Homemade Laundry Detergent - the math

I had a couple of requests to talk about my laundry detergent, so I decided to focus on the money aspect in this post. With the economy like it is I know everyone is trying to save where they can. Be forewarned - I am not a math person, there is a reason I write for a living, so do not expect all of the numbers below to be 100% correct. Thank you for your understanding.

I've been making my own laundry detergent since August, here is the post where you can find the laundry detergent recipe I use. I really like it, it works great on the littlest man's clothes. He's 3 going on 4, so that's saying A LOT! It also lasts forever. I just made my third batch, so that works out to four months per batch. We average three loads a week, so that's 48 loads . The ALL Free & Clear we used to use says it has 32 loads. That's over a month's worth of laundry more! The ALL is about $8, so $.25 a load. Compare that to the numbers below.

Most of the stuff I just got at my local store, including the Dr. Bronner's for my first two batches. For this last batch, I ordered the last Dr. Bronner's from vitacost.com. Their prices are great and they have $4.99 shipping no matter how much you get. The soap I ordered was $2.80 per bar. I saw later they had a three pack for 2.39 per bar. I will definitely buy this one next time. That would make it $.08 per load!!

Conclusion - The homemade laundry detergent is DEFINITELY a good buy!!

The batch itself is a bit more than can fit into my biggest mason jar, so I put the extra in a smaller jar and gave it to a friend. She shared it with her mom and now they both are making their own laundry detergent. I cannot tell you how excited that makes me! I love hearing how I'm making an impact on people and how they view greenness and the planet.

I've been creating some other homemade things at the Green H - those posts will have to come later, it's late here and Shinerman has fallen asleep on the other couch - sorry Mom, sofa :)