Josh & I decided a little over a month ago that we wanted to do Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. We are sick of debt. We bought our house and want to have it just the way we picture it in our heads. Which will take A LOT of money. I was spending $10 every 2/3 months on 90 Finish dishwashing tabs. And that's at the local bargain store, NOT at the grocery store. Not bad. But I knew it could be better. I'm on my third bucket of laundry detergent after a year of making it myself. I found ingredients to make dishwashing tabs and got to work.
I spent $11 on my things at Walmart. I had the ice cube trays at home. I made two batches, or 56 tabs this go around.
You use:: 1 cup Kosher Salt, 1 Cup Washing Soda, 1 Cup Baking Soda & 3 Packets of Lemonade Mix. Mix all of your ingredients into a bowl. You CAN leave it as a powder OR add 1 cup of water, let it fizz and settle and mash the tabs into the ice cube tray. Let the tabs dry and harden overnight before putting into the container of your choice. I chose my now unused candy jar ;) I have pictures of the process and end result below.
I will keep you updated to see how far the boxes of soda and salt went. I'm estimating that the detergent will be around $1.50 for a batch of 56 tabs.
So, another thing I thought would help my budget would be making my own detergents. I saw a bunch of friends posting pictures of their 5 gallon buckets full of detergent that they made for next to nothing. Last night, I made 5 gallons of laundry detergent based on the Duggar family's recipe. SUPER easy, smells like heaven & did I mention CHEAP??
First you start out with your ingredients:
5 gallon bucket with lid (obviously) ($5.00)
4 cups hot tap water
1 bar Fels-Naptha Soap ($1.25)
1/4 cup Borax ($5.00 for the box)
25 drops Lavender Essential oil (optional) ($11.00)
1/2 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda** ($1.00 for box)
**If you can't find Washing Soda, I found a way to convert baking soda into washing soda. You measure out your Baking Soda, pour it into a glass dish & bake for 30 minutes on 400 degrees. It crystalizes & works every bit as well.
Grate Fels-Naptha & add to saucepan with water. Constantly stir over medium low heat until soap dissolves & melts.
Fill 5 gallon bucket halfway full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda & borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top, stir, cover & let sit overnight to thicken.
Stir & fill a used, clean laundry soap dispenser half full with soap & rest of the way with water. Shake before each use (will gel).
Yields 5 gallons.
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The bottle I'm going to use to fill with detergent is a 1.75 gallon bottle. I'm estimating it's gonna save me somewhere in the neighborhood of $100+ because I buy detergent in the large bottles at Sam's and i'll only have to fill it halfway each time.
By the way, I used the Lavender and it smells like heaven. I loved making this detergent & am looking forward to putting it to use shortly ;)
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