My two cents: dirty laundry!

In my ever-increasing quest to become a cheap-ass, my eye is usually caught by blog posts or other articles that help me achieve that end. In becoming a cheap-ass, I've made my own clothes, cooked at home more often, and I've even begun compiling my own price book on things I buy most often in an excel spreadsheet to figure out the lowest price-per-serving of everything from deodorant to ground beef. But that is a post for another day.

However, something I never considered saving money on before (short of coupons and awesome sales) is laundry detergent. I always cringe when I buy a super-small bottle of "natural" laundry detergent for anywhere from $5 to 10 dollars. It's a necessary evil, the price of hygiene. But then I came across this article on Yahoo, with links to more interesting articles and blogs, on how to make your own laundry detergent!

The thought has never occurred to me, though yes it is more involved than just grabbing something off the shelf at Meijer, it seems (somewhat) more natural (depending on what soap you use), and here's the best part: 1 load of laundry uses one cup of the homemade stuff, and it costs only two cents per load compared to the store-bought stuff, which one blogger priced out at twenty cents per load. Ten times the cost! You don't have to tell me twice that this is a recipe for savings, and according to The Simple Dollar it seems to work just as well.

Ciao,

-Melissa