The Frugal Algorithm

How self sufficient do you want to be?

For instance, you can make your own homemade cleaner with a mix of castile soap, vinegar, baking soda, and water, but you don't have to stop there. You can also make your own castile soap with a mixture of olive and lavendar oils, water, and lye. But again, you don't have to stop there, either. You can also make your own homemade lye.

When you break down the majority of home products, most can be made with a few simple, inexpensive components, easily obtained at the grocery store, or online in bulk. Not only will you know exactly what goes into a product you use to clean your home, but you'll also ensure the products you use are safe for the environment, as well as being very inexpensive.

When you do look at recipes for household products, don't just stop at the top level. Use your search skills and see how many of the ingredients can also be made at home. You might be surprised at what you find.

So I ask again: how self sufficient do you want to be? About the only limit to most do-it-yourself projects is whether you have access to a water barrel.

• Homemade cleaners get the job done
• Purple Fig cleaning supply recipes at CRAFT magazine
• Make castile soap at home
• How to make lye

I've been experimenting with a few simple household items in order to replace more expensive bath and kitchen items. For instance, distilled white vinegar in a shallow dish will dissipate over a couple of days and help eliminate persistent, bad or stale odors in a room. Baking soda sprinkled on a carpet and allowed to sit overnight before vacuuming will do the same for a carpet. Best of all, there's no fake, cloying, floral scent left over.

I've also been experimenting with replacing more complex products, such as dishwasher soap. One popular formula mixes equal parts of baking soda and Borax (such as Twenty Mule Team Borax), though I've been having better luck with a recipe consisting of washing soda, Borax, and sugar free lemonade Koolaid (citric acid helps to prevent white deposits on dishes), based on a recipe found at The New Homemaker. My main modification is that I don't add the essential oils.

The primary advantage to these home mixes is that they're typically cheaper, but a secondary advantage is that most of the alternatives are also much better for the environment. They don't contain bleach and potentially other, harmful chemicals, and though something like Borax is toxic if ingested, most cleaning material is toxic when ingested. What happens to the material when it hits your sewer system and your water supply is what makes the difference.

As I find recipes that work, I'll post them online. In the meantime, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has posted a list of unusual uses for ordinary objects you might find both interesting and helpful. For instance, to remove the chlorine discoloration from hair, dissolve eight aspirin in a glass of water, work into your hair, leave on for ten minutes, and then rinse. Much cheaper than exotic shampoos, and better than turning your silver hair blue.

(Note, the P-D does have a habit of changing URLs over time, so you might want to print the page.)

Once I decided on the Frugal Algorithm as the name of this new site, I checked to see if the domain was still available. It was, and for the trivial amount of $30.00 or so dollars for the domain, private registration, and ICANN fee, it would be mine.

Hold on a sec, though. Thirty dollars is a tank of gas, a donation of food for a family of four for a week, not to mention three albums of digital music, or a couple of DVDs. The money would be worth it, if the domain was worth it, but the question is: is the domain worth it?

At one time, it was important to have an easy to remember domain name for your site. After all, we had to hand type in the domain addresses when we wanted to visit the site. However, that was in the days before most sites were found via link from others, or search engine results. Having one domain is important, because you can't depend on owning the same IP address forever. But you don't need to have a domain for every interest, itch, and thought that crosses your mind. Big companies might need domains, but the small business owner, organization, or individual can get by with one domain. Just one.

It would be a sad commentary on this site if my first act in creating it was to spend money I didn't need to spend. Thirty dollars doesn't seem like much, but it adds up. Not only would I need to obtain the domain for The Frugal Algorithm, but I'd also need to renew my domain for MissouriGreen, Secret of Signals, and the domain, shelleypowers.com for Just Shelley. Yet, I doubt that anyone has ever looked at the domain names for the sites, much less typed the domains into a browser's address bar.

I hestitated on not renewing MissouriGreen, as eventually I'd like to get a jacket with the name of the site embroidered on it, so when I take photos at events, people know where to look to see if their picture appears. But if I display "MissouriGreen" on the back. rather than "MissouriGreen.com", people will just look up "MissouriGreen" in Google and find the site. And though it may seem as if my encouraging the use of Google will melt the polar ice caps and drown baby polar bears, I have a feeling from an environmental perspective, it's all a wash.

Look how much money I'll save buy not buying the new domain, or renewing the old ones. I estimate I'll save about $150.00 a year in domain fees, and that's a conservative estimate. That's enough money to pay half of my annual server fees, sponsor Crackers for a year, or buy 15 books for my Kindle.

Ummm, 15 books for my Kindle...OK, OK, I'll split the difference: Crackers gets half, the server gets paid this month, and I'll get those three history books I've been wanting.