blowout. It wasn't just a blowout. It looked like he took a mudbath, smearing poo from his toes to his neck. His smile was radiant, and he babbled excitedly, kicking his legs and depositing smears of said poo onto his carseat cover. He seemed very proud of his accomplishment. Given the little guy's attitude at the moment and the way he was so happy, I really think he had attempted to remove the poo from his diaper in an attempt to relieve me of some of my duties. Unfortunately, as many parents have learned with "helpful" children, it did not work out so...helpfully.

I kind of freaked out. You know the scene. Baby smiling in the carrier, big kids circling with grimaces on their face; Mom shrieking at first sight of the chaos, and bringing Dad running in to investigate who has been injured. I'm sure there was a "Holy, crap!" muttered in there somewhere.

To say the least, I began a frantic search through the diaper bag for wipes. No such luck. I had left the whole lot at home, four hours away, sitting on the bed waiting for me to pack them. Now, in most cases, the sensible thing to do would have been to strip the baby and plop him in the tub, but this child was plastered with poop. I can not believe that he could have even eaten enough to make that much poo. It was an excessive amount. So, we did the next best thing and gave him the precursor birdbath in the carseat swipe down.

It took two washcloths. Yes, I said two. Only two. A job that could have taken half a box of wipes only needed two washcloths. Now, needless to say, we still gave the child a good scrub down in the tub, and I had to wash the carseat and cover thoroughly...but two cloths? That was the moment I realized that I was a little dense. Ok...so I already knew that I was dense, but atleast I can admit it, right? Why had I been buying baby wipes? I already used cloth diapers, and every other day found me fishing disposable wipes out of the laundry. Tons of disposable wipes. It became apparent that I could be flinging the wipes in the washer with the diapers on wash day, and saving an extra $3 a week on baby wipes. So, I decided to spend my weeks worth of wipe money on a pack of terry cloth washrags, instead. Problem(s) solved. Or so I thought.

It quickly became a very irritating hassle to have to wet the washcloths every time I needed to change a diaper. I despise hassle. I avoid hassle like the plague. Hassle IS a plague! But guess what? I have a really smart husband that comes up with the best ideas ever!

Spray bottle to the rescue! It's filled up with mainly water, but a few drops of Johnson and Johnson's No More Tears and a tiny bit of Tea Tree Oil made baby's butt smell savory! Waaaay more savory than the poopoo mache mold he made before!

eBay Addiction

Of all the things that I have ever done, one of the funnest and most addicting things I started doing to reverse the cash flow in our house was to start selling stuff on eBay. This financial plan was not well thought through, and I am sure to have some level of regret at tax time, but I have to say that cleaning the ever present junk out of my house and making money while doing it is very appealing!

I suppose that I could have just had a garage sale in the front yard. I could have sold the empty Avon bottles and hair pieces posing as tissue box covers in person, but lets face the facts. I'm lazy and avoid generating any physical effort if at all possible (and there's way too much packing and unpacking of items and moving of furniture in the yard sale business).

Here's some more good news... I have made a total of three new friends whom work at the local post office, and I'm almost on a first name basis with my mail carrier! Befriending government employees can never be a bad thing, right?

Now, I can't tell you that there are no crazy people that wander into the cyber yard I set up in My eBay. In reality, there are way more crazy people online that I have ever met in any city in Texas. However, atleast I have the comfort of not smelling their garlicky breath as they call me explicit names and threaten with retaliation, right? I can get let my frustrations with them out in the privacy of my home before driving to the post office to visit my new friends.

Money Efficient Don'ts

In an effort to save some moola we bought some cheap DollarTree batteries for our two month old's swing. Bad idea. He's really irritated with the weak G-force. I really think he would prefer that I take him to Six Flags, and to be honest, he's gonna make the height requirement within the next year. Yikes!

Anyone else have some money efficient don'ts? Share them! The world wants to know what just plain doesn't save money.