Making Our Own Laundry Detergent

My favorite show on TV is Jon and Kate Plus 8 on TLC. Right after it another show comes on about a family with 17 kids! The funny thing about that show is that the parents were in our church when we lived in Arkansas (they were in High School and I was a kid). Anyway, they did a show about being frugal with their money and talked about making their own laundry detergent. I researched it and found out about how much cheaper it is and how much better it is for the environment and decided to try it out. I bought all the ingredients for about $8 and I think it's enough to make the detergent recipe 3 times which should be enough to get us through the year. So, I'll be spending $8 a year on laundry detergent instead of $72 (which is approximately what I was spending on the Kirkland brand at Costco). In the grand scheme of things $64 isn't a ton of money, but if you can find little things like this to do in different areas all over your life then it can really add up.
I used the following recipe that I found at tipnut:
1 quart Water (boiling)
2 cups Bar soap (grated)
2 cups Borax
2 cups Washing Soda
Add finely grated bar soap to the boiling water and stir until soap is melted. You can keep on low heat until soap is melted.
Pour the soap water into a large, clean pail and add the Borax and Washing Soda. Stir well until all is dissolved.
Add 2 gallons of water, stir until well mixed.
Cover pail and use 1/4 cup for each load of laundry. Stir the soap each time you use it (will gel).

I ended up using a funnel and pouring the detergent from the Home Depot bucket into an old laundry detergent holder that I had. Now I can just shake it up before I use it.

Ingredients

Grated Soap

Final Product