Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The month of September Report and Tally (Month 12!)

Fall has made a sudden appearance in our part of the world!

It's funny how it will sneak up on you, yet fall is my favorite time of the year. I'm always relieved when the high heat of the year lessens. We look forward to raspberry picking and Honeycrisp Apples. I always mean to take a drive north into Colorado to see the amazing colors. Last year we were able to do that and this year we missed it, since there is already snow going on up there! Woops!

Next year I'm definitely planning a nice leisurely trip thru the leaves!


With all the season changes going on I have been motivated to paint fall! I tend to really be influenced by what I see around me. I'm not a logical painter at all! I paint what moves me and the different seasons have a large affect on that!

This piece is something that I do often but it's never the exact painting twice. Since it's a painting that I do in a similar way I number it on the back but it's still original and I love being able to paint the initials of whoever purchases this piece into the heart on the tree.
"Love Among the Trees" 11x14
www.stacysartstudio.etsy.com

Also this time of year we see many hot air balloons here in the southwest. I love the sound of them. There is a festival in Albuquerque, we love going to the night time event called the balloon glow. The balloons stay on the ground but are fired up and it creates a beautiful sight! I'm looking forward to going this year, I will share pictures with you when we go. Seeing the balloons every morning this time of year motivated me to add balloons to this painting.

"Balloons in the Mist" 11x14
www.stacysartstuido.etsy.com

So..My year long record keeping experiment has come to a close! I'm so excited to see how I did!

This is the final month of my report and tally.......ta da!

                                                 For the month of September (Month 12!)

                            Time spent making natural products...................................21 minutes
                            Time on researching..........................................................10 minutes
                            Time on projects...............................................................0
                            Total time spent for the month of September......................21 minutes


                           Money spent on natural cleaning products...........................$0.00
                           Money spent on projects....................................................$0.00
                           Money spent on natural hair products.................................$23.98
                           Money spent on natural soap.............................................$18.98
                           Total money spent for the month of September...................$42.96 

Which leaves me with a  savings of $219.04, I get all excited when I figure that up!!

So now the big results! How did the year work out?

I decided to average all the costs and savings so let's see what happened...............................

Drum roll please!!!!

I'm curious and excited!!!!

Here goes!

I spent a total of $671.26  on natural cleaning supplies, natural hair and body products or supplies for making them which averaged out to be around $56.00 per month.

I spent an average of 1.16 hours per month on making all of the products I make for us.

I saved a total of $2464.86! Which averaged to be about $205.00 per month!

Over this year I learned how to make more products for ourselves so I feel that next year I will spend even less than last year.  For anyone who says it takes too much time I think I proved that it hardly takes any time at all! When you look at spending about 1.16 hours a month on it. Living as chemical free as I possibly could wasn't expensive at all. In fact it saved us lots of money. I think that we are misled into believing that we have to buy all of these products when you can make most of them yourself and sadly when purchasing natural products they always cost more. My personal feeling after doing this for a year is that I would prefer to buy from small home businesses than large companies that are selling something they call natural.  I have had a lot of fun finding great businesses on etsy and have loved learning to make most things for myself.

Most of all I feel that I've found a good process for caring for our home and selves in the most chemical free way that I can and have improved especially my kiddo's health but us old folks health as well.    I hope you've enjoyed my year of record. Thanks for taking this journey with us!!