Frugal Tips - Using What You Need - Laundry Detergent

I'm going to try to show you some of the many ways we live below our means. Many of these things I have done for years, but some I have just implemented from learning from my online friends.

I'm going to go through each room in my home, starting with the laundry room.

First off, my family is either the cleanest family alive, or the dirtiest. I haven't figured it out yet. We constantly have a mountain of laundry!

Several years ago, when our washer went ka-put and I had to drag everything to the laundrymat daily for a week or so, I bought one of those little tiny, ultra concentrated bottles of all. Because after all, who wants to lug around a big bottle.

It was at this first trip to the laundrymat, when I had absolutely nothing to do for about 30 minutes while the washers did their thing, that I realized that I had been filling the laundry detergent to the top of the cap for each load. However, there is a little line about halfway on the cap that says "one load."

Next day, I filled it to where it says for "one load," I couldn't tell a bit of difference. It still got my clothes clean. So I began a quest to see "how low I could go" before it didn't work.

After emptying this little bottle, I refilled it with the other detergents I got and used the same amount. The other detergents were not the 2x or 3x ultra concentrated. They were the plain liquid detergents. I used the same amount as before (half a small capful). They still come out clean.

I measured the savings out. If you use the recommended amount on regular detergent bottles, you use about 1/2 cup per load. Using the small bottle method, you use 1/4 c. load.

This is one easy way of s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g your $$$.