Cleanliness is next to Godliness

I must say, laundry is the BANE of my existence!! I mean, really, can I get an AMEN?!

Not only does it have to be done all of the time, clothing itself costs a ridiculous amount of money, power to use the washing machine, and THEN buying laundry detergent! Where does it end???

Okay, that's enough of my rant....here are two things Derek and I did to try to resolve some of the expense for this nonsense.

This past June our power bill was MUCH higher than we both had anticipated and we HAD to do something about that.  First, Derek built a clothesline.  (We aren't exactly certain that we were supposed to do that in our neighborhood but, oh well!)  Yes, DEREK built a clothesline!! All. By. Himself.  This, ladies and gents, is an event of epic proportions.  Take a look...

Four 6 ft 4x4s, two 4ft 1x2s, shovel, concrete, screws, drill, and some wire. 

He screwed the 1x2s to the 4x4s to make an arch.  Then, he dug four holes about 2 ft deep.  The posts then went into the holes while we mixed the concrete with water in a bucket....with our hands :-) You will need 2 bags of concrete because our one was not enough to completely fill the holes.  You can attach the wire to the cross boards a couple of ways: buy a C-clamp/anchor OR a clothesline clip at Lowe's and it will have everything you need for the line part.  Let the concrete dry and VOILA!

One of our five closets consists ONLY of hangers so we decided to not use clothespins but hangers instead.  Once the clothes are dry, not only do they not have nearly as many wrinkles but they are already on the hanger and ready to put up!

How much did we save on our power bill, you may ask?!  WEELLLLL....July it was a whopping $2!! Hey, we were excited for that! I mean, we live in MOBILE where it is scorching hot and we still saved money! I would call that a winner!

Okay, so we don't really use our dryer anymore and 1 week's worth of ironing for 2 people has been cut from about 2 hours to right at 45 minutes! Now on to the actual WaShInG of the clothes.

What do you need to wash with?  Detergent!  Thanks to www.tipnut.com we found a CHEAP and EASY recipe for homemade detergent.

Ingredients: 1 bar of Fels-Naptha (Grated! Finely!! It makes about 2 cups), 2 cups Borax, 2 cups Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. ***If you want it to have a special scent, you can always add in a few drops of essential oils or fabric softener.***

Put a BIG pot on the stove and bring 2 quarts of water to a BOIL.  Slowly mix in the grated soap.  It takes a while so be sure to have Pandora on a station you enjoy! :-)

You might have to slowly add some water to help the soap melt.  This is what it should look like mid melt.

After the grated soap is melted, pour in 2 gallons of water, the washing soda, and Borax.  Mix ALL that together -- it will be foamy - really foamy!

Make sure you have some containers to put the detergent in when you are finished!! It made about 3 gallons.  As you can see we had to use make-shift things to hold ours, but it worked. :-)

I used a 1 cup measuring cup to scoop from the pot and pour into a funnel.  I'm pretty messy/accident prone so that was a VERY good idea! 

 

 

We made this the beginning of July and have only gone through one half gallon! Our clothes smell awesome and it only cost about $10!! Bargain? I think so!

 

My last bit of insight is this: shake it up when you use it because if you don't melt the soap all the way or you have large chunks they will all sink to the bottom, and if you have a front loader make the slot where you detergent go the height for when using powder.

 

That's it! Enjoy and happy washing!