This homeschool mom likes doing math, and I LOVE doing math when I'm calculating how much money I can save with just a little work. And that's exactly what I did a few months ago, when I decided to try making my own laundry detergent. First, I sat down with my pencil and paper to tackle the math, just to make sure the task would be worth
my time and effort.
You see, I am not
the homesteading type. I don’t seek out
extra household chores unless they have a pretty high benefit to cost
ratio. I wouldn’t say I’m lazy, I’m just
selective about where I invest my time. So before I rushed out to buy the ingredients to make my own laundry
soap, I took out my pen and paper to do some preliminary calculations.
Choosing a recipe
There are many recipes for homemade laundry detergent
online. After a bit of research, I
decided to use the liquid detergent recipe postedby the Duggar family. I chose this
recipe because I prefer liquid detergents and because it is supposed to be safe
for high efficiency, front loader machines. It also looked very simple to make, using just four ingredients: 20 Mule
Team borax, Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, a bar of Fels-Naptha soap, and
water.
Running the numbers
I have used original scent Tide detergent for years, partly
because I am sensitive to the fragrances in many other brands and partly
because I just love the way it cleans. The 100 ounce bottle of HE Tide detergent usually costs me about $15.00
without a coupon. According to the
bottle, 100 ounces will wash about 50 large loads, and let’s be serious, as a
mom of three large loads are almost all I ever run. So, that’s a cost of $15 for 50 loads of
laundry.
How much is homemade?
The cost of my homemade laundry detergent was a little
trickier to calculate. Because the borax
and super washing soda are sold in quantities much larger than what I needed to
make just one batch, I decided to see how much detergent I could make for the
same $15 I would spend on one bottle of Tide.
For $15, I was able to buy one box of borax, one box of
super washing soda, and five bars of Fels-Naptha soap. That’s enough for five batches of laundry
detergent using the Duggar family recipe.
But each batch makes 10 whole gallons of detergent! So, for $15, I could make 50 gallons of
detergent for my family, or 6,400 ounces.
Comparing the final cost
For $15, I had everything I need to make 50 gallons, or
6,400 ounces of homemade laundry detergent, although I needed to make it 10
gallons at a time, because I don’t have any place to store 50 gallons all at
once.
The cost of 6,400 ounces of Tide for my HE front loader
machine would be about $960. That’s a
savings of $945 for my family. And the
time it takes to make each batch is less than an hour. Based on my calculations, it was easy to see that this was
one household chore that was easily worth the time and effort.
So, I've been using my new homemade laundry detergent for a while now. It is not as fragrant as Tide, but it gets my clothes clean and I actually prefer the lack of heavy perfume in the wash. I love knowing how much money I'm saving each time I whip up a new bucket full of detergent, too!
