I filled up the gas tank in my minivan last week. When I looked at the total, I nearly died of shock. The grocery store receipts are starting to creep up to. My husband jokingly asked me if we could really afford eggs anymore. The truth is that a lot of people are pinching their pennies a little more tightly. Here are a few ways to save money on your household budget and still have a clean and organized home.

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My five year old son asked me a few weeks ago why the glove compartment was called a glove compartment. I told him that people used to keep their gloves in that space. He said, "Oh, now is it just for junk?" This was my cue that it might be time to purge the glove compartment. If yours is in need of some help too, here are some tips to get your glove compartment clean.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I woke up in the middle of the night to hear pounding winds and the faint sound of a tornado siren. Jumping up in alarm we grabbed our five children and ran downstairs to the closet where we ride out all the spring storms that our area sees. Before we could even get into the closet, the power was zapped, and we were left to fumble in the dark for safety because I couldn't quickly find a flashlight.

Although the storm passed over, leaving us safe, I was reminded that I needed to update our family emergency kit. If you're interested in being more prepared, an emergency household kit is a great way to keep everything you need together and ready for action.

My kids love bath time. They get to be pirate ship captains, mermaids, and fishermen, all while getting clean. Occasionally they even end up with more water left in the tub than ends up all over me and the floor. Although, that is rare. Supervising during bath time leaves me with time to think, and time to notice any soap scum building up on my bathtub, tub surround, and fixtures. Is your bathtub in need of a good cleaning?

More Bathroom Help

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There's nothing like a shiny clean oven to make you feel like cooking. Unfortunately, more often that not, that shiny oven ends up with spills and residue on its surfaces. Cleaning an oven can be frustrating, especially if you're trying to remove burned on grease and grime without damaging your oven's interior. Watch this video to find a simple way to clean out your oven.

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It's sounds like a dream. In a few hours a week your home is made spotlessly clean, and you don't even have to lift a finger. Hiring a housekeeper is a dream come true for many families. Busy moms and dads find themselves struggling to cram all the components of life into a very packed schedule, for some, hiring out the cleaning of their home makes perfect sense, and frees up a little more time in their week. But if you don't want hiring a housekeeper to turn into a nightmare, there are some real issues to consider.

It's not a pleasant feeling. You open the dryer expecting to pull out a nice clean load of laundry ready to be folded. And instead...what are those streaky colors all over the clothes and the dryer? Somehow a crayon made its way into your dryer, and now you have a problem. Removing crayon stains on the clothes in the dryer may take several repeats of treatment, but it is possible. Most importantly, you need to get all the crayon removed from the interior of your dryer. With just a few tools you can get your dryer and your clothes good as new. The actual crayon is probably a lost cause, though.

My two-year-old daughter is quite the artist. She has a great sense of color. Her lines are well formed. In fact, I think she may have a future in the arts. Now, if I could just get her to keep her art contained to paper and not my walls. Do you have a budding artist who thinks the dining room walls are a great blank canvas? Here are a few ways to remove crayon from walls.

My daughter is part of a "Green Team" at school. The student's in this group are environmental police who give "tickets" to teachers who leave lights on when nobody is in the room. It is a slightly bossy little girl's dream job. So last week, my daughter asked me if she could be in charge of recycling in our home. Then she wanted to know if the all-purpose spray that I was testing for review was "friendly for the earth". I think she's looking for an excuse to write a ticket for me.

In reality many of us are looking for ways to make our homes more green. Deirdre Imus's book, Green This! Volume One: Greening Your Cleaning, looked like a great way to get some tips on environmentally friendly cleaning. But it ended up as something very different. Find out why I don't recommend this book as an addition to your arsenal of green cleaning tips.