Frugality

When I bought my first house I made $6.25 an hour.  In fact, I remember going to the owner of the franchise and explaining to him that even though I was an hourly manager, I was trying to buy a house and my income didn't quite qualify, could I have a quarter raise?  I got it, bringing me to the $6.25 and  bought the house.  A year later I was also a new bride.  We didn't have kids then, but money was tight with the house and I  became an extreme couponer, before it was in vogue.  My husband enjoyed the challenge of getting groceries for as little as possible and he took over the grocery shopping.  After we divorced, I had a hard time getting myself back into that same level of couponing.... by then I was the restaurant manager and my time with my kids was precious, I did not want to spend it at the grocery store.  Now that we are a family of 6, living mainly on Mike's salary, I still am not able to get back into the big coupon routine, although I am trying, but I am huge on other ways to save money in the family budget.  My big way right now is to make my own laundry soap.  It only takes about a half hour to make it and my laundry costs only about 3 cents per load for the soap.  WAY cheaper than the other soaps, works well in my "he" washer, cleans well, and smells good.  Quite a feat when I am doing laundry for teenage boys too.  I have my own 5 gallon bucket (penality of death to ANYONE, even hubby who touches my bucket) in which I keep laminated copies of my recipes.  Here is my laundry soap:

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or any other type bar soap
1/2 C washing soda
1/2 C Borax powder

Grate the soap (I use the food processor.  A hard bar like the Fels Naptha works best)
and put in a sauce pan.  Add 6 C water and heat until all the soap melts.  Add washing soda and Borax, stir until dissolved.  Remove from heat.  Pour 4 C hot water into your bucket.  Now add your soap mixture to it and stir.  Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir again. 

Now, some people leave it in the bucket, I saved some laundry soap bottles and at this point I use a funnel and pour it into these bottles.  Much more convienient for me to store these that way.  The soap needs to sit for about 24 hours before you use it.  It will now be a watery gel.  Be sure to shake it or stir it before each use.  Use 1/2 cup per load.  This is low sudsing soap and if you do not see suds, that is OK.  The ingredients clean, not the suds.

We have been using this for about a year and it works great!