Laundry!

Yesterday was my home-maker day. I found a recipe for making home-made laundry detergent and decided I must try it. First of all, as all of those who ever posted about home-made detergent will say, it is RIDICULOUSLY cost effective to make it yourself. My house pays on average between $20-30 every month and a half for a Costco sized 75 load container. Of course, the estimated load number varies greatly depending on who is actually doing the laundry but $25 for 70 loads is a good estimate. Simple math says we pay about $0.36 every load of laundry that we run. Or, if we are doing sheets or a particularly large loads (like every single one of my brother's loads) then we double or triple the amount of detergent to spend almost $1.10 per washing! Why is this relevant?

Because I made approximately 150 loads worth of home-made detergent yesterday for about $9.75. What does that MEAN, math-challenged friend?! That means we're now spending $0.07 per load of laundry. That's still less than a quarter even for every superload of laundry that we do!

Ah, how petty, you're thinking. Why cry over 75 cents (per superload), a dollar's not all that much to pay for laundry.

Au contraire mon ami. Let me show you- I feel up to some calculating today.

$25 for 70 loads every 1.5 months lands you at about 560 loads a year costing $200.

Rounding the number up to assume that my household does 600 loads of laundry a year, the formula that I made yesterday costing $9.75 will make 4 batches of 150 loads worth of detergent. Follow? So that will cost a total of $39 to make. Which means.....

$161 of saving money on SOAP. What a small number yes? False. There is no such thing as a small amount of savings because that is money that you would otherwise be spending when you don't actually HAVE to. And the best part? It takes about 15 minutes to make. What is the start-up cost for all this {you squint your eyes in suspicion)? Ready? $8. Use any bucket or container you have laying around your house to put the detergent in, buy a rotating cheese grater. That's it. If you buy one of those standing cheese graters, your start-up will be $4. If you live in a giant city, your soap will cost about $0.50 bringing your ingredient cost down to $7.75....

How can you say no?

excuse me while i go dance a jig. WINNING!

Home-made Laundry Detergent

Step 1-
Mix in a bucket:
2 parts grated commercial grade laundry bar soap (I.e. Fels-Naptha, Zote)
1 part Borax
1 part Washing Soda

Step 2-
Save money!

Unbelievable. Isn't it? Some people say use a cheese grater to grate the soap. Great idea, if you're super strong, never tire, and have that kind of time. I say cheese grater is an AMAZING idea... if you use the superfast rotating kind that Olive Garden uses. $8 Walmart. Purchase once, save hours.