Frugal Fridays

I am participating with Vicki in her Frugal Fridays blog carnival. This week is your all time favorite frugal tip! My favorite frugal tip has been making my own laundry detergent.

Using some simple recipes, I selected a recipe I liked that included a bar of laundry soap, borax, and washing soda. I used some hot water, a large 2.5 gallon bucket, and a few drops of essential oil. All together, the entire box of borax was around $2.50, the washing soda the same, the laundry soap bar was around $1 at Big Lots. I only used about 1/50th of the borax and maybe 1/25th of the washing soda, so all together, it probably cost $2.00 to make approximately enough soap for 60 loads!

Now my dear friend asks me why I would waste the time making laundry soap when it is not too expensive to buy.

My response:
1. CHEMICALS I know what is in my soap and it is not chemicals.
2. It cleans better- even hubby noticed when I temporarily switched back to store bought soap when I did not have time to whip up the recipe (or the energy, even though it takes 10 minutes to cook, 1 hour or so to cool... the hardest part is getting it into containers, but you can just leave it in the bucket and cover it!).
3. WHY not?? The money saved compared to name brands is significant for a family that does a lot of laundry.
4. At $.03 a load, I think it is worth it!

I would encourage you to try making laundry soap just one time--- you are not committed to a life long journey of making your own soap- but you may just decide you like it!

And here are some more tips I have for saving money.