DIY Wednesday: $30 a year laundry soap

Welcome to the first of what I hope to be a weekly installment into my DIY projects. I've always been crafty, thrifty, and adventurous, and I wanted to share some of that with my faithful readers.

I'm on my 3rd batch of this soap. We are only a family of 2, but I don't like wearing anything more than once without washing, and with my bleeding issues earlier this year, we were doing undergarments and sheets quite frequently. Add in a dog with occasional urine leakage, and we've got a lot of wash! I find this recipe lasts our family about 8 months, and we do at least a load of laundry per day.

This recipe was originally posted on One Good Thing by Jillee (http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com) and I've tweaked several times and am quite happy with my current recipe.

3 bars soap- I use Ivory for Men, as I can frequently find it free with coupons
1 box Borax (76 oz box)
1 box Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
2 small boxes Baking Soda
7 pounds of OxyClean (either two small containers from Dollar Tree, or one large box from the grocery store)
1 container purex crystals for fragrance. We use the lavender.

Grate the 3 bars of soap. We use our large Hamilton Beach food processor to grate it down first, and then use a smaller black & decker processor to get a finer grate to the soap. I've found it's best to mix in 1/2 cup of oxy clean and 1/2 cup of the soap into the smaller food processor- it gives a quicker, finer grate.

Then dump all of the above ingredients into a 5 gallon bucket, snap the lid on, and roll it around your living room/laundry room/back yard to mix well.

We use 1 tablespoon for a small load, and 2 tablespoons for a large load.

Depending on the color soap you use and the fragrences you pick, and how fine you grate it, it should come out looking something like this:

All in all, this recipe normally costs me between $25-$35 to make, and I honestly love it more than just about any other laundry soap.  We used to spend $13 every two weeks on detergent, so it's been a big money saver for our family!