Scarf Girl

I was surfing the web one time and came across a do-it-yourself dishwashing detergent recipe. It’s supposed to be eco-friendly and economical. That seems like a win-win situation if you ask me.

After shopping around the Southbay, I found the hard-to-find ingredients (washing soda & borax). Afterall, why would a national grocery chain want to sell you ingredients to make your own stuff when you could buy theirs? Here are the components:

1cp Washing Soda (not baking soda, but it’s similar)
1cp Borax
1/2cp Kosher Salt
1/2cp Citric Acid (unsweetened lemonade mix packets will do)
Vinegar (this doesn’t go into the mix, but you add it to rinse dispenser part)

Now, let’s break down the costs:
$4.14 - Washing Soda (includes tax) - 55oz ($0.075/oz)
$5.34 - Borax (includes tax) - 76oz ($0.07/oz)
$1.5 - Kosher Salt - 13oz ($0.12/oz) - I just looked up a price since I always have this in my pantry)
$2.99 - Citric Acid (Sugar-free lemonade mix) - 3.2oz (0.93/oz) (I’m sure I can get this cheaper)
$1.83 - Vinegar - 32oz ($0.057/oz)

Here’s the cost of each batch (assuming 8oz per cup): $5.36
$0.60 - Washing Soda
$0.56 - Borax
$0.48 - Kosher Salt
$3.72 - Citric Acid

Each batch makes 24oz of dishwashing detergent. The instructions say use 1 tablespoon per load (which is about 1/2 oz in terms of dry ingredient volume), which will give you around 48 loads. Doing the math, each wash costs you around $0.11-$0.12. I’m sure the price would drop dramatically if you can get citric acid for cheaper than $0.93/oz.

Anyway, after using this mix for about a month, I haven’t really noticed any difference (that’s a good thing). The only thing is that you definitely still want a rinse agent (I haven’t tried the vinegar yet), because without it, it won’t be as good as the normal dishwasher detergent that you can buy in a store.

Scarf Girl, signing off.

I can’t believe it has been 1 year since I last updated my blog. Wowsers. Well, my house is pretty much finally remodeled (2 bathrooms, kitchen, and all new flooring). I’ve definitely learned some lessons and have found some good sites for home improvement shopping.

I’m also very enthusiastic about our LED recessed lighting that we’ve installed in our kitchen and living room. After using them in the kitchen for about 6 months, they were definitely a good investment. I haven’t done the math, but at 10.5w per bulb (vs. 60w), we are saving tons of money. More on the lights another time.

Scarf Girl, signing off.

So after extensively searching for some affordable LED lights for under my kitchen cabinets, I thought I found something in IKEA’s Inreda & Komplement series. They were light bars which could connect with other light bars to cover more space. Unfortunately, the lights are somewhat angled so that they direct light to only the area under the upper cabinet and on the backsplash. They don’t cover the entire counter, which would be necessary for task lighting. Boo… time to continue surfing the web.

Scarf Girl, signing off.

Today, at long last, we begun remodel work on our 70’s style kitchen. Let me say that demolition is a very quick process. This morning when I left for work, everything was intact, except for the portion of the wall that we let our friends “help” knock a hole in. When I got home, the floors were all taken up and the cabinets gone. *poof*

Tomorrow we’ll be discussing the recessed lighting positions as well as having the plumber come in to check things out. Exciting time ahead, and we’ve only just begun.

The “before” video

Post-Demo and plumbing rough-ins video (5/6/11 & 5/7/11)

Scarf Girl, signing off.

So we received our delivery of kitchen cabinets recently. Holy moly! They have taken over our two-car garage completely. Everything arrived in huge boxes from what I imagine, a large-ass truck (J was home to receive the goodies, so I’m merely using my imagination).

The next step? We have to open everything up, take inventory, and check for damage. So far there isn’t any damage, but we did notice that a lot of the cabinet doors got misaligned during transit.

Unfortunately we won’t begin the kitchen remodel for at least a month. *sigh* A month of parking outside. Luckily the weather is getting nicer.

Scarf Girl, counting boxes.

Yeesh. So countertops are expensive. Well, that is if you’re trying to use quartz. Granite is nice that it’s plentiful enough that stores have slabs of them marked down to pretty low prices. Of course, the biggest $$$ factor that I’ve noticed is labor. You found a $100 slab of granite? Great, now who is going to cut it down to size for you and cut a hole for your sink? I’ve seen prices ranging from $200-$350 to cut out a hole for a sink (sometimes sink mounting is included). That doesn’t even include cutting things down to size and installing the countertops.

So if you’re quartz people like we are (we don’t want to have to seal our countertops…ever), then you will likely not find an abundance of slabs at a store. Most places that we’ve gotten quotes from would quote by the slab. What if you use only 1.25 slabs? Well, you have to pay for 2 slabs. However, we did find that some stores will charge you only for what you’re going to use. They do that because of the high volume of quartz they use for certain colors/patterns.

Finding places that will charge you on a per square foot basis could save you a few hundred dollars, which when it comes to remodeling a kitchen, will certainly come in handy.

Scarf Girl, signing off.

So back in the fall, I decided to try and collect some bonus miles through US Airways’ Grand Slam promotion. After gratuitously spending money on various random items, I collected 13 “hits.” The breakdown is as follows:

US Airways Shopping Mall - Kohl’s (bought some things I was planning to buy)
Points.com (Exchanged my useless Hawaiian Airlines miles for US Airways miles at a dismal 6:1 ratio)
Biscoff.com - bought some peanut butter
Dividend Miles Dining - We dined at an overpriced Vietnamese restaurant for our anniversary!
FTD - bought some Mrs. Fields cookies (definitely got ripped off on the shipping)
Magazines for Miles - Subscribed to Sunset Magazine for 400 miles
ThanksAgain.com - bought a restaurant.com coupon (and used a coupon code)
NetFlix - paid for 1 month of NetFlix (these miles didn’t post yet. Grr…)
Officemax.com - bought some supplies for the office and got reimbursed!
Skymall - Bought something cheap for the house (but it’s actually kinda useful)
Trackitback.com - bought a digital id tag. Not sure if I will use it.
USA Today - signed up for a 4 week subscription.
Vinesse.com - bought some wine

So I ended up spending about $183 (although I bought some wine at another website where I didn’t get any points, so I’m adding that into the $183). Including all the bonus miles from the program, along with the miles you get for using the partners, I should end up with around 15,400. That makes the cost 1.2 cents per mile.

If you redeem 25,000 miles for an across the country round trip ticket valued at $350 (although these days it might be more or less), that comes out to 1.2 cents per mile. Not too bad I’d say.

Scarf Girl, signing off.

I couldn’t believe how long it’s been since I was wrote a blog post. I suppose after all these years of blogging, it starts to be come a chore. Anyway, the summer was great and flew by way too quickly. Our master bathroom was finally finished and now we’ve been planning for a kitchen remodel. It’s going to be nice to get that done and finally be able to host a party!

Good luck to the Giants in Game #4 of the World Series!

Scarf Girl, signing off.

So it’s been a while since I went climbing (besides last week). I managed to squeeze in a 2nd week in a row today. Let’s see, I did 4 climbs, and with a little nudging from my friend, did some harder climbs. 5.9, 10a, 10d, 11a. Whew, my forearms are definitely tired, but in a good way.

Scarf Girl, signing off.

So the other day while driving by a gas station, one question popped into my head: where do the police, fire trucks and ambulances fuel up? I suppose it would make sense for each respective station to have some sort of fuel pumps for convenience. The last thing a cop would want to be caught doing is filling up at their local gas station. If they had to, would they get free gas?

One thing thing I was wondering was what kind of mileage does a fire truck get? I mean, a Hummer H3 gets around 13-14mpg (city), so I can’t imagine that a fire truck would do any better. I suppose while manufacturing the fire trucks, they don’t really have to think about fuel economy so much.
Scarf Girl, signing off.