TIP: Save Money With Cloth Not Paper

It is rather amusing to me when I see tips, hacks and instructions on how to make reusable or un-paper towels. 
TIP: They are called rags, cleaning clothes, & napkins. Personally it is one of the ways I save a lot of money. As you see here, I use cloth napkins, dish clothes, dish towels and even handkerchiefs. Over the years I have collected some really cute ones and have some wonderful vintage ones from my mother in law. I had to learn how to restore some of the vintage linens.

Next, if you haven't discovered microfiber cleaning clothes, I highly recommend you try them. I have a supply of new ones and when they get ugly looking, I make them with an "X" and throw them in my cleaning basket. These are ones that I use in place of paper towels.  These are used for all sorts of dirty jobs like to mop up spills, I even use these clothes when I am cooking greasy foods like fried chicken. if they are used for a really dirty job, I pre-soak them with a little Charlies Laundry Soap before I place in the dirty clothes basket.

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Vintage Skill: Map Reading

I love a road trip! Recently I was traveling the back roads of North Carolina and my GPS wasn't telling me what I needed to know. So, I stopped at a gas station to purchase a paper map. Low and behold, I was REALLY surprised they didn't carry one single map in the store.
Thankfully, I had couple east coast maps, including a book of maps in my vehicle. It dawned on me that we have become so dependent on technology, that paper maps are becoming extinct to a degree. I also realized that this is a skill that we aren't teaching to our children. Now I am determined to teach my grandchildren the art of map reading. 
Over the years, I have traveled by car to a lot of places. When my son was about 5, I started teaching him how to read a map. Actually it started out as a way to keep him occupied - this is way before children had Game Boys and phones. It also required him to figure out the answer to "are we there yet?". Because he was in charge of locating where we were AND how far it was to our destination. We made a game of map reading. 
North/South East/West: One of the first things he learned is that North/South roads were always designated by an odd number (I-95) and East/West roads are even numbers (I-70, I-66). Roads that circled around cities were roads like 295, 495, 395.
Mileage Markers: My son was always good at math. We would determine how many miles the road was across the state and then used the mileage markers to determine how far we had come or how far we were from the state border. he was way better at this than I was.
Name the States: This was a game he came up with. He would name a letter and I had to come up with the state names that began with the letter. Then I would give him a letter.
Biological GPS: Well,  we didn't have a GPS so I would have him determine what our next maneuver would be...like the next road was I-81, his job was to track that road by road signs and keep me posted on when it was coming up and when to get ready to turn off.
These are just a few ideas for games we actually played when traveling. It made our road trips go a lot faster and I don't think he ever asked me "Are we there yet?"
So, buy a road map and make traveling a fun learning experience. 

What I do here is simply share our journey of becoming debt free, teach vintage skills and living a new life on our farmette. We would love it if your joined our Perky Gramma Teaches community on Facebook, comment or share. Plus it would just make my day.
Items I have used this week:

        

Your order is so very appreciated, because anything ordered through my Amazon Associate links helps me to be able to stay home and write for you.

Perky Gramma Teaches is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.