What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[BDutch]

RECIPE (from internet)
To make 1 liter of laundry detergent (whites) you need:
20 grams of soda (not baking soda). 20 grams of a bar of washing soap / Marseille soap / Sunlight soap. 1000 ml of water. Fragrance oil.

WHAT TO DO
Put the water in a pan and bring to the boil. Grate the soap and add it to the boiling water. Stir and wait until the soap has dissolved. Add the soda and 5 drops of oil. Turn off the heat and let the detergent cool down. When it is lukewarm, stir again and pour the mixture into the bottle using a funnel. Let the bottle cool down completely when it is open. The detergent will thicken considerably. Shake the bottle occasionally so that your detergent is still pourable. Use approximately 70 ml per wash.

—-
I used this recipe, but made a personal change. I dont use fragrance oil and like to mix the self made detergent with ⅓ detergent from the shop. The shop detergent makes the detergent from the recipe more fluid and it improves the cleanliness with less detergent.

 

[Grannys Backyard Chicks]

I've made powdered laundry soap, but it didn't work well in my machine. Not that it didn't clean, the powder didn't travel from the dispenser cup into the drum. Liquid works much better for me. I haven't made liquid detergent. Maybe if I just put the powder in with the clothes...

I remember a blog from 15+ years ago and the woman listed the 5 things she'd stock up on for cleaning in a SHTF crisis scenario. I know baking soda and white (distilled) vinegar were on the list. I can't remember the other three for certain... borax? washing soda? They might have been on the list.

She said her #6 item would have been vodka. Being alcohol, it would have anti-icky properties. It would also be handy as an item for barter!

The recipe for laundry soap is liquid. I'm planning on making some this weekend if I can get the ingredients. Will let you know how it works.
#6 Vodka

 

[Grannys Backyard Chicks]

RECIPE (from internet)
To make 1 liter of laundry detergent (whites) you need:
20 grams of soda (not baking soda). 20 grams of a soap tablet / Marseille soap / Sunlight soap. 1000 ml of water. Fragrance oil.

WHAT TO DO
Put the water in a pan and bring to the boil. Grate the soap and add it to the boiling water. Stir and wait until the soap has dissolved. Add the soda and 5 drops of oil. Turn off the heat and let the detergent cool down. When it is lukewarm, stir again and pour the mixture into the bottle using a funnel. Let the bottle cool down completely when it is open. The detergent will thicken considerably. Shake the bottle occasionally so that your detergent is still pourable. Use approximately 70 ml per wash.

—-
I used this recipe, but made a personal change. I dont use fragrance oil and like to mix the self made detergent with ⅓ detergent from the shop. The shop detergent makes the detergent from the recipe more fluid and it improves the cleanliness with less detergent.

Thank you !
I was wondering about the fragrance. Great idea mixing 1/3 shop detergent.

 

[BDutch]

More detergent tips:
For colour detergent just don’t add any soda. Otherwise its the same recipe.

In the mean time I have been reading about soap bars you can use: if you use Aleppo soap or olive soap it doesn’t get thick like detergent made from a soap bar with palm oil.

I don’t know which soap bars (TM) you can buy in the US.

 

[alwaystj9]

I've made the liquid laundry soap many times. Sometimes the ingredients can be a challenge to find. The recipe makes a lot, I have a dedicated 3 gallon bucket to mix it and several old laundry soap containers that I store it in. This is the recipe I use.
Liquid Laundry Soap
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1 cup liquid castile soap unscented or scented
15 cups water divided
Essential oil optional for scent (I do not use essential oil, it will take a good bit for a whole batch)
In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, bring 6 cups of water to a slight boil. Once the water begins to boil, turn off the burner.
Add the Borax and washing soda. Stir to dissolve.
Then add 9 cups of room-temperature water and 1 cup of liquid castile soap. Give the ingredients a stir to combine.
Allow the soap to cool for a few minutes before pouring into one large gallon-size jar or smaller containers, like quart-size jars. Make sure your jar(s) are heat-safe. If not, wait until the soap is cool, then spoon the soap into the jar(s).
If you're reusing an old detergent bottle, make sure the soap is fully cool before adding to a plastic container. Add an essential oil of choice (if using) to the soap (now in the jar) and stir to combine with the detergent.
The essential oil should add a subtle fragrance, but shouldn't be added until the soap cools as heat will cause the essential oil to evaporate.
As the soap sits, the mixture may form into a gel and become chunky. There may also be liquid and gel separation, simply stir or shake. This is normal. I shake mine up each time I use it. I use about 1/2 cup for large top load washer, I think a front load uses much less but I don't know.

 

[Sally PB]

http://nwedible.com/top-5-cleaning-products-to-hoard-for-the-zombie-apocalypse/

Ok, I mis-remembered. Not baking soda, washing soda.

I really enjoyed this blog when Erica was posting. The most recent was from 2018.

 

[gtaus]

Kitchen Compost Bin Flash Sale at Menards

Dear Wife and I have been using empty ice cream pails to hold our kitchen scraps and leftovers ever since we got a backyard flock. It's hard to beat a no cost solution. Every morning, I take out the kitchen pail and give the contents to the chickens. It's free food for us to give to the chickens, and it's an absolute treat for them.

Or, maybe you don't have chickens but need a container to hold kitchen stuff until you can bring it out to the compost bin.

Not everyone might like the looks of having an empty ice cream pail on their kitchen counter. In that respect, I just received a Flash Sale email from Menards on this Kitchen Compost Bin that might be of interest to some of you...

Looks pretty good to me, plus options to hang it on a rack or cupboard shelve or stick inside the freezer.

These flash sales at Menards tend to sell out fast. However, every once in a while, a product may come back in a few months on another flash sale. I got myself on their email list for these flash sales and have purchased a few things this past year at significant savings. I have also missed out on a number of items that I wanted because they sold out so fast. Well, the emails are free. You might find something on a flash sale that has value to you and save a lot of money.

 

[TooCheep]

Kitchen Compost Bin Flash Sale at Menards

Dear Wife and I have been using empty ice cream pails to hold our kitchen scraps and leftovers ever since we got a backyard flock. It's hard to beat a no cost solution. Every morning, I take out the kitchen pail and give the contents to the chickens. It's free food for us to give to the chickens, and it's an absolute treat for them.

Or, maybe you don't have chickens but need a container to hold kitchen stuff until you can bring it out to the compost bin.

Not everyone might like the looks of having an empty ice cream pail on their kitchen counter. In that respect, I just received a Flash Sale email from Menards on this Kitchen Compost Bin that might be of interest to some of you...

View attachment 3926176

Looks pretty good to me, plus options to hang it on a rack or cupboard shelve or stick inside the freezer.

These flash sales at Menards tend to sell out fast. However, every once in a while, a product may come back in a few months on another flash sale. I got myself on their email list for these flash sales and have purchased a few things this past year at significant savings. I have also missed out on a number of items that I wanted because they sold out so fast. Well, the emails are free. You might find something on a flash sale that has value to you and save a lot of money.

This is almost gone. Likely won't be there past today. That said, I use an old coffee canister for the same function. Collect coffee grounds, tea bags and vegetable scraps and throw them out in my compost pile periodically.

 

[TooCheep]

Not a frugal tip, but just wanted to report a recent case of shrinkflation I just encountered. Meijer (regional Walmart competitor) periodically has a good deal on Eckrich Smoked Sausage or Kielbasa ropes that I like. They are normally $3.29 for 14oz, but periodically go on sale and you pay $2.29 when you get 5+.

Went in yesterday to buy 5 and noticed they were only 13oz in the same packaging. Sigh... Just another 7.7% inflation.

 

[gtaus]

This is almost gone. Likely won't be there past today. That said, I use an old coffee canister for the same function. Collect coffee grounds, tea bags and vegetable scraps and throw them out in my compost pile periodically.

The only real advantage to that Kitchen Compost Bin is that it probably looks a little better than my old ice cream bucket. Any container would work, of course, but I know some people might not want used food containers on their kitchen countertop whereas that Kitchen Compost Bin looks better to them. Maybe that would encourage some people to save those kitchen scraps and leftovers for composting and/or feeding them to the chickens.

The other point, of course, is that those Menards Flash Sale emails sometimes contain products at heavily discounted prices and you can save a lot of money.

Last year, I bought a Kreg Crosscut Station from a Menard's Flash Sale email notice. Normal price was over $50.00 at the time, but they had them on Flash Sale for less than $10.00.

They sold out fast at that price, but after another month or so, they had more stock and relisted them on their Flash Sale emails. So, even if you miss out on a good deal, sometimes it will come back.

BTW, here is the current listing of the Kreg Crosscut Station on Amazon...

I see the regular price on Amazon has dropped recently, but still way more than my $10 Menard's Flash Sale email price last year. FWIW, I would agree with that 4.5 star rating on that product. If I don't have my much more expensive miter saw set up in the garage, I can use that inexpensive jig with my circular saw and get near perfect cuts. Or, sometimes I need to cut boards out in the yard and this portable jig with my battery-operated circular saw is my mobile solution.