The Great Mountain of Laundry

Everyone has laundry.  Unless you buy new clothes, wear once and toss out you have laundry that needs to get washed, dried and put away.

Like most of society I hate doing the laundry.  I have tried setting up wash days to get it all done and it will get washed and dried but sit for the next week in the baskets never getting hung up or folded in drawers.  So I set up a schedule to do a load of laundry everyday.  That includes wash, dry, fold/hang and put away. Lets see if I can actually stick to it.

Now, not only do I hate doing laundry I hate spending lots of money on detergent, dryer sheets, fabric softener and stain spray!  I started couponing to help cut the overall cost but saving 55 cents on a $20 bottle of detergent doesn't seem worth it...

 I have tried many recipes for making my own laundry detergent.  With the amount of laundry I have done over the year as a costume designer I have seen how these recipes have worked and then again didn't. 

Recently I found a recipe that seems too good to be true.  I mean it has all the same ingredients as the others I have tried but its mojo is just stronger!  And... drum roll, please... it's cheaper per use than the other recipes!  It contains the following; Borax, Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, OxyClean, Zote Soap, Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, and Purex Crystals Fabric Softener.

I found the recipe while surfing around, but credit needs to be given where credit is due.  The gals over at How Does She deserve the praise for this one.  You can find the recipe HERE. 

I did find that one batch only fills a 5 gallon bucket half way.  Double the batch and you'll have a full bucket.  I am using a pink bucket from the Breast Cancer Sale at Ace Hardware with a black Gamma seal lid.  It looks very bold and bright compared to my other 5 gallon buckets used for food storage which are white.  I do advise wearing a dust mask while you mix this all together.  The dust from all the powdery ingredients really got caught in my nose.  I could only smell the Zote for a few days.

With saving money in the laundry department on my mind I wanted to find a way to save even more.  Dryer sheets are another area where I can't seem to find a way to break even!  They cost sooooo much for so few sheets in a box!  I have switched back and forth from brand to brand and even the generics to try and find something that worked but didn't break the bank!

Well, the answer was in the laundry aisle at the store- dryer balls!  But I didn't feel the PVC ones for sale were healthy for my little family so again I surfed for an alternative.  And I found it.  Wool dryer balls.  I made mine but there are tons of great crafty people on sites like Etsy that make and sell them for very cheap.  I almost wished I had gotten mine there rather than spending the time to make my own.

Now armed with this new fab recipe and some great wool dryer balls hopefully I can get laundry under control and save some money.