Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have had a lot of people express interest when I say that I make my own laundry detergent. Many think that it has to be difficult or take too long to make. Quite the contrary really, I can do it when I start dinner and be done with the detergent way before dinner is finished. The total of time is probably 10-15 minutes and, considering how much money we save, it is well worth the time!

To start off, you need 4 simple ingredients: water, borax, washing soda (NOT baking soda!!!), and a fels-naptha bar.

Get a large pot (similar to the one in the right of this photo and a cheese grater. Grate the fels-naptha bar. You could probably use a food processor or anything to get it into small little chunks.

Put all of the grated fels-naptha bar and 8 cups of water into the pot and bring to a boil.. I let it boil for a few moments to let all of the chunks melt completely.



At this point tonight, I started dinner (Andrew took a picture of me doing so! haha). Once it has began to boil, add 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of washing soda. Stir this well and let simmer/cook together for about 2-3 minutes. Turn off the heat!

You will need two gallon jugs. I use milk jugs and the same ones have lasted me 6 months. But, they aren't pretty!

I use a measuring cup and measure out 4 cups of the detergent for one jug and 4 cups for the next jug.

Fill the jugs up the rest of the way with water and shake them well! I let them sit for awhile.

Warning: this will get lumpy at times. Thats ok! I readd water after I put detergent into the washer. (So you get even more out of it all!) This tends to help it unclump.
I have used this detergent for over 6 months, probably closer to 8-9 months. I use it on everyone's clothes - including Brayden and I have from the start.

I consider detergent making pretty thrifty. I was never able to get detergent for free via coupons. I suppose if you can do that, then this isn't as cheap as that!
The cost to make this detergent:
$1 per fels-naptha bar
3.99 for a box of borax
3.99 for a box of washing soda
Water = free (Well besides your water bill but you get the point!)
Out of each box, I will probably get 20 cups so the price per cup for each is:
$.20 approx

so for $1.40 I get two gallons of detergent thats $.70 a piece and they last me about 1.5 months. Awesome!! I don't think I will ever NOT make detergent again!

Homemade Bagel Bites

I have been on a homemade food kick lately. I want to try to make everything prior to buying it at the store. Not only is it cheaper, but its so much healthier as I know everything my family is eating vs. all of the preservatives that are in convenience foods to make them stay good.

We love pizza, so I decided to make bagel bites. You can get a pack of little lenders 100 calorie bagels for $1.84 at my local Wal-Mart, for 12 of them equaling 24 bagel bites.

I started off by preheating my oven at 350 degrees. I then sliced all of the bagels in half and laid them out on a greased baking sheet.


I then used a can of Hunt's tomato sauce and spooned some onto each bagel and sprinkled the tops with mozzarella cheese.
You can use whatever sauce you have, even homemade!


Once you have assembled the bagel bites, all you have to do is bake them for 12-15 minutes. Watch them, as you don't want them to burn! Or get overcooked, because these are going to be frozen.

Now, I probably could add more cheese, but I didn't! Once you take them out of the oven, you can eat them hot (think a really great easy party food) or let them cool and put them into freezer bags.

Trust me, eating them hot is great too! I love that we have a freezer bag full that are quick snacks. With the bagels being 100 calories, a spoon ful of tomato sauce and a pinch full of cheese, we are looking at less than 200 calories each easily. They are about double the size of bagel bites in the store for a lot cheaper.

I bought two bags for $1.84 each, a can of Hunt's tomato sauce for $.88 and a bag of mozzarella cheese that is only half used for $1.64

So, here are my calculations that show this really does save money!
A box of 18 bagel bites cost $3.50 here. That means that each mini bagel is roughly $.19 cents.
My total cost for 48 bagels (double the size of the bagel bites at stores making it like 96 of the ones at the store, but we will go with 48) is $3.54 (I divided the cost of the cheese in half because I only used half a bag). This means that each bagel is roughly $.07 cents.
There is a difference of $.12 cents each! If we were to say that they are really double the size so technically it is 96 of the store bought ones, that makes ours equal to $.03cents each.

Often, people ask me if I think homemade food is cheaper. I almost always say yes. Now, if you are going to buy a bag of flour, sugar, and some other items and only use it to make one item, then no it won't save money, but when you are buying the staples but using them to make multiple things, it saves money. Even with this example, its still cheaper.
Oh, and did I mention, they taste JUST as great, Great enough that I made 48 and they are almost all gone because Robert loves them and keeps munching on them!

Once they are frozen, we zap them for about 3 minutes and they are steaming and delicious.

Enjoy!