Clean clothes for pennies!

One of my favorite ways to save some money is with home made laundry detergent. Because then it doesn't come out of the food budget=better or more groceries for us! Hooray! I can get all the ingredients for $9.93 at our discount grocery but it makes many batches so the actual price per load is about 8 cents per load! Not only that but it also eliminates the sodium laurel sulfates that can agitate the skin and cause irritation and sensitivities. The clothes get clean, even with our really hard well water, and everyone comes out a winner. I have made it two different ways now, one as a liquid detergent and one as powder. I have to say it is much quicker and just as effective to do the powder so that is what I have been doing since the birth of my son this past march. Anything to give myself more time in the day, I am sure you like a good short cut too! All you need to get started are these three ingredients, a grater and an optional food processor:

• 1 Cup super washing soda
• 1 Cup borax
• 1 Bar of Fels-Naptha soap

First grate the Fels-Naptha soap bar

Add the washing soda and borax

(Optional) put the mix in the food processor and bled it together till fine powder.

I use 1 Tablespoon per load unless it is a really full load then maybe 2 and I have a top loader washing machine. It is completely safe for those who cloth diaper as well.

 Sometimes when I forget to keep my laundry detergent stocked and I need to do some laundry now, in that case I use soap nuts. They are actually the fruit of a soapberry tree and contain saponins which are a natural surfactant. I just throw 5 "nuts" in a little cloth bag put them in with the load of laundry and they do the job too. You can use the same nuts over again till they loose their smell, I find it to be around 7 loads for me. So weeks like this week where I am running behind on everything I brought out the soap nuts! You can order them online, but to get the best value you need to make sure the company you are buying from is selling them to you without the seed inside as they are mostly sold by weight and the seed is not necessary to make the cleaning work. It is natural and affordable as well. Just a heads up though, nether of these options give your clothes a "smell" in fact they leave them scent free, which is fine with me, but some people like to have a smell to their clothes, and while it does a super job cleaning it doesn't scent them. I love that the laundry is free of toxic chemicals and synthetic fragrances! I hope you like the way it works too!

The Farmer in the Dell