"Mom? Are those balls in the dryer??"

Now on to drying.

A few weeks ago we were shopping at Toys R Us (the boys have birthday and Christmas money to spend!) and   I had some TRU Rewards to spend from Christmas shopping.  The boys picked out their new toys and as we were heading toward the cash registers, I saw that they had the Totally Toddler items Buy One, Get One Free so I snatched up two boxes of dryer balls.  I'd been wanting to try them out.

I immediately put two of them in the dryer.  As far as softness goes, I don't know if I've ever pulled my clothes out of the dryer and thought "wow, these sure are stiff clothes..."  So they've done their job as far as that goes.  One thing they don't do so well at is reducing static.  So I looked up a few ways to combat that.  I settled on a rag pinned with a few safety pins.  And that's not really working either.  So my next step is to use 1/2 c. of vinegar in the rinse cycle of my washing.  Even with the static, we're still using the dryer balls.

The cost of the dryer balls was $10.98 each, BUT they were buy one get one free (2 balls come in each package) so now it's $10.98 for two packs.  I had coupons totaling $9 off my purchase so I paid around $2 for two packs of dryer balls that should last me AT LEAST a year per each set.

Score!

My new way to do laundry

At least a load a day.  That's how much laundry I need to do to keep up with a family of five. At least.  If someone has an incident with urine (I have an occasional night time pee-er) or a toddler decides to spill his sippy cup on my bed, I have another load of bedding to do.  My boys seem to go through a ton of clothes, too.

I used to make my own detergent. Before we moved to Maryland from Kentucky, I made my own detergent from Borax, washing soda, and Fels Naptha.  I made larges batches of it at once.  It was super cheap to make and relatively easy.  But it's cleaning ability...well, it wasn't the greatest.  I didn't notice it at first, but after awhile I could see that my clothes seemed kind of dingy and didn't appear as clean as with commercial detergent.  It really wasn't as effective as I was hoping.  I know some people, well, lots of people, make their own detergent and LOVE it!  I'm just not one of those people anymore.  :(  Which is too bad...it was the most cost effective way to wash my clothes!  (Price comparisons will be at the end)

Anyway, I buy Purex or Arm & Hammer detergent, when it's on sale and I'll occasionally have a coupon (for Arm & Hammer).  I've had a nice little stockpile of detergent going on for awhile, but when we realized we'd be leaving here sooner than originally anticipated, I realized I needed to use up my stockpile before we moved.  You can't have detergent packed by the movers.  So I'm down to my last bottle.  But....I've found something new to replace my bottles of detergent.

Soap Nuts.

(insert a head tilt and a "huh?" here)

What on earth am I talking about, right? Soap nuts are dried shells from the soapberry.  The berries are the fruit from a unique tree species.  The shells contain a substance called saponin that produces a soaping effect. These "nuts" have been used for a very LONG time by people in the Himalayan region and have been recognized throughout the world for their green way of cleaning.  Ok....that may be a lot of talk that doesn't say anything so I'll give you my take on soap nuts.

Soap nuts are little dried round "nuts" that when used in your laundry release saponin into the water and clean your clothes.  That's it.  And here's how you do it.  You order your soap nuts (unless you know of a place that sells them locally, which I don't) and wait impatiently for them to arrive.  :)  When it's time to do laundry, you place 4-6 soap nuts (I use 5) in a drawstring muslin bag (that you'll likely get with your order).  You throw the whole bag in washer and that's it.  They get wet, the release the saponin, and clean your clothes.

So I know you're skeptical and thinking...uh, no way.  But I'll tell you...they work!!! :)  Now, if you have a tough stain, you'll need to pre-treat, just like you would with regular detergent, but the soapnuts work!  They have a slight vinegar smell, but my clothes have never smelled like vinegar.  They don't smell like anything...they are just clean.  They say your soap nuts will last for 4-6 washes (more for cold water, less for hot water).  When they turn light tan, get squishy, fall apart.  Then you replace them.  I will say that I'm on load 7 of the same nuts and I wash 90% of our clothes in cold water.  I'm a soap nut convert.

Ok, the price comparison:

Homemade laundry detergent:
I calculated out what it took to make a batch.  I don't have the calculations anymore, but I know the cost was less than 2 cents per load.  Yep, that cheap.  So, by far, the cheapest detergent.  Unfortunately not the most effective.

Commercial detergent:
My price point for store bought detergent is $2.50-$3.00 for a 32 load bottle.  At $3 that averages out to 9.3 cents per load.  

SoapNuts:

I bought 1 pound of soapnuts for $19.95 (I've since found them a little cheaper, but it is what it is now. :)  I counted how many soap nuts that was for me, the count will vary each time based on the size of each individual nut, and I had 155 nuts.  I use 5 nuts per wash so that will give me 31 refills.  (155/5=31)  If each refill gets me 8 loads (I've already done 7 and I know they will go at least another load) that will give me 248 loads of laundry. That is 8 cents per load.  If I can get each refill to last just one more load, my cost goes down to 7.1 cents per load.  If I would have scored my soap nuts at a better price (but I'm happy with what I paid) then my per load cost goes down again.

So, I no longer have to buy bottles of detergent.  It saves space (not a ton, but space is space when there's five of us!), saves on the use of plastic bottles and commercial additives.  Soap nuts are green, cost effective, easy, and kinda fun! (I'm a dork, I know!!)  I hope I continue to be pleased with the results.  :)

Ok, next post on my dryer update!

Mama's gotta work (to save the money...)

Ok, so here are the other things I wanted to talk about.  So as a family of five on a single income, I'm forever searching for ways to stretch our money.  Any saving I can do on our expenses, to free up some money for getting to fun stuff with the boys, is what I work hard to do.  Here are some of the things that I've been doing lately to save some of our hard earned moolah.  :)

Mystery Shopping
I've only had the opportunity to do this once locally.  I hope to get one more shop in before we move.  I visited a local salon and had a shampoo, cut, trim, and my eyebrows waxed for free.  :)  I paid the total and tip after my service, came home and wrote up a report and submitted it.  They checked it out, approved it, and sent me a check.  Ok, so that didn't "earn" me money, but I got to get some pampering done and it didn't cost me anything.  :)

Using ShopAtHome
So over the holidays, I did nearly all of my Christmas shopping online.  It's very difficult to get out and go shopping for gifts with three kids in tow.  Especially if the gifts are for them.  This year, I really took advantage of using ShopAtHome for my purchases.  If you aren't familiar, this is the general idea...you go to ShopAtHome, sign in, find the store you're looking for and start shopping. Then ShopAtHome pays you a percentage of cash back.  The percentage is based on the company.  For instance, at Toys R Us, I got 1% back, but at Snapfish, I got 12% back.  It all adds up and when you get to $20, they send you a check.  Over Christmas, I earned $45!  It doesn't cost anything and it's super easy...so I LOVE it!!

Ooma
What on earth is Ooma?  :)  Ooma is Free Home Phone Service.  You buy an Ooma device (looks like a black box), you hook it up to your cable/dsl internet connection, you hook the other end up to your regular home phone...now you have phone service.  You pay a one time fee to buy an Ooma box (which is then yours to have forever).  The box can seem costly to start with ($160 for a refurbished model directly from Ooma), however, the savings are great.  After you buy the box and hook it up, you have home phone service...for FREE!  Ok, the disclaimer here is that you still have to pay applicable taxes every month.  But it's not fees that Ooma charges...they are the Regulatory Compliance Fee, 911 Service Fee, Federal Universal Service Charge, and State and Local taxes.  And it's about $3.47 a month.  Less than $4.00 a month for phone service.  Now, I know lots of people are cell only families, but to me, I want to have a reliable phone for my boys to use should there be an emergency.  And we've been a VoIP family for years now, so this isn't an adjustment for us.  Saving $30 a month will be wonderful, though. :)

Ok, I have a few more things to blog about, but this post is already longer than all of my posts from last week combined.  So, I'll wrap this one up and blog again tomorrow...about SoapNuts and dryer balls.  :)