Laundry Time!

My wonderful sister-in-law told me how she makes her own laundry detergent.  I was so jealous!  Detergent is one of my most dreadest items at the grocery store.  Its so expensive and even with coupons I still despise it.  So I decided I wanted to make my own! It was pretty simple, and once I started doing the calculations, it was so much more cheaper then buying it!  You need 4 ingredients!  That's it! This process took about 30 minutes.

Home Made Detergent:
1 cup of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda- this comes in a 55 oz box
1 cup of Mule 20 Borax- this comes in a 76 oz box
1 bar of Fels Naptha soap- found in the laundry isle
Some type of resealable container- a 5 gallon bucket with a lid.  (I used a 20 Q plastic ware container with a lid)

After researching and looking at different websites, some sites say you can use any type of bar soap, as long as you shred it up, but I wanted to use this particular one. 

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil.  While you are waiting for the water to boil, shred the soap using a cheese grater.  Once brought to a boil, slowly add the soap in small amounts, so it can melt.  I felt like this was the most difficult part of the whole process because my soap wasn't melting very well.  I kept messing with my heat, turning it up, then down, then back up.  Eventually I had all the soap added, and it was pretty much melted.  I turned the heat down and focused on the next step.
Take whatever container you are planning on using and fill it 1/2 way with warm water.  Add the soap mixture and stir.  Add more warm water until you reach either the top of your bucket or plastic container in my case.  I had a 20 quart plastic container that I found in my basement.  I believe I made roughly 16 or 17 quarts, since I didn't add my water to the very top.  Cover the container and let set overnight before use. 
Once it has set, it should turn into a gel like substance.  I have a wooden spoon in my laundry room so I can stir it before each wash load.  I use 1/2 cup per load.  On your husbands super dirty stuff, add a little bit of oxyclean. 
Now is this really a cost saver? I compared it with the Cheer brand bought at meijer. 
 Here are my calculations. I like this part :)
Cheer @ meijer is 10.19 for 100 oz, and 64 loads.  This is pretty easy math.  10.19 divided by 64 loads is .16 cents per load.  That doesn't seem expensive until....

I am basing mine off of myself making 16 quarts, or 512 ounces.
512 oz divided by 4 oz per load = 128 loads 
The cost of my supplies were $7.40 total. 1.39 for the soap, 2.89 for the Washing Soda and 3.12 for the Borax
That equals to .06 per load, cheaper right?  BUT WAIT!
I failed to consider that my Washing Soda and Borax containers will supply me for quite a while.  So here is ANOTHER way to look at it!

This is how much it cost me per batch to make my detergent.
Borax:  3.12 divided by 76 oz = .04 per ounce X 8 ounces per batch = .32 per batch
Washing Soda: 2.89 divided by 55 oz = .05 per ounce X 8 ounces per batch = .42 per batch
Soap= 1.39 per batch. 
1.39 + .32 + .42 =2.13 per batch. 
So that means to figure out how much it cost me load, I would divide 2.13 by the 128 loads I will get out of it and BAM that's .016 cents per load!!!  That's 1 penny per load.  That's better then any coupon! 
I know I'm crazy but I think that is pretty awesome!