3 Quick and Easy Ways to Save on Toiletries

If you are anything like our family, saving money wherever you can is important to you. I know we are always trying to find ways to save a little money on everyday items. One of the ways to save on toiletries.

Here are 3 ways we save money on simple things. Though they are not exorbitant cuts in our bills, overall; however, over time, every little bit counts, right?

We go through a LOT of hand soap, especially in the summer washing off mud, sunscreen, sand, did I say mud?

I started making our hand soap a few years ago and have been very happy with the cost savings, not to mention the quality of the product.

First, foaming hand soap is less messy and easier for little hands to use so having foaming hand soap (and body soap for that matter) is best.

We reuse our foaming soap containers for a while and replace occasionally. You can buy a refillable Foaming Soap Dispenser Pump or you can reuse ones you have purchased elsewhere.

Simply rinse out (if you are switching brands or scents), fill 3/4 of the way with distilled water, add one drop of olive oil, add about a Tablespoon of Castile Liquid Soap, and a few drops of essential oils like Lavender or Lemon or thieves (if you wish), and VOILA! hand soap. Easy peasy and natural and scented the way you want it.

I use Dr. Bronner’s Unscented Organic Castile Liquid Soap but you could also use Lavender or Citrus if you don’t want to add the essential oils but give it a scent.

I once found someone that figured that it end up being about 25 cents for an 8 oz bottle of foaming hand soap if you do it this way. I haven’t checked these figures but I would say it’s certainly WAY less that $2-$7 per 8 ounces that you will pay for hand soap so…cost savings could be pretty good over time.

So for the sake of quick figures let’s say I use 1 foaming hand soap per month (which is or isn’t accurate, not sure), figuring $3/bottle for something acceptable but not all natural, that would be $36/year or 25 cents a bottle for all natural I made which would be about $3/year so that’s a yearly cost saving of $33 or $2.75/mo.

I have been buying eye makeup remover for years. You can buy some for about $4-$7 per 2 oz bottle at CVS. It is full of chemicals and burns your eyes but it takes off the mascara well. One bottle of eye makeup remover lasts about 3-6 months (assuming daily use once per day) for me. So say about $20 per year.

I started using pure Coconut Oil about 3 years ago to remove eye makeup. I can buy a large jar of coconut oil for $13 and if I ONLY used it for eye makeup remover it would last over a year (but, of course, I use it for a myriad of other things). Anyway, so that is a saving of  $1/month or more.

If you don’t have a baby in diaper this one might not save you much, but I have found this to be a great help and has saved a lot of money, time and worry.

My little one doesn’t get a lot of rashes, though she has had a few and gets red from time to time. With my first daughter, we used lots of different creams and salves trying to find something that would work. But they were loaded with chemicals, note exactly what you want to put on the private parts of your little one.

So with this one, I was buying natural lanolin and it worked great but, again, can be expensive. I have found that my wonderful jar or coconut oil and some lavender oil has been the magic potion. It has saved her little bum as well as my pocket book and is SUPER easy to make.

I take an old jar of the lanolin cream or even a small Tupperware jar or glass mason jar (I use these for everything) and clean out. Then I put in about 3 or 4 Tablespoons of Coconut Oil (remember that coconut oil that I said I use for everything) then I add 10-15 drops of Lavender oil and stir. Put the lid on and keep near the diapers.

You can keep in the frig for cooling relief or to harden up a little if it gets too liquid in the warmer weather. Applying liberally and you have a great diaper salve that is free of chemicals and helps with redness and rash.

Savings wise it a little hard to tell and depends upon what you typically have used. But let’s compare to my lanolin that I have been buying. It is $10 for a 3.53oz jar. If I fill that 3.53 oz jar with coconut oil, which is about 50 cents per ounce, and some lavender oil which is about 11 cents/drop, that would be $2.15/jar saving $7.85/jar and if you go through one jar every other month or so, so say 3 months, that would be a savings of $2/mo.

Again, like I said, this isn’t HUGE monthly savings; however, for all natural products that are EASY to make, you can save yourself right here with these 3 things, with a conservative figure, $6/mo or $72/year.

I don’t know about you, but I love to feel like I’m doing something right for my family, using nature products AND savings our budget.