Thrifty Cleaning: Be Our Guest!

Lately I have been trying to be more budget savvy.  Some new tactics have not worked out so well, like trying to use cloth diapers; tried those for a day and it just wasn't very practical for our family. Today my budget friendly ways went to my dishes.  I made my own dishwasher detergent.  Such an easy recipe and for about $8.00 I will have approximately 320 loads of dishwasher detergent!!!!!  This calculation is based on using 2 Tablespoons per load, and you can use either 1-2Tbls so it could actually be 640 loads if you only used 1Tbls per dishwasher load.  To put this in better understanding....I normally buy Cascade Complete and if you buy a 48 pack of those pouches, which is what I normally prefer, They are around $13.00 for a package of 48 pouches.  That equals to .27 cents a load to clean your dishes each day.  Making my own dishwasher detergent equals about .018 cents a load.  That is less than two pennies a load!!!  So for a year....If I were to buy Cascade, I would spend approximately $100/year compared to $6.84/year making my own!  That is ASTONISHING to say the least!  So you want to know how to do it?!  I will tell you....it is so easy and I picked up everything at my local grocery store.

 1 cup Borax.  This cost me $4.99 for a 5lb box, which will yield 20 cups total.










 1 cup Baking Soda, you can also use the Super Washing Soda for better results, but I unfortunately could not find any at my local store.  This was only $1 for a 4lb box, which will yield 16 cups total.

 2 Tablespoons salt.  You can also use Kosher salt and if you use that, use 1/4c.  I didn't have Kosher salt on hand and didn't feel like buying any, to be honest with you.










The coolest ingredient!  You can either use 1/4c citric acid, if you have it on hand...but again, me being the frugal person I am I opted to use 2 packets of Sugar Free Kool-Aid, LEMONADE!  This works perfectly well for the citric acid portion of this concoction! Until I can get to Wally World and pick up some citric acid (if it's not too expensive)





Mix all this together and store in an air tight container.  Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load.  I also add 3 drops of Dawn dish soap or Palmolive in each load, as well as 1/2c-1c of vinegar in a cup at the top of the dishwasher.  This helps aid in making the dishes shiny, kind of like Jet Dry, and not have a frosty film over the dishes.

I used this today and I have done two loads of dishes today and both have turned out to perfection!!  I feel they got cleaner than using actual store bought brands!  I read one woman's comment about this and she said that hers was clumping up after a day or so, I just made mine today so I can't give you my personal experience on this yet.  Her remedy of this problem was she put her homemade detergent in a bowl and mixed it all up really well then placed them in an ice cube tray, she essentially made her own individual "Pacs"!  How convenient is that?!?  She just left the ice cube tray out on the counter overnight and they stayed in perfect cubes.  So, if mine ends up getting chunky this weekend, I will be making my own individual dishwasher pacs!

Well, I hope I helped someone out with this homemade dishwasher detergent.  It definitely is a money saver and doesn't take hardly any time to prepare.  I prepared my batch while I was waiting for water to boil for my potatoes for dinner tonight.  So don't let time be an excuse for all you working busy mom's out there!!