On Tuesdays, I thought it would be fun to do a Ways We Save series. As with most series on this blog, I have no idea how long it will last. I’m not that organized. 🙂
You’ll find lots of budget-related or general money-saving posts in my The Teacher’s Salary series, but these upcoming posts will be specific ways we save in the day-to-day. They might be big or small, but hopefully they will give you some ideas or just let you know on a more personal level how we are able to stay within a pretty tight budget.
Today, I wanted to highlight a post that I wrote a while back about how to make your own laundry detergent. I’m going on 2 years of making my laundry detergent and I have to say that I have no plans of buying detergent on a regular basis again.
Here’s what I love about it.
Obviously, I love the money-saving aspect to making my own laundry detergent. A $20 investment usually lasts me at least 9-10 months {maybe more but I’ve not paid close enough attention}. I just made up a new batch in early January, so I’m anxious to see how long it lasts me now that our family has grown to five {one being a baby who often goes through more than one outfit each day}.
Savings aside, I love not having to play the drug store game in order to find affordable laundry detergent. It’s just one less thing that I have to worry about buying on a regular basis. While some might think there is no way this works as well as a popular brand like Tide, I find that it works quite well. I don’t expect miracles though, so keep that in mind. That’s what this homemade miracle cleaner is for.
Though this isn’t my primary motivation, the icing on the cake is that this is a natural laundry detergent. It’s sort of nice to know I’m not using a product with lots of harsh chemicals that I can’t even pronounce.
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Yay! How great is homemade detergent! Those little blue Downy beads really take it to another level too! I am so glad I started doing this, it has saved us so much. I originally started because we moved into a new house and the water was making our clothes smell awful. It turns out we have hard water, and the only thing that keeps that nasty smell away is this homemade detergent. Win/win! This is a great post! I'm excited to read the rest of your "Ways We Save" posts!
Thanks so much for your encouragement. I actually added the scented beads for this last batch and I'm loving it. I'm so glad you are loving it – I won't go back!