Best $20 I've spent in a long time.

I've been meaning to share this tid bit of information with you for a while, but after this weekend, I can no longer keep this secret to myself.

With school back in full swing, I threw in a load of clothes on Sunday afternoon that was mainly uniform stuff.  Khaki shorts, undershirts, light colored polos, etc.  The ones I have to special order from Land's End with the school logo and I wait all summer long to get the best deal, coupons and free shipping codes on.  You know, so I can sleep at night knowing I got the best deal possible.

Because me sleeping well really does depend on knowing I've made the best decision about how to spend our money.  No, I wish I could tell you I'm kidding.

Random tangent. 

Anyway, Kenny was downstairs at some point and threw that load in the dryer for me and a little later I went down to see if they were dry.  When I opened the dryer, the first thing I noticed, other than the clothes were still a little damp, was lovely purple and pink spots.

All.  Over.  Everything.

To make a medium length story slightly shorter, I eventually found the culprit in the shape of a monkey stamp.  Complete with purple ink.  Which apparently was obtained for good behavior from a certain little boy's kindergarten treasure box.

I'll be honest.  For a few minutes, I was livid.  As I surveyed the damage, I was mentally tallying how much it was going to cost to replace the whole load. 

Side note.  As I stood there going through the load, the Lord gently reminded me that it was just "stuff".  It really didn't matter.  We were talking about shirts and shorts.  Something that could be easily replace.  Sure, it was gonna cost a little, but in the long run, it really wasn't that big of a deal. 

Deep breath.  Chill out.

In my effort to not flip out further, I took the whole load and threw it back in the washer, just hoping to undo some of the damage, but honestly not really holding my breath.  It was more of an avoidance attack...I needed to stop looking at it and figure out what the boys were gonna wear to school on Monday.

Here's the tid bit of information I promised...

Back in May, I jumped on the "make your own laundry detergent" bandwagon.  I bought the supplies and created the concoction, all the while with my doubts about how well it would actually work.

I checked the load after that wash and was pleasantly surprised to find that all the "purple" damage was gone.  Only pink remained.  So I went for broke, started it back up again, putting a double scoop of detergent in.

Jackpot!  In the end, after 3 washes with my homemade detergent, I only have one polo that I am still doing battle with.  And I only had to pretreat a few of the items to get them back to their pre-monkey-stamped condition.

I went from a full load of ruined clothes to just regular 'ol clean clothes!!  I was so excited...and totally shocked!  My $20 investment just saved me a ton!

It would be cruel at this point not to share the wealth after I've told you that it's a miracle detergent, so here ya go...

HOMEMADE LAUNDRY SOAP

My disclaimer.  Cause you know I'm gonna have one...

I only used 2 bars of Fels-Naptha.  Mainly because for some reason I only bought 2, instead of 3.  All of this stuff can be found in the laundry detergent aisle at Wal-mart, and yes, it was about $20 and I'm about a third of the way through mine in 3 months.  So, I'm guessing it'll last somewhere between 6 and 9 months.  And I don't recommend using the food processor to grate the soap.  It just clumped up.  Hand grater took about 30 seconds and was way easier clean up. 

And bonus...this stuff smells AMAZING, even without adding anything to it!

But I'm a sucker for anything that just smells clean.

I don't know how much more evidence you need to come to the conclusion that this is good stuff! 

Sorry Tide, but we are officially broke up now.