At Healthy Kids Inc, we love to make our own condiments. It's a great way to control the quality of ingredients we are serving our kids. It doesn't stop just there! There are a number of other household essentials that can also be made at home. Keeping your home free of chemicals and toxins is an important step in kids health. This week we share some essentials from Virginia Cunningham. Virginia is a freelance health writer for NorthWest and mother of three living in Los Angeles. As a busy mom, she doesn’t always have time to make trips to the market for the essentials, so she makes sure to have these items on hand if she ever has to make her own.
The grocery store has long provided us with a certain level of convenience that is usually worth what we pay, despite the fact that we’re dealing with a third party retailer.
Places like Kroger and Target get us out of having to farm, can our own food or make our own soap, and no matter how you look at it, that’s a good thing. But what if some of the stuff you could get at the market was still easier and cheaper to make at home?
Every once in awhile, you’ll come across an item that is better off when handled with rugged individualism, without the assistance of a grocery store chain.
These items should have the following qualities:
- Easy ingredients list
- Cheap ingredients list
- Useful in bulk
- Keeps well
When you’re dealing with homemade market essentials, making them in bulk isn’t always necessary, but it definitely helps make your time counts for more. With any food or household product you make at home, it’s better to make enough extra to freeze some (if possible) and give the rest to friends and family.
So, if you’re looking to get a headstart on cutting down your grocery bill and living more frugally, here are a few items you can start making at home:
1. Ketchup and other condiments -- The ingredients of a good homemade ketchup recipe are actually quite simple. The basics would include:
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Red Onion
- Celery
- Garlic
- Basil
- Red Chili
- Sea salt, pepper, olive oil and brown sugar
It seems like a lot to buy as opposed to just picking up a bottle of ketchup from the shelf, but consider the fact that you likely already have most of these ingredients at home, and you’ll most likely be able to make a much larger amount that can potentially last you several months.
2. Dry rubs/seasoning -- If you have an herb garden and a modest spice rack, you can make most steak, taco and soup seasonings on your own. Keep the basics around like salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder and oregano. Most of the specialty seasonings are just a combination of those. So essentially, if you have those things and you go out to buy a packet of taco seasoning, you’re buying something you’ve already got plenty of. 3. Laundry detergent -- Homemade laundry detergent can cost you about
3-cents per load, as opposed to 30-cents for the store bought stuff. There are also plenty of simple recipes out there to pick from and they’re all more or less the same idea.
4. Natural household cleaners -- Like laundry detergent, most of the ingredients are probably already in your house. You might have to buy some borax or chlorine bleach, but these items won’t cost much, especially when compared to the cost of a bottle of Windex or Lysol. Instead of buying the name brand, try this list of basic ingredients that you probably already have in your house.
Don’t Buy What You Don’t Have To In most cases, the grocery store is a smart move. It’s just too time-consuming to produce all of our own food at home. However, we’ve seen that there are a few items that do work better when they’re produced “in-house,” both in terms of time and savings.
Find the ones that work best for you and start making them at home. Even if it’s just for a fun project, you’ll still be making a smart and economical decision.