Monday, October 17, 2011

Saving money in the laundry room.


I always like to bring something back with me when I go on a trip. This time, I brought back a money saving tip for making your own dry laundry soap!

My SIL makes her own soap and said there wasn't any difference between the home made and the store bought except money.

Yea, I'd say! About 15 cents a load! I could use a savings like that! How about yall?

The hubbs and I sat down and done some figurin and came up with some numbers.

Comparison:
Tide with bleach:
$13.95 yields 63 loads. That's 22cents a load.

Homemade soap:
$1.86 yields 43 loads. That's 6.5cents a load.

Works for me, and if it works for you too...

This is the recipe my SIL gave me for the dry laundry soap. There are recipes out there for liquid laundry soap too if thats your preference. Just run "homemade laundry soap" thro a google and pick one.

In the laundry section, pick you up:

A box of Arm&Hammer Super Washing Soda(not baking soda) This will do 6 batches.













A box of 20 Mule Team Borax. This will do 12 batches













And a bar of Fels-Naptha. This will do 1 batch. 









Take all that home and grate your bar soap up however you want to, I used my blender. You can use a cheese grater tho on the smallest hole. 

Then you take your grated bar soap, you add one cup of the washing soda, and one cup of the borax, and viola, you have your lemony scented laundry soap!! That takes just a few minutes to make! 


This recipe will yield 43 loads using one level tablespoon, not sure how much using one heaping tablespoon. I will keep a tally and let yall know.  

Keep this stuff in that old one gallon tub with a lid on it that used to have ice cream in it. You know, the one you said you would find a use for it someday? Well, it has found its use!

You will use 1 heaping tablespoon per load and put your fabric softener in the washer with it, and and its business as usual!!

Pretty cool huh?? My SIL pretty smart....

Thought I would pass this little tip along to all of yall! 

Please share your variations of this recipe in the comments! Since I'm new to this, I would love to hear how yall make yours! 

Im off to do laundry...(wow...did I just say that?)

TTFN 

3 comments:

  1. I've made this recipe using the ingredients you listed here. It ROCKS! When I could not find any Fels Naptha, I substituted a mix of Ivory Soap and Octagon Soap. (Note: the Ivory, although it smells lovely, does not dissolve well in the wash cycle. The Octagon Laundry Soap bar smelled great, and seemed to dissolve much better than the Ivory.) In either case, I am all for saving money, and I love that you have shared this with the world, so more of us can save too! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, I didn't know making your own soap would be a lot cheaper and not that hard to do. I may have to try this sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I use Zote (prefer the scent) whole bar, too. Less than a dollar at Walmart. 2 c each of Borax and washing soda and 2 or 3 scoops of generic Oxy (if we have some.) Beat it up with a wooden spoon, store on a shelf away from my kids. It's very compact, my recipe makes 7-8cups, 1 scoop (1tbsp) per load, we do at least a load a day!

    ReplyDelete