Monday, February 20, 2012

Homemade Dishwasing Detergent (& Shaving the Grocery Budget)

Last night we mixed up a batch of homemade dishwashing detergent from a recipe we found (from where else but Pinterest).  :)

I’d seen a couple of different recipes floating around there, but since I had the ingredients here left over from our batch of laundry detergent that we made, we opted for that one. And since we ran completely out of dishwashing detergent this weekend and didn’t want to buy more, it was time!

And talk about simple. It truly was! You only need two ingredients: Borax and Super Washing Soda.



The recipe reads:

Mix one part Borax and one part Washing Soda.

We used:

2 cups Borax
2 cups Washing Soda

We put these together in our Pampered Chef mixing bowl and mixed them well, making sure to dissolve any clumps (the borax is bad about clumping). After it was mixed thoroughly, we just poured it into our quart mason jar.  It was exactly enough to fill that jar.



And of course, I had to spruce it up a little.  :)

Use 1 Tablespoon of the mixture per load. We also used a little vinegar in our rinsing gadget part of our dishwasher which helps to make those dishes sparkle.

I’ve already used it once and the dishes came beautifully clean and those glasses did sparkle.

And let’s see, I figured it up. It looks like this jar of dishwashing detergent will last us about 64 loads. Since we normally only turn on our dishwasher once a day, that will last us for a little over 2 months. Not bad considering we are still using the ingredients that were left over from making the laundry detergent. And we still have more left!

As I said before, I had already shopped around for the best price on dishwashing detergent and the best deal I found was at Walmart - a box of Sun dishwashing detergent for 97 cents. This usually lasted me for 2 weeks. So the way I have it figured, this has saved me around $1.00 a week on groceries just on dishwashing detergent. Every little bit helps, right?

There are a few things we found at Dollar Tree that save us a little money as well. We found it worth it to stop by there to pick up these few items since they are a dollar each.

Flour tortillas
13 gal drawstring garbage bags (pack of 8, but that lasts us a week).
Wheat bread
Palmolive soap (3 bar pack)

Have you noticed the prices of flour tortillas lately? Ouch. Well it seems like they are on our grocery list (which is every other week) and Dollar Tree’s price sure beats the price I’ve seen anywhere else!

I’m always on the lookout trying to shave dollars off our grocery list to stay within budget. We are seriously considering a Costco or Sam’s membership. I use quite a bit of shredded cheese in recipes so I really need to find that at a better price. I think we’re going to try to visit to see if it would be worthwhile for us.

So what about you? Have you found ways or places to shop to trim your grocery budget? I’d love to hear about it!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great week!  :)

7 comments:

Joy ~ Doodlebug ~ said...

Now we just need to learn how to make shampoo, soap, and shaving cream. :) Seriously!

Don't you feel good about yourself? :D

I love you! 8!

God bless you!
Love,
Joy :D

Anonymous said...

Hi Tammy, I wanted to say, my dh and I have a sam's club card, never had one when all 4 kids were home, go figure, now it's just us, and I have one Lol. I get tall kitchen bags I think it's 190 in the box for about $8.00 a box, last us about 6 months, or more, also get our papertowels there, toilet paper, their brand, we love it, and very cost effective. I also shop at dollar tree as well and another place is aldi's I get all my produce at aldi's. Eggs at Sams clud are the cheapest I think its 36 eggs for $3.00 give or take some. Every bit does help I agree.

hugs
Rhonda

Hollie said...

You go girl!! I need to learn to make liquid dish washing detergent as I don't have a dishwasher. I love the homemade windex, washing powders & fabric softener.

Today I tried the underarm stain remover! It works!!! :)

1 part Dawn
2 Parts Hydrogen Peroxide

LynnMarie said...

Love it! And since I have those items as well, well thank you for this as well.....

Lois Christensen said...

Thanks for the info!!! Hubby and I wanted to try to make dishwashing detergent but everywhere I looked, people were not happy with their results. BUT reading yours I'm going to try it. I use that same detergent from Walmart :) We had a Sams card but I really think we do better at our grocery store. AND it's quite a distance, an hour away, I could never see saving enough for us. Thanks for all the tips. Need every one of them!

Tanya said...

Tammy,
I read the whole post thinking it was LAUNDRY soap and saw the adorable jar and finally figured out for the DISHWASHER! Wow...I love that idea! You're the first one I've seen do it! I will try that! I've been using the Cascade gel packs...but they are quite pricey! I love me a good bargain! ;0)
Keep those ideas coming....Sounds like Ms. Joy is your right hand!
Frugal hugs to you,
Tanya

Thanks for the sweet note on Lily-Jo....I can't wait for you to be a Gma someday! NOT rushing things!

Jodidmvp said...

Love it! And since I have those items as well, well thank you for this as well.....