Blogging Through the Bundle: Was the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle Worth Buying?

(photo credit: http://ultimate-bundles.com)


So I came upon this ebook deal, called the "The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle". Being as I am into e-books, and healthy living I decided to check it out.

It includes 73 ebooks, and a bunch of bonus offers. The total price was $29.95, or $39.95 for the Kindle/ebook version (which I bought).

Being that I have to analyze every purchase to death to make sure it was worth it, I am going to be talking about each book and bonus offer here on the blog, so then when the next sale goes live, I can decide if it was worth the price or not (and maybe you want to know if you should buy it too?)

So far I have already read 3 books.

The first book I read right away .

(image taken from http://ultimate-bundles.com)

Crash Course in Natural Parenting by Karli Von Herbulis

This book is just the basics in Natural Parenting, I will say most of it was stuff I already knew so I was a little disappointed. But, it would be great for someone just embarking on natural parenting.

(image taken from http://ultimate-bundles.com)

The 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge Guide

I am no stranger to green smoothies. We were whipping them up in our Blendtec long before it was  cool. But, this book motivated me to actually do it every day. In addition, it inspired me to use other greens besides my go to spinach and kale. I would recommend this book if you like green smoothies. Or even if you don't. :)

(image taken from http://ultimate-bundles.com)

Clean and Simple by Stephanie Langford and Writers @ Keeper of the Home

I'm not going to lie- I stopped making my own cleaners since the birth of my baby well, almost a year ago. I have gotten used to the convenience of buying stuff. I was excited about this book because hey- 7 cleaners and you can clean your whole house! The recipes seem very easy and doable. I enjoyed the book, but since I have yet to make the cleaners I cannot vouch for whether they work or not (maybe I should get on that?)


I have more Books of the Bundle waiting for me on Kindle.... Stay tuned!!!

Katie

Everything you Need to Make Homemade Cleaners- Plus recipes to clean your Bathroom

This is actually taken from my old blog, which was a home organization blog that to be honest I got bored with. (I am just never going to be that organized.)

So, what do you need to make all your own homemade cleaning products?

1.) Baking Soda
Baking soda is awesome. It is non toxic (you can eat it) and it scours like nobodies business.

2.) White vinegar
a natural disinfectant. spray it on mildew, wait, and wash it scrub away.

3.) Borax
20 mule team borax. Find it in the laundry aisle. (This you CANNOT eat. It will make you sick. or possibly worse).

3.) Washing soda
also in the laundry aisle.

4.) Hydrogen Peroxide
Located with the first aid supplies. You can actually gargle with this stuff.

5.) Fels napa laundry soap or ivory (depends what is cheaper)

6.) Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap
(The most expensive ingredient. I buy this on amazon.com.)

And, that's it. Those are all the things I use to clean my entire house. I decided to give you the recipes for all my bathroom cleaners today, because my whole bathroom is cleaned by homemade products.
I have tried a lot of different recipes, and sometimes it is frustrating because not everything works. Sometimes you have to tweak the recipe a little bit. And, sometimes you have to let it go and try something new altogether. But, here are what I use to clean my bathroom (we only have one! the HGTV people would have a coronary!* )

Shower Cleaner:
1 part Hydrogen peroxide to 3 parts water

Mix in spray bottle and shake. Spray on offending tile/surface/tub rings. Wait a little bit and scrub. Voila! If my tub ring is really bad, I scour it with baking soda!

I use this mixture to wash my sink counter too. I used to use white vinegar and water, but my husband is extremely offended by the smell of vinegar.

Glass/Mirror Cleaner:

1 part vinegar to 3 parts water

Mix in spray bottle, shake, and you're ready to spray. If you have old newspaper, you can wipe away your mirror with this. I know, it sounds weird, newspaper to clean a mirror? But it really works and it's streak free!

Toilet Bowl Cleaner:
Baking Soda
Vinegar

Sprinkle baking soda around inside of toilet bowl. Then pour vinegar over it. Enjoy volcano effect. Then, scrub with toilet brush

Really Dirty Toilet:
use borax instead of baking soda.

We didn't have a toilet paper roll holder, so rather than buy something my husband built this nifty rack with a magazine holder and hand towel holder. You can see my favorite bathroom reads, any "Calvin and Hobbes" collections. :)

Bathroom Floor Cleaner: ( I have a tile floor)

Bucket of water. Shot glass of vinegar.
Mop floor.

That's it! If you want a homemade recipe for anything, I would recommend Homemade by Reader's Digest. While I do not use all the recipes in here (I do not use anything with ammonia or bleach) It has a lot of useful recipes in it.

Well, there it is. Homemade cleaning for your bathroom. How do I organize this? I have a cupboard over the toilet (Yard sale find for $5!) that I store my homemade sprays in. I mark them with a sharpie so I know what they are!

Katie

* we do have a gross scary toilet in the basement.

I tried it! - Homemade Dishsoap

I make a lot of homemade cleaning products, and I am always looking to find things that fit this criteria:

1.) All Natural
2.) Cheap
3.) Effective (as in, they work!)

Dish Soap was something I hadn't tried yet- it just seemed complicated to make anything "liquid", so up until now I have been buying Seventh Generation Dish Soap, which unfortunately comes in a plastic squeeze bottle.

I have been reading a lot of one of my new favorite websites, Trash Backwards, and found they had a list of 100 Things you Never Need to Buy (be still my beating heart). Lists like that get me excited. I love not buying! One of the things on there was dish soap, and the recipe was ridiculously easy : baking soda and essential oil ( I used a few drops of lavender). Baking soda comes in a cardboard box, and essential oil in a glass vile, so we have plastic-free dish soap!

I was skeptical, I didn't think it would work. My husband even said, "If baking soda cleans dishes, why are people spending all this money on dish soap?" to that my response was, "marketing?".

I didn't even have to nail holes into a jar lid as she recommended, because I had an old glass paremsan container just waiting to become a dish soap container.

The verdict? Holy guacamole! This stuff works! Even I was surprised, with a sprinkling of this and a scrub  brush my oatmeal pot (pictured at left) was clean! An you know what it's like to scrub gummy oatmeal...

That just made my day. I love finding cheap, natural cleaning recipes that work : )

Do you make your own cleaning products? Would you try this?

My Low Waste Shopping Trip and Shopping for Special Diets

Today I went shopping and focused on trying to purchase things with as little packaging as possible.

We belong to a CSA, so I have been lucky I haven't had to buy many vegetables. (And they are all plastic free!!)

Unfortunately, when I used Bea Johnson@ZeroWasteHome.com 's "Bulk" app, the nearest Bulk food store to me is 14 miles away. Uh. I didn't feel like driving all that way, so  I went to a local farm instead.

I bought 3 glass (returnable) bottles of milk (whole, 2%, and chocolate. The 2% is for yogurt making, as I have not been able to find "bulk" yogurt). My son really enjoys the chocolate milk. The milk is from a local dairy (hormone free), and at $2.50 a bottle (after the initial bottle deposit) it is a good buy.

The bananas were lose, in the front bag  (bags are cotton produce bags purchased at amazon here: produce bag. I have been very happy with them, they have the tare printed on them and are machine washable.  2 pints of blueberries are in the front bag, the back bag has 4 ears of sweet corn. Next to that is 1 container of yogurt (starter for the homemade yogurt, but I won't have to buy any plastic cups of yogurt once I get the first batch started) a box of butter, and a pound of deli cheese. Cheese has been quite a problem, other than plastic I have only found cheese in a wax coating, and the only flavor available in the wax is cheddar (which my son doesn't like).

After the farm I stopped at Great Harvest Bread Company, a bread store chain we have in town. The girl was more than happy to put a naked loaf into my bread bag. Score!

My husband (and many people out there these days) is gluten free (celiac). I am having trouble finding any gluten free products (flour, bread, pasta etc.) not packaged in plastic. Most regular flour and pasta can at least be found in paper bags/ cardboard boxes, but it seems all the gluten free items come in plastic.

Also, the issue with bulk bins and cross contamination with gluten containing items I have not looked into this too much, as I said before the nearest bulk store to me is a good half hour drive. This will be something to look into.


I'm off to enjoy my local blueberries. Happy Monday :)

Katie