Since we are all broke.........

Well this is good timing! I just used the last bit of laundry detergent. There has to be a way to do this without grating a million bars of soap though... Can't I just put it in a bag and smash it with a hammer into little tiny bits?

I guess you could, then boil the hell out of it.

It really isn't that much trouble grating a bar of soap. I have a grater that I use just for this purpose. It only takes a few minutes to do a bar. In my recipe, it says to be sure not to boil it when you are melting the soap. I find it hard to melt if it isn't well grated first. Besides saving money, this soap is better for planet than detergent, so you can feel good about being greener too!

in all honesty, even with alot of money I think I would start trying to learn more basics. Cause eventually I know I will need it. Granted right now every penny I can save is needed. but I belive there will come a time when knowing how to can, garden and fend for myself will come in handy. You never know when you will loose everything you have.

Luckily I have a sign for that. It hangs in my bedroom :

I started out with nothing and I have most of it left.

My Nana made her own lye soap. And she'd get free samples of fancy perfumes from the make-up counters at the mall and put them in. So she had Channel No.5 lye soap.

I couldnt find washin powders at my walmart. I got bakin soda instead. ANd borax.

and I got 9 packets of ivory soap (.97 cents each) with a .25 cents off coupon, I bought that many cause BR uses it for bathin.

But come to find out, I didnt need both borax AND bakin soda.

I reckon I will use it anyway though. I can throw it in when the clothes are really dirty.

BUt I am fixin to get this all made up. no sense in waitin till I am out of soap.

My recipe calls for both chelle. Well, washing soda and borax any way.
Having washing soda on hand saved the day yesterday. My friend's hubby (they are living here )got gas all over his clothes while suing the chain saw. They were washed twice and still smelling up the house. I threw the clothes outside and washed the washer with washing soda. It smells fine now thankfully.

I just made my first batch. I had to go to three different stores to find the washing soda! I am trying #4 but I halved it since you only need two tablespoons per load and I was tired of grating the soap. I also threw in a few drops of citrus oil and it smells great! I have the first load in the washer right now.

I've got a book I bought several decades ago at Coles (an old Canadian bookstore chain) titled "The Household Formula Book." It's got lots of dandy little concoctions for everything from anti-moth mixtures to cold cream to all sorts of cleaning formulas.

It would be worthwhile digging through used bookstores to find this book or something like it.

The only worry I would have with some of this stuff is finding the ingredients. The way they've gotten with Homeland Security and the like, a lot of these chemicals could well put you on a watch list somewhere. (Only half-kidding with that comment.)

Oh, and for a cheaper alternative to Oxy-Clean, I've found the tubs of Sun Oxygen Cleaner are basically the same formulation minus coloring and perfume at a fraction of the cost of the "real thing."

I used baking soda, almost the same thing, but gentler on clothes.