Tightwad Tuesday: Frugal Laundry Tips
As I sit here writing this post, I am still on the lookout for a used but in great condition washing machine. Mine breathed its last dieing breath about a month ago. Since then, we have been doing our laundry at the laundry mat. I am amazed at how frugal we have become with our clothing since we have had to wash at the laundry mat. We have went from washing clothes every day, to only washing once a week. How is that possible? The reason for this I think is because everyone is being more careful with how often they change clothes. For instance, if we go to church on Sunday, the kids have begun to come home, hang their church clothes up and put on their play clothes. Before when we had the washing machine in the house, they would come home and throw those clean church clothes right into the hamper!
You can cut back on your laundry expenses if you will pay attention to how often you change, how often everyone bathes, and how dirty you get from being outside. You can also cut back by making your own laundry supplies such as detergent and dryer sheets. Here are a couple of those recipes to help in cutting back. These recipes are courtesy of the Duggar Family from 18 and Counting:
TIPS FOR LAUNDRY SOAP: We use Fels-Naptha bar soap in the homemade soap recipes, but you can use Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk’s Hardwater Castile or Zote bars. Don’t use heavily perfumed soaps. We buy Fels-Naptha by the case from our local grocer or online. Washing Soda and Borax can normally be found on the laundry or cleaning aisle. Recipe cost approx. $2.
Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine- best value
4 Cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.
-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)
Powdered Laundry Detergent- Top load machine
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax-Grate soap or break into pieces and process in a food processor until powdered. Mix all ingredients. For light load, use 1 Tablespoon. For heavy or heavily soiled load, use 2 Tablespoons. Yields: 3 Cups detergent. (Approx. 40 loads)
Inexpensive Fabric Softener Recipes
Recipe #1
1 Cup White Vinegar
Add vinegar to rinse cycle. Works great. Removes residue and odors. Also helps to keep washing machine and hoses fresh and clean too.Recipe #2
1 Container of Name Brand Fabric Softener
4 Inexpensive sponges, cut in halfPour entire container of softener into a 5 gallon bucket. Fill empty softener container with water twice. (2 parts water to 1 part softener) Add sponges to softener/water mixture. When ready to use wring out extra mixture from one sponge and add to the dryer as you would a dryer sheet.
Do you have any special laundry techniques that help in saving money at your house?
I purchased a drying rack for $10 and have been drying almost all of our clothes (except jeans and towels – too heavy) on this rack. For our dressier clothes, I throw them in the dryer for 5 minutes or so and then take them out and put on hangers to finish drying. Towels get thrown over the shower curtains (we have 3 bathrooms so we can get most of them dried at one time). Jeans get dried a little longer in the dryer and then get thrown over an open air shelf in the laundry room. Our clothes will dry overnight or during the day and be ready to put up the next day. I also have a make-shift clothesline (see my post at http://grocerysavingsforrealfamilies.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-might-be-redneck-if.html).
I subscribe to Kiwi magazine, organic way of living for kids. In one of their articles, Become a Clean Green, Natural Washing Machine…they said you can use 1/4 cup of baking soda as a fabric softener. If you use liquid detergent, add the baking soda during the wash cycle. If you use powder, add it during the rinse cycle. I started using it, I cannot even tell that I am no longer using “regular” softener. I love it and plan on making my own laundry detergent too!
I found nearly the same laundry detergent recipes on another website. That gal has used her homemade detergents over a year with her front-loader, and they work great. However, her directions for the liquid soap do not include the part about diluting the gel half-in-half with water in smaller containers… she just used the gel from the 5 gallon container. I wonder if there would be a noticeable difference in the effectiveness of the detergent???
“Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. “(will gel)’
How large of a soap dispenser do you use for this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fels-Naptha
I just found this health considerations on using Fels-Naphta, which I researched because we do not have that in my country and wanted to see if I could substitute for a local product. I guess regular laundry detergent may have far more health considerations than this Fels Naphta soap, but still wanted to point it out…
I recently replaced my toxic laundry detergent with a healthier alternative. We are currently using a combination of 1/4 cup liquid castile soap and 1/2 cup Borax per load of laundry. It is working great. I haven’t noticed any difference in the level of “cleaness”, but I have noticed that the clothes actually smell better, even though we are using the unscented variety. You can buy a five gallon bucket of liquid castile from Vermont soap works at a very reasonable price. http://www.vermontsoap.com/
Though the instructions are for a front-loading machine, is this safe for one that requires the use of High Efficiency detergent? Anything that suds too much will clog these machines up. Anyone use this who has a HE machine?
I left the fels-naptha soap out of my recipe (powdered) and it is working fine. I haven’t notice any change in the clean-ness of my clothes. This does not produce suds so it should work fine in a high efficiency machine. (even with the fels-naptha)
The recipe I have uses Ivory soap (bar) instead of the Fels Naptha. I haven’t tried this yet, but the person I got the recipe from uses Ivory soap and says it’s safe to use even for baby clothes.
I have an HE machine and use this recipe and it does just fine! I use the last empty jug of laundry detergent to fill from the five gallon bucket – fill it halfway and then add water to the jug to fill it up completely.
If you really want to save some serious money then stop using your dryer. Your clothes will dry perfectly well out on a clothesline or on a clothes drying rack. I got rid of my dryer last year. My utility bills have went down 6-10% every month compared to last year. I also no longer am buying dryer sheets. Another little savings.