Homemade Laundry detergent

Yesterday Peanut and I made 10 gallons of laundry soap. I am really excited to see how long this will last us as one gallon usually lasts a good 4 to 6 months! I used the recipe I found on the Duggar's website under their favorite recipes the 3rd one down. They have a liquid one and a dry one. I am curious to try them both but I typically like liquid better. And since we have a basement to store it I can go that route. I know I did this with the homemade dishwasher soap as my starting date. But then I didn't come back and update when I used up that first batch. Well if my memory serves me right I was done with it about Dec 20th, 2010. I just looked up when we made it and the post said Nov 18th. So it lasted a month. I wasn't all that impressed with it but I made it again. I find if you alternate between store bought and homemade it works better. But I am planning on looking for another recipe for that to try again. It is just WAY cheaper to make your own then to buy it at the store! For the laundry recipe I bought a bar of soap Zote which is about a $1, a box of borax not sure of the price and washing soda which was about $5. I used the whole bar of soap but only a cup of the washing soda and a 1/2 cup of the borax. You spend about 2 dollars making 10 gallons of laundry soap when you buy a gallon for about 8 dollars give or take at the store. My math isn't precise because I don't really care to calculate how much is in each box and then divide it by a cup or 1/2 a cup so it may be more or less to make. Either way it sounds to me like a great way to save some of my hubby's hard earned cash. I did two loads of laundry with it today and I seemed to work fine. I had taken GlamorGirl and a few friends to go painting on Friday night and wouldn't you know that my daughter got her WHITE shirt in the paint several times. She had the paint drip on her pants as well. BUT it all came out. In my book that would make this laundry detergent successful.

Ah love school breaks!

Today was so nice not to have to wake up early. The kids and I are moving along on our puzzle and so far the no electronics is working fabulously. As long as I keep them busy helping or playing they don't get in trouble! We are going to make homemade laundry detergent together at some point this week. I am really excited to actually try it out. But we still have a little of the stuff I bought at the store and that is the bottle I am going to use for the homemade stuff so we wait. Speaking of homemade stuff. Red and Peanut helped me make some homemade dishwasher soap on Nov 18th and right after it was made I started a load of dishes. When they were done they sparkled so clean! I wanted to see how long this stuff will last so that is why I put the date of our first use. I don't always run the dishwasher everyday but this week I have a feeling we are going to be running it A LOT more than normal. Though I'm not sure how long the store bought stuff lasted, there is more in those boxes then what I made so we'll see.