Homemade Dish Soap for hard water areas!

Last night I discovered another wonderful item that I can make at home and save the difference.  I have never been pleased with the dish detergent that we buy from the store.  I always found that it left a cloudy residue behind.  I have been trying different types of homemade detergent not really finding one that really helped the situation.  I even found a lot that made the dishes worse!

I came to realize that the hardest problem I was having was hard water.  We live in a very small community and our water is extremely hard.  The copper in the water really made it hard to get anything clean.

After searching and searching for weeks to find something I stumbled across this recipe. I tweaked it for hard water and I have not tried it in an area that does not have hard water.

Dish Detergent
Generic Walmart Brand 2.98 ~ 75oz

Homemade Detergent

8 oz Washing Soda ( Make sure it's washing soda and not baking soda). You can find this at Walmart in the laundry section.  Cost = $3.24 for 55oz Cost for this recipe = .47 cents

8oz 20 Mule Team Borax You can find this at Walmart in the laundry section as well.  Cost = $3.48 for 76 oz  Cost for this recipe = .37 cents

4 oz Kosher Salt.  I found this in the baking section at Walmart.  Cost = $1.68 for 48oz Cost for this recipe = .14 cents

4 oz citric acid.  I use Lemi Shine because it helps a lot with hard water. I highly recommend getting this brand.  It will be the most expensive aspect of this recipe but so worth it.  You can find it in the same isle you found dish detergent at Walmart  You could use unsweetened lemonade packets.  Cost = $3.66 for 12 oz Cost for this recipe = $1.22

Total Cost for this recipe = $2.20 for 48 loads or 4.5cents per load

Savings of  $6.74 (I get about 15 loads out of a bottle at Walmart so 3 bottles would be needed to do the same number of dishes that 1 batch of this recipe)

Mix all ingredients together and store in a mason jar with a lid.  Use 1 TBSP per load.  For best results use while distilled vinegar in the rinse dispenser.  For hard water I add about .5 TBSP of extra Lemi Shine. 

The plate on the left is after 1 washing with this recipe. The plate on the right is after 1 washing with store bought detergent.

Surviving Unemployment

Last year my husband was forced to leave his job after 11 years because we had to move.  We had a baby due within weeks of him leaving and we were forced to find a way to survive on just my disability paycheck.  I became so frugal that if I saw a penny on the floor I would stop to pick it up because that might just tip the scales in our direction.  We always figured that he would get a new job just as soon as we were all settled in and that God would provide in the meanwhile.  I did enjoy it when our daughter was born with breathing problems and we ended up staying the hospital for 17 days plus an additional 45 days at home with her on a monitor.

However as the weeks turned in to months and now even a year, I have learned a lot of new ways to stretch our income.  The first way I started was the I started batch cooking with my mother every week.  We would cook up 6 different entrees' on Saturdays and freeze them to help cut down on time during the week.  It helped both of us by allowing us to make one batch of something and split it between the two families.  It also helped because we were making 1 recipe that feeds 4 instead of 2 that feeds 4.  We would do the shopping together and then split the cost.  Over all with sale bills and coupons we would keep those 6 meals to under 30.00 for each family.  That right there was a huge savings!

For me, I found out really quickly out of desperation what I could do without (Diaper Genie refills) and what I could not do with out ( Diapers) Every chance I got I was always wanting to do something that would help me to save money on the consumables that we use all the time.  Laundry soap was my first attempt at going homemade and I have tried several recipes however the one that I love the best is the one I got from The Duggar Family.  ( You can check out their website here I totally recommend this recipe)  I have found that for my washer it works better if we use 1/3 cup instead of 1/4 cup.

Tonight I was bound and determined to get back into making something that would work and save us money.  As I am writing this I am testing out my latest recipe.  Homemade dishwasher detergent.  I hope to post another blog with all the details.

I hope that you might find something of use here on one of my blogs and I promise that I will continue to try and find new homemade green recipes.  If you have a recipe that you love for any type of household chemical please let me know.  I would love to put your recipe on my blog and try it for my family.  Most of these blogs will be about DIY projects however don't be surprise if my daughter manages to find herself in the middle of my blog.  She is my inspiration for most everything I try out.