Finally! Laundry detergent, homemade edition.

I'm posting this today without photos because my editing rig is on the fritz. I'm going to edit the article to add the photos tomorrow. If you follow at twitter.com/KJManBlawg you can hear as soon as I've finished the edit tomorrow!

Hey everyone, I've been saying over the past couple days I was going to post my laundry detergent recipe, so here it is! I've been making this since 2006 and it has saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to date. I've lived in a few states in the past four years so at times the ingredients for making this have been harder to come by. That said, here's what you'll need to make this awesome stuff.

• Fel's Naptha Bar Laundry Soap. This isn't sold in any stores local to me so I had to order it online and have it shipped to a local Ace Hardware.
• 20 Mule Team Borax. A general laundry booster, even if you don't like the end result of this detergent you can use borax to clean many surfaces and to help your regular detergent.
• Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. Again, a general laundry booster, you can use it pretty for most of the same things as Borax.
• 2 Gallons of water. I usually throw my gallon jugs away on accident so typically I buy new ones each time I make this. If you save your jugs you can save even more money with this.

You start out by put six cups of water into a very large pot and set it to medium heat. While this is warming up, cut 1/3 off the bar of Naptha and either grate it or chop it down into smaller bits and throw it in a food processor. I do the second method because it's so much easier. Grind it up until you've got a fine powder with a few larger chunks of soap left. Mix this into your heated water until it is completely dissolved.

Now that's all dissolved, measure out ½ cup each Borax and Washing Soda. Slowly, without increasing the heat, stir these in. If your water is simmering at all it is too hot and this stuff will foam up like mad. Take your time stirring it in as if you stir too violently it'll also foam up. Once foaming starts it's really hard to work with this mix.

Anyway, once you've got everything mixed in let it settle down for a couple minutes, then slowly increase the heat until the mix is boiling. Boil for 15 minutes. While it's boiling heat up another quart of water until it's somewhat hot. When the mix is almost done pour the hot water into a bucket (something 3-5 gallons will work) then add the mixture and stir. Then add enough cold water to bring it to two gallons. Mix it all until it's well blended then let it set for a full day. If done correctly the whole thing will gel!

That's pretty much it! You'll use ½ cup per load and it won't get all sudsy but it works really well. It will separate when it's sitting around since we don't add any stabilizers or anything to the mix so you'll need to shake it up before using. Like I said before if you don't like the end result you can still use the borax and washing soda to aide your regular detergent and you can rub the naptha onto stains to help remove them.

Thanks for dropping by everyone, sorry to keep you waiting on the topic for longer than expected!

tl;dr?

• 1/3 bar Fel's Naptha, ground to powder or grated
• 1/2 cup Borax
• 1/2 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
• 2 gallons water

• Heat 6 cups water, mix in Naptha until dissolved
• Mix in Borax and Washing Soda until dissolved
• Bring to a boil for 15 minutes then remove from heat
• In a 3-5 gallon bucket put 1 quart hot water, add soap mixture and stir
• Add enough cold water to make two gallons, mix thoroughly and let sit 24 hours
• Enjoy!

-- The only constant is change --

Part 2: It's not a suggestion, it's an order.

Yesterday I started talking about saving money and today will continue with this discussion!

My big find this week (got my J senses tingling hardcore!) was on Amazon.com. I've noticed in the past they have a way you can subscribe to order items you use on a regular basis. For my house it's razor blades. I don't shave but my wife does and goes through a blade every week or so. In-case you didn't notice, these things are damn expensive - often times $2-$4 per cartridge in grocery stores! Well...


Check 'em

This doesn't look like how I wanted...
Anyway, I just bought these cartridges yesterday and by subscribing I saved 15% plus I got free shipping. It ended up pricing out around $1.40 per cartridge!!1! Everyone should check this subscription stuff out, you never know what you might find!

Edit: A side note is that the price I quoted above per cartridge was true at time of publishing, it seems the price of these blades has gone up now! Sorry for any unintended deception!

-- The only constant is change --

Part 1: Don't spend more than you have to...

As you may have noticed, I only transcribed a small amount of this post before I was so tired I had to sleep. Finishing it up now. If you didn't notice this change, ignore my warning! :D

Hey everyone! I’m writing this at work today. They put me in guest services where I have access to the computer all night. I tried rambling for a bit and discovered I wanted to talk about saving money today!




First of all, I recently bought tons of new clothes. Prior to this spending spree, I hadn't really bought much clothing wise in almost five years! Well my wife got a new job and needed to look for some new stuff so we went to the local Goodwill.





Not only does GWI employ those who might have trouble finding work otherwise, they benefit the community AND you can find amazing deals there! I ended up buying 5 pairs of pants, 4 ties, 2 vests, a new pair of shoes (with wooden soles!) all for less than $50. If you need anything you should really check your local Goodwill stores, you never know what you might find.

Keeping in theme, do you check out any sites for daily deals? A lot of sites have sales that are good for one day only and I have found some amazing purchases in the past. I'm a big fan of Woot.com and their sub-domains: Shirt.Woot and Wine.Woot mainly. I once found a vacuum for a family member that retailed for over $500 for only $249 ($5 shipping on everything except shirts, which have free shipping!) Shirt.Woot features a variety of unique shirts that range from artistic to humorous and change every week. Wine.Woot sells wines and wine accessories at awesome prices as well as all kinds of other stuff (I got wine filled chocolates around Valentine's day one year). They also have Kids.Woot and Deals.Woot, something more akin to a toy store and a deal aggregator, respectively.


Lengthy post this is turning into, eh? And quite the Woot.com testimonial. I've decided to split this post up and finish it off tomorrow, lest I hear cries of tl;dr and need to comfort myself. Thanks for tuning in everyone, talk to you again soon!

-- The only constant is change --