Like the commercial says - the most expensive bottled water is...

If you watch TV as much as I do, you might have noticed a commercial talking about how nearly all laundry detergents are water down. Now the point of the commercial is that their brand is more concentrated - the moral that we should learn is that making your own soap is cheap and easy.

I want to say that I love being frugal but if something takes forever I'm less likely to do it. I will think, "Hey! That's a great idea," but won't actually follow through. I can handle making laundry soap.

We already bought those big containers of liquid laundry detergent - so we kept the last one aft it was empty. There are lots of specific recipes and ideas that are helpful when you are just starting out, this site and this site are good starting points.

This is roughly the way we do it:
To make the process easier we have a glass container that always has a bar of soap sitting in water. It will slowly dissolve on its own so if we need to make dish or laundry soap on the run it comes together a lot easier.

The soap making ingredients are a bar of soap, washing soda (can find it in most grocery stores), borax and water. We do about 1/4 bar of soap, 4+ quarts of warm water, 1/2 of washing soda and 1/2 cup of borax. That's it. Pour it a container and use 1/2 cup or so per load of clothes.
This is what we have been using for about 3 months. It is a lot cheaper, and the clothes are cleaning up well. What more could you ask for?

That has WHAT in it?

I think one of the simplest things to downsize your life style, or live more frugally is to look at nearly everything and ask, "Can I make that?"

From food, to cleaning supplies, and home decor projects it is pretty cool what we can do ourselves. It is like there has been this giant disconnect with what we use in our daily lives and how it is made. With that said, not everything is worth the time, effort, and money to make on your own.

Last week, I flipped over a bottle of special teeth whitening mouth wash to read the ingredients. Wow! The first ingredients listed? Water. Peroxide. Then a bunch of scary looking chemicals. So why not occasionally use peroxide instead? It is cheaper, and I actually know what is in it compared to my mouth wash with 15+ compounds that I can't pronounce, let alone explain what they are.

The last couple weeks I have been trying to look at everything sideways. What can I downsize? What would be easy to make? Better to make?

The coolest thing about looking at everything like this? It is almost anyways more environmentally friendly. Making my own tea instead of buying sodas...? That is a lot less trash in this world. Using my Brita filter...? Saved my lots of money on those plastic water bottles and WAY less trash from my household.

Full disclosure: I am working towards lessening my paper towel addiction. Wish me luck.