Domesticity at Its Finest, Benji Dancing and UPDATE

So the frugal wife in me has really made her appearance this week. I am normally a couponer at heart, but do to the sudden BOOM in everyone and their dog couponing, the values of the deals I would normally get just aren't there. Being the optimist I am....I turned sour coupon anger into lemonade   laundry soap. Before i could get Purex laundry soap for .99 or cheaper sometimes. I haven't been able to get that deal since about May, so naturally my stockpile started to dwindle. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a recipe to make your own laundry soap. I gave it a go this week.

 So here is the recipe, really it is very simple. 

4  Cups - hot tap water
1  Fels-Naptha soap bar----I used the Olay because I got it for cheap, but they say Ivory or the Fels Naptha works best.
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda* (can be found in the fabric softener isle.DO NOT USE BAKING SODA) 
½ Cup Borax (at Target or walmart with the laundry soap) 

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

 Here is my soap grated and in the pot with water

 Melting away

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

 I never brought my empty containers up from the basement laundry room saved my containers and filled them a little over half way with my mixtures.What is shown above is almost 300 loads of laundry.

I have a tiny bot under a half of the bucket left of solution. So I would guess that we will get just under 600 loads of laundry out of this. 

The Borax cost me 3.00

The Washing Soda cost-3.00

The bar of soap I got for 0.25

I did not use the whole box of either item and I also made this

With a whopping 0.72 spent on lemon kool aid packets, I was able to make my own dishwasher detergent. This contains, Borax, washing soda and kool aid lemonade. 

2 TBLS per load and using vinegar in your rinse aid dispenser. I made a match and a half. 

 

2 cups of Borax
2 cups of Baking Soda
4 small packets of sugar freelemonade Kool-Aid (you can also use 4 tablespoons of citric acid--if you can find it)
White Vinegar- for rinse aid.

Mix everything together (except the vinegar) by either dumping into a big bowl and stirring it really well or dumping it into a container with a lid and shaking it up. You can keep it in your lidded container or re-use your old detergent box.

Use 2 tablespoons per load. (1 tablespoon in the open cup and 1 in the closed locking cup) Pour some White Vinegar into your rinse aid receptacle and your glasses will come out sparkling! (If your dishes end up covered with a white residue, you probably have hard water and need to experiment with the amount of Borax to use.)

Love it!

I still have Borax and washing soda left over. Probably enough to make another batch of laundry soap and a single batch of dish detergent. So for $6.72... oh heck I will round up to $7, I got a lot of bang for my buck!

 Oh yeah, pictured below is my new favorite fabric softener.

Is there anything Vinegar can't do? 

Isn't he just the cutest??? I thought I flipped the video around, but it would never save in the upright manner, so tilt your head to get the full effect.  And just in case you are wondering.. Benji does wear clothes....when we leave the house. But as soon as we hit home, I tell ya!, the clothes go flying! 

Trenton had a follow up appointment and he is doing much better. The doctor concluded that he was having muscle spasms under his shoulder blade, and the pain was to intense for him, that he splinted on his right side causing his lung to partially collapse. His lung is on the mend and he just has to watch it when it comes to the pain and he needs to stretch more before playing football, soccer, ect.

In JoJo land, he is proud to be the student of the week this week! He gets to be the line leader, bring snacks, help his teacher and much much more. He is thrilled! We made his poster board the other night to tell about him, and bless his little heart he put a picture of the Salt Lake Temple that he got at church and had my tape it on there. He had me write under it " I like to see the Salt Lake Temple"  Melted the mommy to bits.