65 Sustainable Family Changes that Don't Involve Building an Earthship

While this blog mainly focuses on the building of our earthship home, it is becoming increasingly difficult to compartmentalize aspects of our lives as things are growing more and more connected with each sustainable move we make as a family.  Our goal as a family is to continue to work every day toward leading a more sustainable life than the day before.

The exciting thing about the world of sustainability is that there is always more we can do and more we can learn!  The following are all the changes we've made in our household within the past 4 years.  We estimate that these changes have saved us about $10,000 a year!  This list is extensive, I know, but I wanted to have a one-stop blog post for every sustainable, thrifty, healthy change we've made to help anyone else interested in making similar choices.  Be warned though... sustainable choices are ADDICTIVE!  You will soon find yourself talking everyone's ear off about what homemade thing you most recently created all by yourself!

Note: I did my best to keep this list organized and included links as often as possible to recipes and products that we have used and liked.  We do purchase many things off of Amazon and know that this isn't the most sustainable option we could make.  However, doing so makes all of the changes below more achievable with two kids in tow and while building a home!  Please include any changes you've made in your family in the comment section.  I'm always looking for something new to try!

***After having received feedback from someone, I figured I'd include my response to them as I'm sure others are thinking similar thoughts.  Perhaps this will explain where our family is coming from in sharing the information outlined in this post:

 "We're actively taking steps toward that [growing and/or trading for all of our resources]. [However] It is impossible to go from the typical, Western 'American Dream' to off-the-grid living overnight. Because I wrote the post and am living the life you're speaking of, I can tell you that we have very little waste in this household. We fill just a small grocery-sized bag a week with garbage and the rest is composted or reused in some way. There must be a bridge from one lifestyle to another in order for the off-the-grid lifestyle to be attainable. The ways I have listed in our blog post are ways we have made it attainable for our family. Yes, I'm well aware (please refer to disclaimer at the beginning of the post) that purchasing many of our bulk items through Amazon isn't the most sustainable solution. However, as an incredibly busy mother of two who makes everything in my house from scratch and whose husband is quite literally building our home with his own two hands all while working a 40-hour/week job, this is a concession we're making for the time being. We need to start supporting one another instead of nay-saying. We can all do more for the health of our family and environment and need to support any effort toward that ends."

CLEANING

• Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner
• Use for cleaning floors, counters, bathrooms, appliances... basically anything and everything!  To make, mix equal parts of the following plus essential oils of your choosing:
• Distilled white vinegar
• Water
• 12-24 drops of your favorite essential oils
• Concentrated Cleaner
• Family and environmentally safe concentrated cleaner- Meyer's Clean Day Concentrated Cleaner
• One bottle lasts us over a year and we use it for everything! 
• Baking Soda (bought in bulk)
• Great for tough stain fighting on countertops, toilets, sinks, showers, etc.
• Laundry Detergent
• I made a bulk amount and put in an old 5 gallon kitty litter container last year.  I use it for all of our laundry (including diaper laundry) and have only gone through half of it.  This will last our family of four (with diaper laundry!) for 2 YEARS!  It cost around $30 to make and took minutes to stir the ingredients together.  
• 3 boxes Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (55 oz. each)
• 2 boxes Borax (76 oz. each)
• 1 large tub of OxiClean Free (96 oz)
• I use approximately 1-2 tbsp. depending on the size and soil level of laundry for a non HE top-loader.  For diaper laundry, I use about 2 tbsp. per medium load.
• If you like your laundry to have a fresh scent, you could squirt a couple of pumps of your favorite Dr. Bronner's Soap (diluted).
• Soap Nuts
• Another laundry detergent option are (stay with me here...) Soap Nuts.  We have a bag of these too and they utilize NO chemicals whatsoever!  They are the product of the Sappindus Mukorossi tree found wild in North India.  You place 5-6 nuts in a small, cloth bag and keep in your washer.  These nuts can be re-used 7-10 times!  Once we run out of our homemade detergent, we'll work our way through the large bag we bought online.
• Homemade Dishwashing Detergent Recipe- use 2 tbsp. with each load
• 2 parts Borax
• 2 parts Washing Soda
• 1 part Citric Acid
• 1 part Kosher salt
• Essential oils should you desire a scent
• Soap
• Hand soap/ dish soap (when doing dishes by hand)/ pet soap/ wash-anything-soap- Dr. Bronner's Liquid Castile Soap 
• Fair trade
• Organic
• Lasts our family a year and we use it for everything; diluting it at different percentages based upon what it is being used for.  However, we now dilute it according to the directions below for everything in our home (including our bodies!)
• You can really get your money's worth by using a foaming dispenser and filling it 1/5th of the way with Dr. Bronner's and the rest with water.  
• Use this for everything you would use soap or shampoo for!

KITCHEN

• Homemade Raw Apple Cider Vinegar
• Instead of buying whole bags of apples to make homemade apple cider vinegar, you can save the cores of the apples you eat (we cut our apples instead of eating them right off the core) in a gallon bag in the freezer.  Once you have a whole bag full, you can make 2 gallons of apple cider vinegar!  We buy a 3 pound bag of apples each week, so it ends up taking us about a month or two to fill a gallon bag.  Because we use raw apple cider vinegar for so many things, this ends up saving us about $30 every couple of months!
• To save even more money, we purchase our gallon glass containers at the thrift store at about $1.99 a piece.  Glass lemonade dispensers with the spigot are a dime a dozen and work great for these purposes.
• Homemade Kombucha
• Several friends of ours turned us on to Kombucha and so instead of buying it at the store for $4 for a tiny bottle, we obtained a scoby (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast... yum!  Seriously though.  So good!) from a friend and started brewing it for ourselves!  We don't drink soda anymore and this replaces it nicely.  You can get the same fizzy goodness for mere pennies not to mention the potential health benefits!  We purchased our glass, swing-top bottles at Aldi for $1.99 a piece (I think...) as they sell many of their drinks in these Kombucha ready containers for less than you can buy them online.  We wash them between batches so you only need to stock up once and you're all set!  
• There are systems out there you can buy so like anything else, you can spend as much money as you'd like.  We opt for the glass gallon lemonade dispensers that are always at thrift stores as they're inexpensive and perfect for the job.  We have three gallons brewing at any given time as it gives us 750 ml to drink as a family each day!
• You can buy your scoby online, but you know someone who brews, ask them for an extra as a new one forms with each batch!  (I can provide you one if you live in the Dayton area!)
• Buying Food in Bulk
• Thanks to friends of ours who have access to a Frankferd Farms Food Co-Op in the Findlay, OH area, we order our bulk foods through them.  We only began doing this in January 2016 but we're anticipating this saving us about 50% in food costs each year!  We spend a great deal on food as we believe food is medicine.  However, with building our home, we needed to scale back financially.  This food co-op has prices that couldn't be matched by local food co-ops (in the Dayton area).  If you have access to this one, check it out!  When things slow down for us, we'd like to try to get one up and running around us if at all possible.
• Bulk Organic Tea- Davidson's Organic Teas
• Buying bulk tea means getting delicious, loose tea for mere pennies a cup!  You get approximately 200-300 cups of tea per pound bag!  A pound of Davidson's tea costs anywhere from $11-15 depending upon the type you prefer.  This is where we purchase our organic breakfast tea to make Kombucha.
• Bulk Organic, Fair-Trade Coffee
• We buy our coffee 5 pounds at a time through a local roaster and coffee shop (in Cedarville, OH) by the name of Stoney Creek Roaster's.  They grind if for you if need be and you can purchase online; getting free shipping if you spend over $75!  Prices are anywhere from approximately $40-50 for a 5 pound bag of organic, fair trade coffee.  We've been told that nearly all the coffee they sell is actually organic but that not all of the suppliers could afford the certification.  They are wonderful people to boot!
• We keep ours in the freezer to keep it fresh until we need it.
• Homemade Sourdough Bread
• I learned how to make sourdough with help both from a friend as well as from a video and blog entry in the blog Stone Soup.  This blogger makes approaching the world of homemade sourdough doable and I've had great success with her tips!
• You can get a FREE sourdough start through Friend's of Carl.  This is where I got mine and it has been vigorous from the start (yay for puns!).  This sourdough start originated in 1847 on the Oregon Trail!  
• Homemade Sprouted Grain Bread
• We were spending about $5 a week on organic, sprouted grain bread from the store and in trying to scale back, I looked into our options.  I remembered we had purchased a bread machine at a thrift store years ago and dusted the giant machine off; putting it to good use once more!  It took some experimenting, but I found a recipe that makes soft, sandwich ready sprouted grain bread for about $2 a loaf instead (that's $156 a year!!!).  Recipe follows:
• 3 C. sprouted grain flour (we use One Degree Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour- 5 pounds for $16.49)
• 2 T. milk (we use homemade rice milk)
• 2 T. honey
• 1 T. organic coconut oil
• 1 T. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil [EVOO] (we buy the largest container possible at the grocery store as it drops the price significantly!)
• 1 c. warm water with 2 1/4 tsp. yeast dissolved into it (we buy the glass jar as it costs significantly less than buying individual yeast packets)
• 1.5 tsp. salt
• Mix milk, honey, coconut oil and EVOO in bread machine.  Top with flour and salt.  Make a well in the center and add the warm water/ yeast mixture.  
• Set bread machine for a "RAPID" "MEDIUM" loaf and press "START"
• Homemade Bread Crumbs- We make veggie burgers each week and go through our fair share of bread crumbs as a result.  We find that we always end up with a couple slices of bread that have gotten too hard at the end of each week and we store all these in the freezer to be ground up as needed. 
• We purchased a re-furbished Blendtec blender this past year and it does the job with ease.  This machine or one like it comes in handy for the thrifty family as it helps us do everything from grind flour to make soups with ease!  
• Homemade Rice Milk
• Using the organic white rice we buy in bulk, we make a gallon of rice milk a week (used for cooking and baking mostly) for about 80 cents!  A gallon of rice milk from the store would cost us about $6 so this comes out to a savings of about $270 a year!
• A friend mentioned the high levels of arsenic found in rice and so I looked into it.  This applies mostly to the rice grown in the U.S.  The rice we buy in bulk is indeed U.S. grown and so we take extra care to be on the safe side.  We rinse the rice very well before cooking it and cook it "pasta style" with extra water.  Since it simply gets blended up in the end, it doesn't matter to us if it is soggy so this process works well for us!
• Homemade Vegetable Broth
• We make a big batch of soup once a week to have on hand for a quick lunch throughout the week.  Thus, buying organic vegetable broth gets expensive!  A cook book I love (Thug Kitchen:  Eat Like You Give a F*ck) recommended saving all onion, carrot, celery and garlic scraps in a gallon freezer bag.  Once full, place in a large stock pot, cover with water, add 1 tsp. salt, a bay leaf or two and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, take off the lid and reduce to a simmer for about an hour.  Strain out the food scraps and compost and use the broth for whatever your heart desires or freeze if you'd like!
• We don't produce enough food scraps to make all the broth we need, so to save money, we bought some vegetable bouillon cubes in bulk (Edward & Son's Low Sodium Veggie Bouillon Cubes)
• Cooking Dry Beans
• We no longer buy canned beans as we buy our beans in bulk and cook them as needed.  A friend recently mentioned that cooked beans can be frozen and so I tried it out and loved the results!  She recommended freezing them in two cup portions (approximately the size of a 15 oz. can) and thawing as needed.  
• Leftover Storage Containers
• We now save all glass containers (big and small) with their lids for leftover storage.  We've been working to rid our kitchen of plastic and this has been a huge help.  They make great storage for cooked beans, leftover soups, sauces, etc.  We've also found the small ones (especially baby food containers) to be helpful to store homemade toothpaste, lip balm, creams, etc. in. 
• Composting
• Being vegetarian and eating a low dairy diet as well, we find that everything we eat can be composted on some level.  We have three different places to deposit food scraps and they're listed below:
• Outdoor composting bin- A 5 gallon bucket with lid sits below our sink where we store food scraps and junk paper mail to be placed outdoors when full.  Because we place whole paper into it, I make sure to add lots of liquid to fully soak them before they end up in our pile to help them break down easier.  This is a great way to make use of annoying junk mail and old bills!  We throw away the glossy print paper, however.
• Vermicomposting-  What's this, you ask?  In short, it is composting with worms that you house in a worm bin of sorts.  You deposit food scraps in their bin once a week or so, cover them with shredded paper, pour some water on top and close it up to allow the worms to eat the contents.  When the bin is full of worm castings (poop that is simply dirt in reality), you can harvest it for use in your garden or on your indoor plants!
• We bought two pounds of worms for around $40 through Uncle Jim's Worm Farm and they've multiplied to the point where we now have four vigorous bins full of worms working day and night to turn our food scraps into black gold for our garden.  If I had been more vigilant, we'd likely have at least double that but I neglected them for many months last year and so they didn't multiply as quickly as they could have.
• This makes a great composting option for people who reside in apartments or don't have yard space for outdoor composting.
• We originally bought plastic storage bins from the store to house our worms, but now rely on thrift store finds to make new homes for our wigglers.  I've found a couple plastic produce bins with holes on the bottom for $2 that make the perfect worm home and require no extra work to get going.  However, like anything else, you can spend as much or as little as you'd like.  They sell intense worm farming systems for hundreds of dollars or you can spend a couple bucks for something that works fabulous as well but isn't as pretty.
• CHICKENS!  We do eat eggs from our flock as we know they were produced in a healthy, ethical manner and that our chickens are happy and well cared for.  
• Anything we know our chickens love, we save for them and they LOVE us for it.  This cuts down on feed costs and provides us all with entertainment.  We harvest their manure for use in our garden.
• We bought our chickens through Mt. Healthy Hatchery in Cincinnati.
• We're planning on creating a rotational paddock system for our chickens this upcoming year (once we're under roof, that is) to drastically reduce our feed costs and have our chickens foraging as much of their own food as possible as this is what nature intended.  The following article has tons of great ways to reduce food costs for chickens: 19 Ways to Avoid Pre-Mixed Commercial Feed
• Homemade Salad Dressing (Best ever!)
• We buy our Nutritional Yeast in higher quantities as it is more cost effective- Now Foods Nutritional Yeast (10 oz.)
• Homemade BBQ Sauce
• Homemade Vegan Gravy- Before you judge, try it!!!  Great with the "Chicken" Fried Steak Recipe below.
• Homemade Seitan- It took many recipes to finally find the perfect "wheat meat" but here it is!
• Most weeks, we double if not quadruple this recipe and cook it in smaller, meatball-sized pieces and simmer for only 28 minutes.  The following are our favorite recipes to use it in:
• Mock Curry Chicken Salad (great on homemade sourdough!)
• Mock Chicken Salad (great on homemade sourdough!)
• BBQ Bites
• I don't use the seitan recipe included in the BBQ bite recipe and instead, sub in the homemade seitan recipe linked above.
• Also, I don't use the BBQ sauce recipe included in the BBQ bites recipe either and instead, sub in THIS recipe
• "Chicken" Fried Steak
• Again, I don't use the seitan recipe included in this "chicken" friend steak recipe and instead use the homemade seitan recipe linked above.
• Homemade Vegan Protein Bars
• We were buying protein bars at the store but didn't like the fact that they had like 50 ingredients.  We usually double this recipe and keep in the freezer for a quick snack or breakfast.
• Homemade Pizza Dough (Our toddler LOVES to help with this one!)
• Homemade Radish Leaf Pesto (Great on pizza dough above ^)
• We buy a bunch of radishes each week to slice up for our salad and were pumped to find a way to use the radish leaves.  We usually use whatever nuts we have on hand (almonds and sunflower seeds are our favorite).  We store it in a leftover glass salsa jar in the freezer until needed.  
• Homemade Beer
• We are big fans of nice, craft beers but didn't like how expensive it can be!  We started out by buying the supplies (Monster Brew Homebrewing Supplies) and an ingredient kit (Brewer's Best Milk Stout) online and were pleased with the 50% savings making our own provided.  We had a load of empty beer bottles (helps to be building an earthship home) and simply sterilized them for use and purchased caps to cap them.
• Since brewing our first batch with friends, Zac has gotten more creative and bold and has experimented with tweaking new recipes.  He has come up with a "house beer" (Spiced Stotch Ale) that only costs about 50 cents a beer!
• Paper Goods
• Ditch the paper!  We stopped buying paper towels and napkins and just bought more all-purpose, cotton kitchen towels to be used for anything and everything kitchen-related.
• Gardening- Save on food costs and put those worm castings and regular compost to good use by starting a garden this Spring!  
• We obtain our heirloom seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds  
• We built 8 raised beds last year and followed the Square Foot Gardening method to get back in the swing of gardening again.  I would recommend it to get your feet "wet" in the gardening world though the spacing was certainly off for tomatoes and peppers.  Both types of plants need far more space than the book recommends.  All in all though, great way to start your first garden
• Honey
• Most cities have beekeeping groups that you can become a part of.  Our local beekeeping group (Greene County Beekeepers Association) offers a 6-week beginning beekeeper course ($40 for residents, $50 for non-residents) that ends with a group order of bees and supplies.  This was a great way for Zac and a close friend of ours to get our shared 2 hives up and running this past Spring!  We haven't harvested any yet, but hope to this upcoming year.

COSMETICS

Disclaimer: I tossed all my makeup shortly after having our first son over three years ago after finding out about the horrific ingredients added to cosmetics.  Given that our skin absorbs EVERYTHING we put on it, I didn't feel it was worth it.  I took it as a self-growth challenge to learn to truly be happy with who I was at a basic level.  I was surprised and saddened with how attached I had been to makeup (especially throughout high school and college years).  The one bit of makeup I still do like every now and then is eye liner and the one I use is listed below.

• Eye-liner- Biotique Bio Kaajal Nourishing & Conditioning Eye Liner with Almond Oil- $5.95
• Lasts forever
• Truly all-natural
• Deeply pigmented and smudges easily but I don't mind as it lasts forever and takes very little each time I choose to wear it.
• Nail Polish- Doesn't contain toluene, formaldehyde, and DBP's- Priti Brand
• This nail polish is expensive (at about $12 a bottle) but that just means it is reserved for special occasions
• I only linked the products I've used myself and this was given as a gift last year.  I'm sure there are even more cost effective options now as competition is beefing up!
• Nail Polish Remover
• Costs about $11 for a 4 oz. bottle and smells divine!
• Homemade Facial Mask
• Mix the following ingredients and cover your face in about 1/4 inch of the mixture; leaving it on until dry (approximately 10 minutes or so).  Wash off with warm water.  Leave on less time if you have sensitive skin.
• 1 part Calcium Bentonine Clay ($16.84 for 2 pounds!  Also used to make toothpaste)
• 1 part raw apple cider vinegar (see food section to learn how to make your own!)
• Homemade Lip Balm
• Takes 5 minutes to make and costs pocket change to make!  I doubled the recipe and put the finished product in the small, glass baby food jars I'd saved.  This should last us about a year as a family!

HAIR CARE

• "Shampoo"- I (Lauren) have been going the "no-poo (shampoo)" route for the last year and a half and have been loving it!  The idea is that in using shampoo, we are stripping the hair of vital oils that protect it and then have to condition it to add new (often artificial and harmful) conditioning agents back in.  With that said, however, I have dry, curly hair that lends itself well to this "treatment."  I'm not sure how other hair fares with the "no-poo" route.
• While Zac uses the diluted Dr. Bronner option below for shampoo, I (Lauren) simply use baking soda.  As I said, we buy it in bulk (you can buy 13.5 pounds on Amazon for $16.99!).  I just fill a pint-sized jar with it and end up using about an 1/8 cup to a 1/4 cup mixed with water into a paste to wash my hair.  I've heard that apple cider vinegar can be used in conjunction with baking soda to wash hair but haven't tried it out yet!
• Diluted Dr. Bronner's Magic Castile Soap (1 part water to 1 part Dr. Bronner's Soap or to your liking)
• Tip- We buy this soap by the gallon as we use it for everything!  Peppermint is especially invigorating to shower with but we've tried and loved lavender as well.  The gallon costs about $57 and one lasts us about a year.  Read on to learn other ways we use it around the house
• Conditioner
• I certainly don't lack moisture in my hair since I have been going without shampoo, but if you have extra dry hair, the following can be used as natural conditioners (if you're one for recipes, I'm sure you could find a plethora on pinterest or similar site):
• Extra-virgin, organic coconut oil
• Extra-virgin organic olive oil
• Eggs
• Avocados
• Homemade Flaxseed Hairgel
• Takes about 45 minutes to make (though 40 minutes are letting it simmer on the stove) and costs about 50 cents to make!  
• I saved an old hair gel container and 1 batch lasts me about a month!
• Haircuts
• I bought some hair cutting scissors used the clippers we had on-hand already and have begun giving my guys their haircuts!  I found THIS video helpful.
• I still pay to have my hair cut but only do so once a year.  

TEETH

• Homemade Toothpaste
• I omitted the Stevia drops cause I'm sweet enough already (okay... that was lame, I know)
• This takes literally 5 minutes or less to make and costs about around 50 cents!  One batch lasts our family (with three people brushing daily) about three months. 
• Natural Teeth Whitener- Activated Charcoal
• Simply dip wet toothbrush into charcoal powder and brush for two minutes.  THIS site has a good explanation.
• Baking Soda 
• Fellow coffee drinkers!  Next to our french press, I keep a small jar of baking soda and swish my mouth out with about 1/4 tsp and some water to help prevent tooth discoloration.

SKIN

• Lotion
• This may sound gross to some, but we have little need for lotion as we just bathe less frequently (see recipe for deodorant below...).  Our bodies' natural oils nearly entirely eliminate the need for lotion when we allow this to take place.  However, when needed (especially in the winter), we use straight up extra virgin, unrefined coconut oil.  I have some stored in an old honey container mixed with a few drops of lavender essential oils in the bathroom when needed.
• Sunscreen 
• I haven't had a chance to make the recipe linked above but plan on doing so soon to prepare for the building season that lies ahead!

ODOR BLOCKERS

• Deodorant- I subbed in lavender and vanilla essential oils in place of the ones used in the recipe as these were ones we had on-hand.
• One stick takes about 5 minutes to make and costs about 50 cents!  I made two sticks this past September and still have about 6 months left till we're out meaning a $1 batch will last us 1 year.  Oh, and this recipe actually works!!!  
• Don't throw out the entire deodorant stick!  Rather, toss the toxic contents and save the plastic dispenser itself to use for your homemade, healthy version.  
• The high levels of aluminum and unrecognizable, lab-formulated ingredients in deodorant were reason enough to ditch our old store-bought deodorant in favor of the recipe linked above
• Perfume
• Homemade Perfume
• I modified the above linked recipe based on what I had on-hand.  I love the combination of lavender and vanilla and since I also had roman chamomile on-hand, I added it in as well.  I purchased a couple of pretty, cobalt blue roll-ons and filled two with this fragrance (one for my purse, one for my bathroom).
• Concentrated, essential oil perfume- DoTerra's Whisper Perfume
• Costs $26.40 but smells AMAZING!  I have two friends who wear it and I'm absolutely in love with the scent.

FEMININE HYGIENE

• No need to buy pads or tampons again!  Check out the DivaCup instead.

FIRST-AID & WELLNESS

• Homemade Healing Salve (Like Neosporin)
• Like all other homemade recipes on this post, costs pocket change to make and takes very little time of actual work to make.  We made a double batch a year ago and won't need to make any in the foreseeable future!
• Homemade Cough Syrup (this is the one I make)
• I have friends who make Homemade Elderberry Syrup instead for cold and flu symptoms
• Extra-Virgin Organic Coconut Oil- Can be used as an anti-fungal, for healing wounds and we actually take it by mouth frequently as many say it fights cognitive impairments associated with aging.  
• Raw Organic Apple Cider Vinegar (with the "mother")- When we feel a cold or illness coming on, Zac and I start doing shots of apple cider vinegar throughout the day.  For preventative reasons, we actually add a tablespoon or two to a glass of water every day to help ward off illness.  The acidity of the apple cider vinegar makes for an undesirable "home" for harmful bacteria and viruses.
• NOTE:  If you would like to make your own for literally nothing, read how in the "Kitchen" section.
• Whole Foods
• We use real, whole foods as natural prevention to illness.  We always have leafy greens, garlic, ginger, lemon, and many other fruits and veggies on hand and will make a potent juice with our juicer to ward off illness if we feel it coming on.  This is also a handy way to get your kids vital nutrients from fruits and vegetables.  We bought the Breville BJE200XL Juicer three years back and love it.  Interested in learning more about juicing? We found the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead incredibly inspiring!  
• Essential Oils
• We find the following essential oils helpful for a variety of "first-aid" uses and love the QUOOZ Lull Diffuser when choosing to diffuse the oils:
• NOTE:  In looking into essential oils, I was suspicious of the ridiculous high prices of companies such as DoTerra and Young Living.  I'm suspicious of marketing in general and decided to delve deeper before committing to purchase an essential oil kit that would quite literally break the bank for our family.  I don't believe that natural wellness should cost so much and I found that my assumption was correct.  I found this blog post from The Hippy Homemaker incredibly helpful.  Please check it out before dropping loads of money on oils.
• Tea Tree- we've used this essential oil for congestion, colds, and for cleaning but it has literally hundreds of uses and is one of the best essential oils to have on hand 
• Lavender- good for relaxation, cleaning cuts, bruises and skin irritations
• Peppermint- good for headaches, pain and stomachaches/ digestive issues
• Frankincense- we use it for pain in general.  I used a combination of frankincense and peppermint while in labor and it literally stopped back labor in its tracks.  If natural labor isn't a good test of what works, I don't know what is!
• Eucalyptus- great for sinus pain and inflammation, coughing and respiratory infections
• Roman Chamomile- good for stress reduction and calming a fussy baby
• We have lots of other oils on hand but the ones above are ones we use the most 

BABY REMEDIES & BABY CARE

• Bathtime
• All-Purpose Baby Soap/ Shampoo- Dr. Bronner's Magic Castile Soap (unscented)
• A gallon would last your child until they turned 18 years old!!!
• Colic, Gas, Bloating- Boiron Cocyntal Colic Relief 
• Teething- Boiron Camilia Teething Relief
• Diaper Rash
• Extra-Virgin Organic Coconut Oil used as diaper rash cream- spread on a thin layer as it acts as an antibacterial, anti-fungal and creates an oily barrier on the skin to protect from further moisture damage
• Distilled White Vinegar- We mixed white vinegar with water in our baby bath and let our guys soak for about 10-15 minutes while we played with them and this worked like a charm every time.  Most times, it would go away within a couple days of this treatment.  We would use about an 1/8 cup in a baby sized bath.
• Good 'ole Nakey Time- Another thing that worked like a charm was just letting our guys run around naked as long as we could stand cleaning up after them as the air dried out their rash.
• Thrush
• Our thrush cleared up after about a week of the following:
• Probiotics as prevention and treatment- Our pediatrician recommends probiotics for infants and children and we use the Kyo-dophilus brand as it is shelf-stable.  Our guys take one capsule daily.  Our toddler likes to chew it up (yuck!) and we open up the capsule and mix it with a small amount of water or breastmilk for our littlest guy.
• White vinegar- After nursing, our pediatrician recommended rubbing white vinegar on the nipple as well as on the inside of the little guy's mouth.  
• Avoiding "yeasty" foods such as starches and sugars
• Cloth Diapering
• We've spent about $250 total in cloth diapers from birth to potty training for both our guys combined.  We purchased most diapers and pre-folds used and bought our nighttime, super absorbent ones off of Etsy.
• We use cloth wipes which could be as simple as cutting up some old cotton t-shirts and using them with water or a combination of water and organic, extra-virgin olive oil to wipe baby clean
• Recently, we were told by our pediatrician that there is actually no need to use wipes on a pee-only diaper.  She explained that urine is sterile and can actually be moisturizing.  I admit, I was a bit squeamish at first but she hasn't led us astray yet, so I tried it and haven't looked back since.  Our littlest guy hasn't had a case of diaper rash since and it simplifies the process even more!

GENERAL HOUSEHOLD

• Candles & Ambiance
• Traditional candles at stores like Yankee Candle and Bath & Body Works contain ingredients that are potentially harmful and toxic for your family.  And so, we tossed all of our candles and opted for the following two ways of making our home smell delicious!
• We diffuse essential oils through our diffuser
• We make homemade candles (unscented) to light while our diffuser is on to create the ambiance we miss out on otherwise.  You can fragrance candles with essential oils but it takes too much to make it economical for our family right now.
• Television
• Three years ago, we had finally had enough of spending over $100 for cable and got rid of it for good!  We shared a Netflix subscription with family but now use AmazonPrime exclusively.  We bought a subscription last year as we buy many of our household items through them.  This subscription allows you to have free 2-day shipping and many other perks such as free streaming movies and shows!  They have a better selection (we think) and this service only cost us about $90 for the whole year.  This is a savings of at least $1100 for a year in cable costs not to mention the amount of money we save on shipping costs for all the items we buy online.
• Clothing
• We buy all of our clothing at thrift stores which means for our growing family, we may only spend $200 a year on clothing for all four of us!  This makes us happy because not only are we saving A TON of money each year, but we're making use of clothing that has already been produced and aren't supporting the unethical mass-production of cheap clothing that exploits impoverished individuals.
• Household Goods
• We buy everything we can used either off of Craigslist, at garage sales or at thrift stores.  What we like about this (aside from the fact that it saves us lots of money), is that everything we own has a story and feels like a prize!  It may sound silly, but when we are in need of something and find the perfect used item to fit our needs, we get giddy with delight.