Saving money is always a good thing. Some save by using coupons, others by cutting back on purchases, but on some necessary items cutting back is not an option. Unless a national brand product is on sale…at a great price…I almost always purchase store brands of products. In our home, purchasing generic laundry soap is a necessity. I cringe everytime I see that $15-20 price tag on the large bottles of Tide, Cheer, etc.

I have shared my laundry soap recipe here before, but today I am sharing someone else’s recipe. Many of you are familiar with the Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar Family with 18 beautiful children and their television series. While looking for a tator tot casserole recipe for My Hero, I came across Michelle Duggar’s recipe for laundry soap. Though it called for the same ingredients as the recipe I have been using, the amounts and directions were different. After giving her recipe a try this time, I believe that I prefer her method rather than mine. Check out her LAUNDRY SOAP RECIPE.

The Duggars also have a new book The Duggars: 20 and Counting!: Raising One of America’s Largest Families–How they Do It that answers questions that many of us have about their amazing family.

Michele’s original recipe calls for a Fels-Naptha Bar, but I used a bit over one bar of pink Zote Soap in my version, which gives it a nice pinkish shimmer. There is a  white Zote Laundry Soap  that I have found online, but not in my local store yet. You will notice in the photo that I have reused older detergent bottles, but some of the mixture is stored in a recycled juice jug. I just could not throw any of it out…so I stole My Hero’s water jug.

Guestimating the current cost of each of the containers, I figure we saved around $54 with making my own soap. Those boxes of borax and washing soda were purchased well over a year ago..so it almost feels as if this was all free. Not knowing how to figure the energy usage cost, we did not take that out of the total..but I do know that the supply cost is around $2. Not bad!