A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned

A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned -
Benjamin Franklin

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Cutting Back on Laundry Detergent

Just because there is a measuring cup with the detergent, it doesn't mean you have to use that much. I replaced it with 1/3rd cup and it's sufficient. For items that have stains, I use liquid detergent and let a spoonful soak into the stain before washing.

For added savings make your own detergent.

There is a lot of buzz about liquid laundry soap, but you have to mix up batches of 5 or more gallons at a time. Instead, I have been using a dry mix of:



2 cups grated soap
1 cup washing soda (Arm & Hammer SuperWashing Soda
*)
1 cup borax
For the soap I used Fels-Naptha, but also grated any extra soap I had such as the small bars from hotel stays. I put all the ingredients into a zip lock bag which made it easy to mix everything together. I add 1/4 cup of the mixture to a load, but you may need more or less depending upon how hard your water is. You won't get many suds with this mixture, but the laundry seems to be as clean as it would be using regular soap powder.