♥ Simply Frugal ♥

It seems like many of us these days are trying to be frugal and save money in every way we can. One of those ways has been in making homemade cleaning products. I think we may have Pinterest and blogland to thank for that.  :)

Since we’ve been using our homemade laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent, and fabric softener for some time now, I thought I’d come back with an update of how it was working out for our family.

Back in January of this year, we made this recipe for laundry detergent which is also used by the Duggar family. That batch lasted until September for the four of us. That wasn’t bad at all for about $7-$8 worth of ingredients.  You can read exactly how we made it here.

I liked that recipe just fine and it cleaned our clothes well. The only down side to it was the gallons of detergent to store. It wasn’t actually a problem, just a lot of jugs taking up space. So when we ran out of detergent in September, Jason and I decided to try this recipe. This one is in powder form. It will actually end up being a little more expensive because I’m pretty sure it won’t last as long as the other one did (8 months) and this one cost about $13 worth of ingredients. It's the same ingredients in equal parts (1 cup Borax, 1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, 1 bar Fels-Naptha soap........I did that x 7).  I’ll be sure and come back and let you know how long it lasts us. But what I do like about it, is that it stores very easily right here in my Rubbermaid box that usually sits on the washer or dryer.

It’s very easy to access, not messy, and can be moved from the washer to the dryer. So far, I’m really loving this one. It cleans very well also. And the scent seems a little stronger, which I like. I use 2 Tbsp if I have a full load or an especially soiled load. If it’s a really small load, I will use only 1 Tbsp.

We use two of the same ingredients that are used for the laundry detergent to make the dishwashing detergent. It’s one part Borax to one part Super Washing Soda. It takes 2 cups of each of those ingredients to fill this quart jar.  (The post where we first made this can be found here).

When washing dishes, I use 1-2 Tbsp (mostly 2 Tbsp) for each load, depending upon how full my dishwasher is. I also add vinegar to my dispenser thingie that helps keeps spots off the glasses. My sister-in-law adds a little salt to her detergent mixture too. However, I haven’t done that, and it cleans my dishes well.    Love this!

We also made the fabric softener.  You can find the recipe for it on this post.  This one softens the clothes and does well in that aspect, but I would prefer a stronger scent. For that reason, I just don’t use fabric softener that much. However, comparing prices with most store bought brands, this is a very frugal choice. If I want to use fabric softener and can’t find a way to a stronger scent, I will probably continue to use this.

And that’s my update report of how these frugal homemade detergents are working for our family. I’d love to hear from you on your frugal homemade cleaning products too!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!  :)

♥ Tammy ♥  

**Linking up with Elaine for Sunny Simple Sunday**

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!  :)