Thursday, May 5, 2011

Spend a Little time, Save a LOT of money!

I was thinking of ways to save money on our grocery bill (aren't we all these days!) and friend of mine sparked an idea in me.  Could I make my own liquid laundry detergent?  Well, it was certainly worth a try!!!  Here are the ingredients I used


-Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda*
-Borax
-1/2 bar of Fels-Naptha Soap
-1/2 bar of goats milk soap
-lavender oil
-5 gallon bucket

*(it HAS to be super washing soda. baking soda or detergent will not work)

This cost me roughly $21 with everything.   I had to buy a bucket (some already have one) and the lavender oil cost $10 (but with 2 babies in the house I wanted it smelling lovely)  If you were to use your own soap in the cabinet and have a bucket, it would cost around $8.  Are you ready to see for how many loads???

Top Loading approx. 180 loads
Front Loading approx. 640 loads

Surprising, right?!?  I was extremely excited since I have a front loading machine!!!  This will last about 6 months at our house!!! YES!

Here is a step by step guide:

Grate your soap and add to saucepan of 4 cups of hot water.


Stir over medium heat till dissolved.

Fill your 5 gallon bucket half-way with hot water and add the soap mixture.  Add 1 cup of the washing soda and 1/2 cup of Borax. Stir until dissolved.

Fill the rest of the way with hot water. Stir, and let sit overnight.  (if you are going to put oil in wait until cooled and add about 30 drops)

This is what it will look when you open the lid the next morning.
The next day stir and fill your laundry dispenser half full of the liquid.  Fill the rest of the way with water.

Totally done!  It was not hard at all.  I know this is going to save our family "loads" of money.. haha
 If you have any questions feel free to comment here! Thanks!



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's awesome!! I'm anxious to know how it will do on a newborns skin...any ideas or knowledge on that? I have a few friends that do this, and I think it's a great idea. I just might try it. I'm trying to decide if it will be a money saver or not for us...I'll have to do the math. What other smells could you get??

The Save at Home Mom said...

There are TONS of essential oils! There was an orange that smelled amazing, tea tree, cotton, you could even mix and match to your liking!

As far as how it will work on the skin, it has the basic ingredient of any detergent. I substituted half of the Fels-Naptha bar with a goats milk one to be more mild. I don't see it really being an issue. I hope not anyway, i have a five gallon bucket of it! lol

Toni said...

Awesome! I'm seriously considering this. Where did you get your ingredients? I've never shopped for Borax or Naptha soap (WHATEVER that is!) or Goats milk soap. I suppose I can get the oil at Hobby Lobby (I imagine.) Help! :)

Toni said...

Also . . . How did it work? Well? Do you like it?

The Save at Home Mom said...

I LOVE it!~ It doesn't have quite the fragrance i thought it would, but my clothes are clean and that's really what matters! You can get Borax at walmart, but I had to google the Arm and Hammer washing soda. It ended up at Ace Hardware (which also had the Fels-Naptha bar. You can buy in on Amazon for just $1 more if you can't find it. I found the goats milk soap at a local market; you can also buy it at Vitamin Shoppe! Hope this helps!