A never-ending task that seems to stand the test of time is that dreaded laundry. Some of us wonder if it’s possible to ever get caught up. This is especially true if you have children or a large family. Doing excessive loads of laundry has been my personal nemesis. Having three girls, they made a habit of having fashion shows with a vast amount of their closet and just tossing it in the laundry basket to avoid hanging it back up. Can anyone else feel my pain?
If you don’t have a High Efficiency (HE) washer, you may be using far more water than necessary. Make sure you are only doing laundry with a full load. Otherwise, the water fully fills the basin and a large amount of water is wasted. With the invention of High Efficiency machines, this was greatly reduced since it only puts in as much water as necessary. I still recommend waiting until you have a full (not overfull) load because you’re expending electricity to run the washer and heat the water, unless, of course, you use cold water.
It’s important to pay careful attention to how much detergent is required in each load. Please read directions carefully. Many people just fill up the attached cup, no matter how big or small their load. Use trial and error by reducing the amount that you use. With lower amounts, you’ll make the detergent last longer, but you’ll also reduce the amount of residue that may be left on the clothes. If I choose to use store-bought laundry detergent, I only purchase it on BOGO sales. **Please refer to “Earning Money on Groceries”, 3/27/21 to learn more grocery store hacks.
You may also consider making your own laundry detergent. If you search on the web for “homemade detergents” you can find several articles and options for homemade detergent.
Here is an article that I found on www.beingfrugal.net. Here’s the recipe:
1 bar bath soap 1 cup washing soda 1 cup baking soda 1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax
Grind together in your food processor. Use 2 Tablespoons for a full load. I also use it for general housekeeping. It costs 2 or 3 cents per use. I also use Dawn to fight laundry stains, and white vinegar as a fabric softener. (The smell disappears when the clothes dry.) White vinegar is so versatile! I love using it as a rinse aid in my dishwasher, as well as for keeping ants off my counters. (Bugs can’t stand the taste of acid.)
I thought I’d do a comparison between my usual laundry detergent and Jessica’s recipe. I was skeptical, because I’ve made my own liquid laundry detergent before, and I was less than impressed. It took a long time to make, too. Still, I had to try. I made one small adjustment to the recipe. Instead of using bath soap, I used 1 bar of Fels Naptha. It’s a soap especially made for laundry, and it really cleans things. I used the food processor to grind everything up, just like Jessica recommended, and this laundry detergent literally took me 5 minutes to make. It was so easy!
Still, I didn’t know how it would work. So far, I’ve used it on 4 loads of laundry, and it’s worked really well! I don’t think I’ll be going back to the commercial stuff anytime soon. Let’s break down the cost. I didn’t have any of the ingredients on hand, so I bought everything last Wednesday. I bought one bar of Fels Naptha and used the whole bar. Cost: $1.19. A 3.5 box of Washing Soda is 7 1/3 cups and cost me $2.39. I used 1 cup, which comes to 33 cents. I bought 1 4-lb box of baking soda, which contains 8 1/3 cups. I paid $2.12 for the box. The recipe uses one cup, so that comes to roughly 25 cents for the baking soda. Finally, I bought a 4 lb 12 oz. box of Borax for $2.67. The box contains 9.9 cups, and I used one. Cost of one cup: 27 cents.
The total cost for one batch of homemade laundry detergent was $2.04. So far, very good! The recipe made 3 cups of laundry detergent. There are 16 tablespoons in a cup, so there were 48 tablespoons in the recipe. At 2 tablespoons per load, that’s 24 loads of laundry.
Total cost per load: 8 and 1/2 cents. That’s roughly the same as the Arm & Hammer laundry detergent I normally buy. The Arm & Hammer came to 8 and 2/3 cents a load for a $6.99 box that washes 80 loads.
However, I think the homemade stuff has been cleaning better. It’s also not heavily scented, and I’m not trashing the environment by continuing to buy boxes of detergent. Plus, I can use the baking soda and borax for other cleaning tasks, so I’m not buying lots of different products. That saves much needed space in my cupboard.
The verdict: Though the actual cost of the two detergents is about the same, the homemade detergent saves on both packaging and space in my home. It’s more natural, too. And if you were to use regular bath soap instead of Fels Naptha, the cost would definitely be less than store bought detergent, since the Fels Naptha was by far the most expensive ingredient. I’ve heard Zote works well for laundry, too, but I’ve never seen it around here.
The Winner: Jessica’s homemade laundry detergent!
Update: Since this post, I’ve cut the amount of Fels Napthala to 1/2 bar per batch, and it works just fine. That brings the cost per load down to just 6 cents per load!
This is the first article that I came upon when searching for “making your own laundry detergent”, but there were 300,000 to choose from. They shared many similar ingredients so you could try a few to see which one works best. Now to determine how much money that you’ll actually save doing this depends on how great of a shopper and how well you can work the coupons. Before trying any of these items, make sure that you are using coupons and working with the store sales. Also, keep your eyes on your normal detergent to see if you can also find major sales as well coupled with coupons. I am not committed to any specific detergent so am able to either use our homemade version or the liquid depending on the deals I may find.
ECO-Friendly Options
If being environmentally friendly is important to you, you have many options. Review https://www.thespruce.com/best-green-laundry-detergents-4156221 to find the 8 best “green” options for 2021. Even though they may be green and easier on the environment, they may not be as easy on the pocket book. It’s important to do some price comparisons and see if any coupons may be available. If you have others not on this list, you have to check how much you’re paying per load to see if it’s worth it for you to pay extra. As I’ve mentioned previously, people are willing to spend more on items that are important to them. For you, finding more environmentally friendly options may be worth the extra expense as compared to traditional detergents.
Click on https://blog.givingassistant.org/eco-friendly-laundry-soap-prices/ for price comparisons and breakdowns on more earth friendly options. You have to find the balance between eco-friendly, price per load, and your personal needs and concerns and it’s up to you to ultimately decide if you want to spend more for potentially environmental options.
Dryer Sheets
While living overseas in France continuing my education, I was on a strict budget as I wasn’t allowed to work. I had to discover ingenious ways to save money. Because of the expense of dryer sheets (especially in Europe), I started using the sheets twice before tossing them. They still worked well and I didn’t notice any difference in the clothes using the “second hand” sheet. Give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised and not notice any difference. Another option is to use two used sheets for one load. For example, do two loads of laundry with a single fresh dryer sheet and then do the third load with the two used sheets. This is not as much savings as simply using each twice, but it still puts money back in your pocket. Another fine option is to cut them in half, which still gets you a brand-new sheet every cycle, but you don’t use as many. This is what we currently do in our home.
Drying Racks
Laundry racks and lines may seem like a thing of the past here in America, but there are many places around the world that continue to do this. It may be because they don’t have a clothes dryer or because they love the way it makes their clothes smell. I have a friend who lived in Ireland that had a dryer that would take forever to complete a cycle and just wasn’t efficient, so she always tried to put clothes on the line for as long as possible depending on the weather. Shout out to Chris Heatherman for her great story and inspiration. Another bonus is that it may be more time consuming, but you will save energy and money on your bottom line. You can save approximately $28 over the dry months.
Laundry Balls
Adding laundry balls to your laundry can not only eliminate your dryer sheet, but it will also help your clothes dry faster, will work to reduce static, reduce wrinkles in your clothes, and they’re even all natural. The balls are softball sized and can be tossed right alongside your wet clothes directly into the dryer. Even though they’re pretty large, they bounce around fairly easily in the dryer and aren’t not loud at all. This bouncing around helps the garments dry quicker. You can even say bye-bye to your dryer sheets.
Dry Cleaning
Luckily, in the work force, we have mostly gone away from the daily suits and dresses. More businesses are going to business casual which has greatly reduced our need to use dry cleaners. In dry cleaning, not only is your clothing exposed to hazardous chemicals, but it can be EXPENSIVE. We know that for a few items (fancy dresses, coats, etc.), it may be required. For those items, hand washing with mild soap may be just as effective.
Miscellaneous
· Using cold water instead of hot water can cut your energy expenses in half. Most detergents work just as effectively with cold water. If you have stubborn stains, pre-treat them with white vinegar and blue Dawn.
· Cleaning the lint trap in your dryer to make it run more efficiently and safely.
· Using a high-speed spin cycle in your washer will remove the maximum amount of moisture reducing the time used in the dryer.
· Drying towels and heavier cottons separate from your standard laundry so only one load takes longer to dry.
I think laundry is one of those chores that so many people just detest. Per the website www.wayzatahomelaundry.com, women, on average, spend 104 hours/year on doing laundry. Men have it much easier with an average of 35 hours/year. However you break it down, we spend a lot of time and money doing laundry. Because of this fact, it’s important to highlight major areas to see where we can reduce costs to earn money for your family. Making small steps can make a big difference and help reduce your line item for laundry expenses. What is the favorite thing that you learned?
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