Soaring food prices elicit creative solutions

You save a LOT.LOL same here, sometimes it looks store bought, sometimes it gets weird, but it works anyhow.The ingredients are in the laundry section of the supermarket. If by chance you can't find them, ask the manager if he can order them.

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Homemade laundry soap is kindergarton...if you want to really learn how to save read the thread Tightwad Tips/Frugal Things done lately and then go thru the previous months in the archives. You'll soon have a graduate degree in frugal.

Fels Napha is not in all stores although most larger supermarkets probably have it or will get it if enough requests are made. My s-i-l brought me a bar of laundry soap (it is pink) from the Mexican store. I used it to mix up a batch of laundry soap but do not like it as well as Fels Napha. For one thing it was lightly perfumed and I'm allergic to perfume.

When I use the homemade laundry soap I use white vinegar for the rinse. I hang clothes so don't use fabric softeners.

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This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Here's the stuff, with a visual aid:


I never have any problem finding any of this in my grocery. Well, sometimes the fels-naptha isn't there, so I just use something else.

"natural soap" "essential oils"... those two items alone cost more than a huge box of laundry detergent... I wonder how much money she's saving?

If she really wanted to get frugal, she'd get free fat from the butcher, boil it down, add lye and make her own soap. Purchasing value added goods like "natural soap" essential oils, borax, and baking soda negates any savings. And borax isn't cheap...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Cloth diapering mommas really can't use homemade laundry soap, and I save a lot more by cloth diapers than making my own detergent. Because it contains soap and it is not a true detergent it can cause build up and water resistance in the cloth. I use Charlies Soap (which is not really a soap, but a detergent) and it is only $14 and it does 80 loads - so .17 a load? So maybe this lady should start cloth diapering - I bet she would save a TON more (considering I just passed a "sale" on diapers and they were $27.00!!!!)

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FT, SAH wife to an amazing DH and mother to 4 wonderful little people!
Loving and respecting DH, homeschooling #1, cloth diapering #2 and #3, and #4 is still under construction!

Did you look at the recipe? It's a fraction of the cost of the store bought stuff.

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I used it when I had cloth diapers to wash, never noticed any problems. Not saying I don't believe you, but maybe it doesn't matter that much?

There might possibly be a difference between them in certain water types, but the homemade stuff works fine here.

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I tried both but mostly the dry. Maybe I should switch to the gel.....

I saw that story on the news tonight and she does use cloth diapers for her baby as well as make her own baby food. They also buy their organic eggs from a local feed store (much cheaper than "organic" eggs from the store). The whole story was about how she cut costs at home because of rising costs at the grocery store.

It's kinda funny (or sad really) that doing these things is unusual enough to put on the news.

the pink mexican soap is Zote, and has a citrus scent, tho the scent doesn't linger on clothes. when i cut and grated it up, the scent lingered on my hands for a few hours, and made eating my next meal, shall we say, "interesting".

I can't compare to fels naptha since i haven't found that in a local store. I found Zote at both the local Dollar General and Walgreens, so I've used it to make my own laundry detergent. I just leave the ingredients dry, i don't liquify them. still works fine.

You can order Fels Naptha, and Zote, from vendors on amazon, altho at a higher price than I found locally.

re: the original article
I think many people are going to have a hard time saving money, because so many costs are "baked into the cake" from prior decisions, and aren't easy to undo. eg, if you already bought the monster SUV gas-hog for 40k, you can cut back a trip here and there, but your gas mileage isn't going to get better. And if you think you're gonna sell it for something cheaper to run, guess what, everyone else is having the same idea and the same time, and the market is flooded with used SUVs for sale.

Same with buying the house, which more than likely locks in your commute distance to your job. And the size and energy efficiency and climate affect your utility payments. If you just bought a 3000 sq ft mcmansion in the arizona suburbs that had only modest insulation, it'll be expensive to keep it cooled, and very expensive to retrofit it to have higher insulation, and expensive to try to sell it in a down market when everyone else is having the same idea.

as they say, "sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences"

--sgl

If I buy detergent I also use half the amount. Clothes are just as clean and don't have as much detergent build up in the fibers that lead to fabric softener.

A quarter cup of baking soda or a splash of vinegar will help with hard water. If you use vinegar the clothes don't smell like pickles when they're done.

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Robin

Has anyone tried home made products in a front load washer? In a fit of "being green" and saving on energy and water we bought one of these things several years ago. I've never been quite happy with it. I find I need to use both detergent and a clorox bleach for colors for whites to come out white. It might be different if I used hot water but the point of "energy savings" was to not use.. er.. energy!! And when I was using hot water my propane bill DOUBLED. That put an end to hot water in really short order!

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

Morrisoncorner, I have a front load washer and use the homemade stuff in it. Actually, that's all I've ever used in it because I was making soap before I got the washer (in other words, have used homemade in both a top loader and a front loader.)

I also wash in cold water for everything except 'lights' (white shirts, underwear, pastel clothes) which I wash on warm, and white socks which got on hot (but only 1 load a week). Don't use chlorine bleach because 1/2 of us are allergic to it.

So, yes, our whites don't stay white long, but I've solved that problem by just not wearing white, lol!

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Kris
http://thislittleplacehere.blogspot.com/

*laugh* I wish I could get away with "no whites." Unfortunately... the husband. Has to wear white. I keep telling him it is over rated, but what can you do?

However, if homemade does a fine job on all but whites, I could just keep a bottle of heavy duty detergent for those loads, which make up probably > 1/3 of the laundry.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits