3 ingredient D-I-Y Laundry Detergent (no boiling or grating!)

In an attempt to find easy ways to save money, I began looking online for ways to make my own laundry detergent. Many DIY laundry detergent recipes call for grating soap or boiling water.  

Some recipes make 10 gallons at once. I didn't want to DIY our laundry detergent and end up with 10 gallons because what if we didn't like the soap and then were stuck with 10 gallons!?  

Finally I found this recipe for laundry detergent.  It only takes 3 ingredients and has just 4 steps, this laundry soap was right up my alley!  

3 ingredients, 4 steps, 5 minutes.  People, it doesn't get any easier than that!

DIY Laundry Detergent Ingredients:

• Washing Soda
• Borax
• Dawn Dish Soap (Blue original)

DIY Laundry Detergent Instructions:

• Get an empty gallon jug
• Put in 3 T. washing soda, 3T. borax, and 2 T Dawn
• Pour in 4C hot water
• Once your laundry soap mixture is cool, top off the jug with cold water. Bubbles will overflow, that's okay.  Once bubbling stops, put cap on your new gallon jug of laundry soap and give yourself a high-five!

DIY Laundry Detergent Cost:

• Dawn soap-$2.64 at Walmart (I already had this on hand because it's also what we use to do dishes)
• Borax-$4.47 at Walmart
• Washing Soda-$4.12 at Walmart
• Gallon jug-Free, wash out a gallon of water or some other jug you already have around the house.

Total cost of your 3 ingredient laundry detergent:

$11.23

I can get at least 10 more gallons of this simple laundry detergent out of these supplies. Which means 11 gallons of laundry detergent for $11.23 total. 

Where else can you buy a gallon of laundry soap for $1.02?!?

Cost Comparison Tide Vs. DIY Laundry Detergent:

For 11 gallons of our 3 Ingredient Laundry Soap it costs $11.23 for 1,408 ounces. Price per ounce: 0.00797. 

I found this Tide at Walmart for $11.97 for 92 ounces. Since there are 128 ounces in a galloon, I would have to buy 15.03 bottles of this Tide to have the same 11 gallons of laundry soap. Rounding down to 15 bottles of Tide the cost would be  (15x11.97)= $179.55 (0.127 per ounce)

179.55 vs. $11.23

Making my own laundry detergent saves $168.32.  THAT is a huge savings!  Is DIY-ing my laundry soap, spending 5 minutes per gallon (55 minutes total for 11 gallons if we do it one gallon at a time) worth $168?!  YES.  I don't make $168 an hour so spending an hour of time to essentially "earn" that much money is definitely worth it.

But what if I buy less expensive laundry detergent? Should I still make my own?

YES! The least expensive brand I can find at Walmart is "Xtra" which costs 0.04/ounce which is $56.32 for 11 gallons. Versus $11.23 by making it yourself.  Your savings is $45.09 for 55 minutes of work!  Again, I don't make $45 an hour so it is STILL a huge savings to make my own laundry detergent.  Not having to boil or grate anything means this is the easiest laundry detergent recipe I've seen!

Fabric softener aka my kryptonite

I love my Downy liquid fabric softener.  You will pry it from my cold dead hands unless you have a fabulous copycat DIY recipe.  If you know how to make Downy at home, hit me up!  Otherwise that's a laundry product I'll keep buying at the store.