I am a caregiver for my severely mentally disabled 38 year old son (paid by Milwaukee County - 21 hours per week - $7.00 per hour - LOL - takes more than 21 hours to wash, diaper, dress and feed him every week!!!) and I keep an eye on my 80 year old newly widowed Dad with Parkinson's Disease (he has never lived alone - married to Mom for 55 years - six daughters and lived with Gram until he married... the man could cook toast if someone plugged the toaster in...), I do the floor washing, bathroom cleaning and laundry for him. My sisters and I taught him Microwave 101 and gave him a crock pot , he needs to be independent - very German, very stubborn... I am, also, a bead&fiber artist, hoping to build an online storefront soon or maybe eBay. I have two cats, Albert, a six year old "tuxedo" and our baby, Malcolm, who is 4 months old and quite a handful and I love the great stuff ThriftyFun gives me...
My son is 38 years old, severely disabled and incontinent. I use 1 cup of baking soda and a bit of detergent (you only need about half the detergent) to clean and sanitize his clothes, thus saving money on expensive detergents. And the clothes are softer and less full of static when dried, so I'm saving on dryer sheets. (You can also put some white vinegar in the rinse cycle to soften without sacrificing absorbancy... I use it for his clothes, sheets and towels) AND it is totally bio-degradable, non-polluting, natural. Sprinkle some baking soda on a DRY (and I stress DRY) urine spot from Fido or Fluffy on a chair or rug and then vacuumed will remove the smell and most of the stain (try it again if not perfect). I also sprinkle baking soda on all my rugs just before vacuuming to make the house smell fresh without the "perfumed" smell the store fresheners give and a great deal cheaper. But sprinkle it just before, letting it sit for long is a bit harder to vacuum up... I clean the stove and the sinks and the doorways where the greasy hands prints seem to end up. I buy the large box for the laundry room and the Aldi's brand small boxes for 43 cents each because the convenience outweighs hauling a large bulky box around... I love baking soda and white vinegar for a lot of things. Many years ago when my son was very young (he was damaged by the DPT booster shot in 1973) and I could not work, I found that even though I had no money for cleaning products (even with such a need for constant cleaning), baking soda and vinegar were allowed on food stamps, I had good cleaning stuff! ... View related article.
