Homemade Laundry Detergent



I made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent back in December. I've been using it for over 3 months now. There are various recipes, but this is the only one I've tried. I LOVE it. I absolutely love it. For the soap, I used 1 bar of Zote and 1 bar of Fels Naptha. But you can also use Ivory apparently. Any soap that isn't too perfumey. Total cost to make 2 batches was less than $10. I have about 1/4 of a box left, so I'd say that lasted me 4 months for a family of 4. So roughly $2.00-2.50 a box or for me about $2 a month (I do a good amount of laundry). This isn't a scientific recipe, you can add a little more or less and experiment. I also think this is good for sensitive skin. It's very mild, has a light scent of the soap you choose.

I use this in my HE machine with no residue or issues. You only use 2 TBS of product, a little goes a long way! Keep an bar of Fels Naptha on hand for pretreating stains too, it's great stuff.

Powdered Laundry Detergent Recipe

• 1 bar Fels Naptha Soap or Zote Soap (finely grated) (I have used both Zote and Fels Naptha with great results).  To grate the soap, you can use a cheese grater or a food processor, in tiny portions because it's very hard.
• 1 cup Washing Soda (I found this at Fry's (a Kroger store) only, it was hard to find, but Ace Hardware might have it. It's super cheap, like $3 a box. 
• 1 cup Borax

1. Mix well and store in an old powdered detergent box or airtight container.
2. Use 2 tablespoons per full load.

For different recipes, check out this website, they have liquid versions:

http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/

Recycle an old soap box and scoop

Haan Slim and Light Floor Steamer

Haan Slim and Light Floor Steamer is wonderful.  I have this Floor Steamer.  I've had it since July 2010, so far so good.  I LOVE it.  I have never had cleaner floors.  They stay clean longer I think because there is no chemical residue to stick to dirt.  I only have to steam my floor every 2 weeks to keep it clean.  In between I sweep.  This is super easy to use too.  You just fill the water tank with filtered water (I use the water from my fridge dispenser).  Turn it on and wait for it to heat up. You have to sweep first, this does not have a vacuum on it. 

But seriously, I walk around barefoot all the time.  I used to have black feet from the dirt on my floor.  Now my feet aren't ever black on the bottom! 

The best prices I have seen on this is either QVC or Amazon, Amazon has a slightly higher price, but has free shipping.

Swagbucks

Let me tell you about Swagbucks. I LOVE Swagbucks. What is it?

Swagbucks is a portal for searching, shopping, games, surveys, etc. The goal is to accumulate swagbucks. 450 swagbucks will get you a $5 Amazon gift card. You can get other things but the Amazon gift cards are the best reward by far. I have accumulated $90 in Amazon Gift Cards since beginning this in November. I'm addicted.

So I'm promoting it shamelessly in hopes of getting your referral. Because each referral I get will get me more Swagbucks. I get my referral's search swagbucks each day.
Here's my referral link, or you will see a box on the side, just click on it. :)

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/ldanowski@cox.net

All you do is sign up, what you do with it is up to you. I spend about 10 minutes on it in the morning, 10 minutes in the middle of the day and 10 minutes in the evening to get minimal swagbucks.

Here's how you get swagbucks:

Most of these are under the Earn key:

• Do the daily poll, it gets you 1 swagbuck a day, but that's 30 each month!
• Use the toolbar, this requires downloading it. It's a good thing because it reminds you to get Swagbucks! You get 1 swagbuck per day for using the toolbar.
• Go through NOSO offers, skip and go to next offer and in the end just punch in the saying and you will get 2 Swagbucks.
• Go to the Survey page: You will get 1 swagbuck. If you can get in on a survey, you can get 50-100 swagbucks, usually the surveys are about 10-30 minutes long and can be a little bit fun.
• Do a search, I normally do 3 searches a day, you can plug in the word, pickle or poop, or do a serious search like Real Housewives of NJ. Just keep plugging into it and searching til you are rewarded with 7-11 or more swagbucks. Once you get rewarded you can't do it again for a few hours, that's why I do them every 3-4 hours or so.
• Watch SBTV, you fill up the bar and you get 3 Swagbucks. This used to be worth 5 swagbucks and you could let it run while you did other things, now you have to actually watch the videos, but the videos are interesting and it fills up 10 percent each time you watch a video.
• Do the Groupon, Social Living, Mamapedia, etc deals when they come up. They have some good ones like CVS, Barnes and Noble, Red Box. You do it through Swagbucks, you get the same deal, but you also get swagbucks, like 100 or more.
• Do the Special Offers, at least look at them daily and see if there is anything free to do or a great deal that also rewards swagbucks.
• Last but not least, look for codes, you will find them in the blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, on the Tool bar. There are many cheat sites to find these, but they frown upon using them.

Anyway, if you have any questions, I'd love to help you get started! This is in no way a scam! It's awesome! I was able to buy a bunch of stuff off Amazon recently and still have money on my account. I adore Amazon, books and all the stuff they have to offer. It's the perfect place to shop and free shipping if you spend $25 is awesome too.

HOT

It's been HOT here. I don't like HOT. I like warm, that's ok. But HOT I don't like. Warm to me would be 90-105 degrees, that's easy to deal with and pretty comfortable. Lately we've been reaching 110+ and it's just horrendously HOT. Even with our dry heat.

It makes everything hard. Yesterday I went and dropped my daughter off at golf. It's the worst time of the day trafficwise and heatwise. I decided to go to the store on the way home. I don't know why when it's this hot you don't get hungry. So I get there to the store, get all my groceries and put them on the conveyer belt, get up to the debit machine and start digging in my purse for my wallet. Oh crap! Wallet isn't in there. Where is it? The Wal-mart clerk rolled her eyes and said, "That's interesting!" all sarcastic as she's bagging my groceries. I forgive her because the heat makes everyone grumpy. So I tell her to bag it all up and I'll go try to find my wallet. Meanwhile I'm freaking out, "Where's my wallet?" I drive home, look in the house, look upstairs.... Then I realize my daughter had it earlier when I asked her to put my change back in it. We stopped at Tastee Freeze for dipped cones earlier in the day. Ok, so relief floods me (I know it's got to be somewhere), but still I can't find it. Finally I look in the center console of my car. There it is. Why she put it there I have no clue. Kids! So I drive back to the store, go in and pay and unload it all. Whew! Meanwhile it's HOT and my head is hurting, heat exhaustion? Yes, probably. I get the cold stuff put away and get an ice cold drink and take a short break turned on Phinneas and Ferb and watched with Maci for a bit. She was my big helper throughout it all so we split a Vitamin Water.

So today it will be HOT again. And tomorrow, HOT again... Thank goodness for AC and swimming pools.

Rumpledoodles - a great name for a nice cookie

Calling all Heffalumps! These are pretty good. I made these the other day and they were gobbled up. Except Maci doesn't like raisins so next time I have to make her a raisin free batch. But Marissa loved these. What's weird about this recipe is that it doesn't have eggs in it and the dough is sort of crumbly. But hang in there, once they bake you get a nice crunchy, chewy wonderful cookie, sort of granola-ish. This recipe was originally off the Disney Channel, but several years ago. So I can't find a good link because it was linked to the old Pooh bear show.

Rumpledoodles

1 cup Rolled Oats
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Flour
1 cup Coconut
1/2 cup Raisins
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 tablespoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
2 tablespoons Molasses
1/2 cup Unsalted Butter
2 tablespoons Boiling Water

Instructions:

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.
Grease 2-3 Cookie Sheets - I used parchment paper so no greasing required.
Mix the Rolled Oats, Sugar, Flour, Coconut, Raisins, Cinnamon, Baking Soda, and Salt in Large Mixing Bowl.
Melt Butter in Sauce Pan or Microwave. Add Molasses and Water Into Melted Butter.
Pour the Butter Mixture Into the Flour Mixture.
Stir With a Spoon Until Well Mixed.
Drop the Dough Onto The Cookie Sheet With a Teaspoon or Small Scoop.
Bake For 12-15 Minutes. I only had to bake for about 10 minutes so watch the first batch closely.
Remove From Oven And Cool Or Eat Warm With Your Favorite Heffalump.

Look who found the laundry pile!

First Tee

Joe took the girls and a friend to a water splash fun day sponsered by First Tee the other day. It's always a fun day. I can't recommend First Tee highly enough! A wonderful organization!

Afterwards Joe drove up South Mountain and took a few pictures. They turned out pretty cool!