How to Make Laundry Detergent at Home

How to Make Your Own Laundry Detergent at Home
To make your own laundry detergent at home, you'll need to gather up the few simple ingredients listed below. If you don't have a large bucket, you can pick one up at a local Home Depot, hardware store, Target, or even some grocery stores. An old plastic trash can would also work well, but it's best to use something that comes with a lid so you can cover your detergent when you're not using it.

1 quart boiling water
2 cups grated bar soap such as Ivory or Fels-Naptha (a cheese grater works well)
2 cups 20 Mule Team Borax
2 cups Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (note that this is different than baking soda)
1 large clean plastic bucket

Stir the finely grated bar soap into the boiling water and keep it on low heat until the soap melts. Then, pour the soapy water into the bucket and add the borax and washing soda. Stir until dissolved. Add 2 gallons of water, stir until mixed, then cover. You'll need about 1/4 cup of the mixture for each load of laundry (note that the soap may gel, so you'll likely need to stir it each time you use it). The recipe makes enough detergent for about 144 loads.

Depending on how hard the water is in your area, you may need to tweak the recipe a bit for the best results. Feel free to figure out what works best for you.

Running the Numbers
Now, the important question is, does the effort actually pay off? Does making your own laundry detergent at home actually save you money? After running the numbers, it's obvious that it does. As I write, Amazon's pricing for each item is as follows:

Arm & Hammer Washing Soda: $5.99 for 55 ounces
20 Mule Team Borax: $7.49 for 76 ounces
Ivory Bar Soap: 40 bars for $19.10 ($0.48/bar)

Based on these prices, it costs the following to make this recipe:

Washing soda: $1.82
Borax: $1.58
Soap: $0.48
TOTAL: $3.88

The recipe makes enough detergent for 144 loads, so the per load cost is a mere $0.03. A bottle of Tide Laundry Detergent that washes 64 loads will set you back $14.99, which is $0.23 per load - nearly 10 times the cost! Making your own laundry detergent definitely saves you money. And if you have a few kids and do a mountain of laundry every day, the savings can definitely add up over time.

if you happen to try out the recipe and make your own laundry detergent at home, let me know how it goes! I'd be interested to hear how it worked for you.

More Ideas For Stretching Your Dollars
Making your own laundry detergent at home is just one of many great strategies out there to save money in a tough economy. If you're interested in finding out more ways to stretch your dollars, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Miserly Moms, by Jonni McCoy. McCoy used the strategies she details in the book to manage going from two incomes to one while living in the very expensive San Francisco Bay Area.

My wife grabbed a copy of this book during a time when we were trying to figure out ways to stretch our dollars further and get some bills paid off and we discovered it to have a lot of very practical ideas for saving money. Being frugal doesn't mean you have shun all worldly possessions and drastically downsize your lifestyle. You can save a lot of money every month just by implementing some smart spending strategies, as McCoy shows. The following are some of the things covered in the book:

• How to stretch your grocery budget
  
• Making simple and inexpensive meals from scratch
  
• Celebrating the holidays without blowing the budget
  
• Making safe and inexpensive household cleaners
  
• Spotting sneaky marketing tricks that can cost you extra money
  
• Inexpensive and tasty recipe ideas
  

There are a lot more great tips as well, so grab your copy of Miserly Moms today.

Have Some Great Saving Ideas?
Have some of your own great saving ideas? I'd love to hear about them. Feel free to leave a comment below. Happy saving!