The Lounge at Chandler Crossings

Save Money and Go Green

I recently read an article about saving money by either making your own laundry detergent or not using detergent at all. I thought about it, and it doesn’t seem too bad of an idea. Laundry detergent companies, such as Tide had been reducing the size of the bottle with it’s “concentrated” formulas, but the price has increasingly been going up.

How does our clothes really get clean, a little soap, some water, and a machine tossing my clothes around… slmple agitation? If i didn’t have a washing machine, I would wash my clothes the same way, by rubbing them together with soap and water. Now don’t get me wrong, a washing machine does makes your job so much easier, however, how are your pockets faring? When I normally do a load of clothes in my Chandler Crossings apartment, the directions, say…. Pour to the line 1 for a load, I never do, I always pour to line 3 because I believed the more soap I put in, the “cleaner” my clothes will be.

I read that some people actually never use detergent at all, and they clothes come out smelling like fresh clean water. I’ve also read that, if you use store bought laundry detergent, it may cost you up to 20 cents per load. Now if you make your own laundry detergent, it cost you only 2 cents per load. Not bad, not bad. If you are worrying about how to create your own detergent, don’t fret, I have a simple recipe:

• 4 cups of water.
• 1/3 bar of cheap soap, grated.
• 1/2 cup washing soda (not baking soda).
• 1/2 cup of Borax (20 Mule Team).
• 5-gallon bucket for mixing.
• 3 gallons of water.

First, mix the grated soap in a saucepan with 4 cups of water, and heat on low until the soap is completely dissolved. Add hot water/soap mixture to 3 gallons of water in the 5-gallon bucket, stir in the washing soda and Borax, and continue stirring until thickened. Let the mix sit for 24 hours, and you now have homemade laundry detergent. Enough for 52 loads. Now if you make 6 bacthes of this, you would have enough detergent for 312 loads of laundry for about the cost of $7.00. WOW! Or you can buy 4, 150oz bottles of Tide, which would give you the same amount of loads at 312, but you would end up paying around 20 cents per load, about $65 dollars. Looks like money in your pocket. I’m a fan and I think I’m going to give it a try! How about everyone who lives in student housing near MSU give it a try and see what types of results we get?

Can’t wait to hear from you,

-Ernest M

Tags: Apartment Tips, Cleaning, college budget, how to

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 11:25 am and is filed under Green Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.