Natural Home Recipe: Homemade Powdered Laundry Soap

While I was pregnant I found that I had very little time or energy (or let's be honest, desire) to make my own laundry soap. I began buying Charlie's Soap and used that throughout my pregnancy and immediately after. While I love that soap it is a little pricey. 

I also hadn't been completely happy with my original homemade laundry soap recipe; it just wasn't doing a great job on our whites.

I tinkered. I came up with this:

DIY Powdered Laundry Soap
2 Cups Borax
2 Cups Washing Soda
2 Cups Baking Soda (No, I'm not picky about the type of baking soda for this recipe. Questions about aluminum and baking soda? Crunchy Betty has a great post on that here.)

 Yep, that's it. 

Scoop ingredients into your container and then put the lid on and give it a good shake. I sometimes mix it with a fork as well just to be sure the ingredients combine completely.

I use a Tablespoon as a scoop. (If you have an old Charlie's Soap container and scoop they will work perfectly).

Use 2 to 4 Tablespoons per load depending on the size of the load and how soiled it is. 

I have only ever used this in warm or hot water, so I cannot say how it would fair with cold water washes. Also, I only have a top-loading machine, so I cannot say how it would do in a front-loader. (If anyone tries this recipe in cold water or a front-loading machine please let us know how it does in the comments!)

I have used this recipe for about 5 months on all of our laundry except the cloth diapers. It may do fine for diapers, but I'm just not brave enough to try it (I'll share my cloth diaper wash routine in another post soon!).

 It does amazingly well! Even Baby O's white bibs come out great.

My laundry routine using this homemade soap recipe:

1. Pre-treat with Fels-Naptha. Any spots/stains that look like they may be a problem I pre-treat with a bar of Fels-Naptha. I simply wet the garment, scrub with the bar, and let sit a couple of minutes. Then add to the load.
2. Add the powder and let washer fill 1/4 to 1/2 way with warm or hot water before adding clothes. 
3. Add white vinegar in the rinse cycle. I used to make homemade fabric softener for this, but find that I don't really smell the vinegar or the essential oils once the clothes are dry. It seemed a waste of essential oils, so now I simply keep a gallon of white vinegar in the laundry room and add 1/4 to 1 cup to the rinse cycle (depending on what I'm washing, for example, hubby's work clothes get a full cup).

Have you tried making your own laundry soap? I'd love you to check back in the comments if you try this recipe!

Feel free to share links to my posts or to pin them, but do not re-post my full recipes on your blog, Pinterest, Tumblr, recipe sharing sites, or any other website (or publication). Please understand that blogging is my livelihood. 

Calm Before The Storm...

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This week was the calm before the storm. 

We did our chores. (In a pink fuzzy bear suit. Totally normal.)

It was homeschool as usual all week and Darran finished up a tractor he was working on. When work time was over there was lots of hiking, sledding, and playing in the sunshine.

We discovered Baby O's jogging stroller goes pretty danged good in the snow.

Red is totally over winter.

I tried to get back in the groove of a regular workout routine. I'm adding yoga twice a week. I think I'm going to need a little flexibility in my life.

My mother in law stopped by and brought Baby O a present.

Shock soaked up some rays.

Everything was basically business as usual around here and I made sure to enjoy every second. Because I knew what was coming...

Today is Sunday. Hello crazy-busy storm.

Darran is off getting equipment ready for a job he starts tomorrow hauling scrap iron. (I allowed myself to stress a bit this week about how we were going to buy some of the things we need to get started with the house. Sawmill blades, concrete... Silly me, it always works out.) Though we'll still need to keep our budget tight, this job should help pay for most of what we need to get started building, but it will also keep Darran gone more days and longer hours than we're used to.

And me? I am trying to wash diapers, clean the house for the week, write something for my fitness blog (and this blog of course), plan our homeschool week, do a bit of meal prep, and just overall get a jump on a week (or two or three) that I know Darran will not be around to help out as much as usual. All while wearing Baby O. in our Moby wrap because she is a bit fussy/cranky (teething maybe?) and trying to keep two rowdy boys in check.

Before I sat down to write this post I was beginning to feel majorly stressed. I took this time to give myself a little talking to. To remind myself to focus on being grateful for the amazingness happening in our lives right now and that it will all work out fine. Worrying and stressing will do nothing but make the journey less fun. I'm prioritizing what I need to get done and what I can let go of (this was supposed to be a Paleo recipe post. Sigh.). Most of all I'm reminding myself that this is merely a season in our lives and it shall pass. Meanwhile the light at the end of the tunnel is a beautiful sight.

So, bring it on crazy-busy storm. I'm ready.

HOME

Yesterday Darran, the kids, and I went out to hike around and check out possible sites for the house. Darran had 4 spots in mind for me to look at. He chose them for sensible things like proximity to existing water and best spots for solar/wind energy. I however was scrutinizing them for important things like how good was the view and the cell service. Priorities.

If we're friends on Facebook or Instagram you have already seen sites 1 and 2. Sites 3 and 4 had no view of Pikes Peak. Total deal-breaker for me.

View from site 1

View from site 2

I've fallen passionately in love with site 1. It's perfect. It's at the edge of the trees so there's a little shelter from the weather, but towards the east opens up to pasture. The view is beyond and, well, it had the best cell service. You know, in case I need to instagram a funny goat video, er, I mean, you have to be safe in case of an emergency!

Darran agrees it's a sensible spot. I will happily cook on my wood-burning cook stove and wash my dishes by hand while gazing out the window here.

More views from site 1:

This is looking East from where the house will be. I can just see a new goatopia here for Ellie and Fiona. Also, a new home for the chickens and maybe even the garden spot. Oh, and did I mention I want a milk cow?
All. The. Critters.

Where I want the house. Nothing is set in stone, but I'm in love with this spot!

Video standing where the house would go. No sound but wind, and a little shaky. Working on getting better with video!

Most of all: it feels like home already.

After that little excursion I'm so happy-excited-eager that Darran is lucky it's winter. Seriously, I'd be out there in a tent... hoping my laptop battery held up?

And now: the work begins...

Debt-Free, It's The New Black

After last week's post I have had a ton of questions about one thing: how we paid off so much debt in so short a time. I decided to just dedicate a post to this.

Please note, I am simply sharing my experience. I'm no financial expert. 

Darran and I did pay off about $80,000 in debt in just over 2 years. This included all of our debt except our mortgage. Credit cards, car loans, everything. How? How? How? Everyone wants to know. 

Well, this is what we did...

Get ON-FIRE passionate about it. I cannot stress this one enough. This process was not easy. Not. At. All. Had we not been so passionate about it we would have caved long before we paid it all off. I was so on-fire passionate; I was going to KILL ALL THE DEBT and nothing was going to stop me. Debt was the enemy, it was the one thing keeping me from freedom and everything I wanted in life. Sound a bit intense? Maybe, but I believe it's necessary.

Draw a line in the sand. The first task we performed was to cut up our credit cards and agree to no more debt. None. Ever. From that point forward we were committed to never again use a credit card, take out a loan for a car, or incur any type of debt ever again. I realize this may sound extreme, but again I believe it a necessary part of how we got this done. (We then scrounged and put $1000 in a savings account before paying any debt to have a buffer from the little things that just tend to happen in life. It may seem controversial, but we put no other money in savings or retirement during the time we were paying debt.)

The Debt-Snowball. I didn't believe it in the beginning, but the debt-snowball is essential. Basically the debt-snowball is writing down all of your debts from smallest amount to largest, then pay every penny you can to KILL the smallest debt while only paying minimums on the others. Once you've killed that smallest debt take all the money you were putting toward that (and every spare penny) and pay that towards the next smallest debt. On and on until you pay them all off. It works.

Sell all the things. Ebay, Craig's List, garage sales, wherever. We sold everything we didn't absolutely need or absolutely love. Every penny went towards debt. 

Become the Queen of Cheap. I became a master couponer and bargain shopper. If I bought anything (which I deemed absolutely necessary or I didn't buy it) I made sure to get the best deal I could. Shop around, use coupons, wait for sales, wait for a coupon AND a sale... Also, always pay cash. It keeps you mindful.

Be willing to forego luxuries now for freedom later. There was a lot of sacrifice involved in getting this done in 2 years. A lot. We cut our cable, we shut off our land-line phone, we didn't go out to eat, we saved electricity where we could, I made our laundry soap (which I enjoyed and still do), I was uber careful with gas in my car and didn't waste trips, we didn't buy anything we felt we could get along without.... We lived so, so, so lean. On what we were making we had to in order to free up enough money to get the debt paid. It may seem tough, but it's worth it more than I can tell you!

And that, in a nutshell, is what we did! Any more questions that I didn't answer? Feel free to leave them in the comments below. Again, I'm no expert and can only answer from our experience.

Dreams Do Come True

I've been writing this post in my head for close to two months. You may want to grab a cup of coffee and sit a spell...

Long story short: all of our dreams are coming true. Hooray! Thanks for stopping by. 

Oh, OK, long story long:

Several years ago (5... 6?) Darran and I decided that we wanted to take to the woods. At that time we were thinking it would be out of state. Wyoming or Montana perhaps. Our life dream was to move to land, build our own off-grid house, and raise a passel of kids and animals. We wanted to grow our own food and just get back to a simpler way of living. "Wanted" seems not descriptive enough; it called to us from deep down to our toes. I craved it from my soul.

However, all of this seemed quite impossible from that starting point, from where we were at the time. We were deep in debt and living paycheck to paycheck, usually coming up short. How on Earth would we ever get financially free enough while at the same time freeing up enough of our time to do this crazy thing?

Doing the "impossible" soon became our norm.

It was a long road, but looking back it was just as it needed to be. We learned a lot; especially to believe in ourselves and each other.

First, we needed to kill a whole lot of debt. A whole lot. On what we were making at the time it looked completely impossible. So, I did what I do best and set to researching. I devoured a lot of books on finances (Dave Ramsey was a favorite) and made a plan. I locked on to the fact that no debt would equal freedom.

We lived lean, and I mean LEAN. I remember getting holes in the knees of my last pair of jeans and deciding I'd simply rock that look. We shut off our land line phone and our dish cable. We cut every single expense we could. I sold some stuff on ebay and Darran hauled some scrap iron. We scrounged every extra penny we could to kill the debt (I was laser focused).

It was rough, but it was absolutely worth it. From 2007 to late 2009/ early 2010 we paid off about $80,000 in debt. We paid off all of our debt except the mortgage. Looking back and crunching numbers I have no idea how we did it. On what we were making it should have been impossible. 

The next step was to free up Darran's time. I was already staying home with the kids and blogging by this point, but he was working a full time job with long hours and a long commute. No way we could do this thing with him never here! This again looked impossible. We needed him to have a job for the security, right?

In November or December of 2011 we took a leap of faith and Darran left that job. Many thought we were crazy, but it was one of the best choices we've ever made. Now he does his own thing. Odd jobs. Fixing someone's tractor, building fence, welding, whatever, but his time is his own.

I like to joke that we're jobless hippies, but we worked (and still work) hard for the freedom we have. 

2012 was sort of a test year to see how the income stream would work out. We still lived cheap, but not as lean as we had to in the debt-killing phase. Things went amazingly well and the beginning of 2013 we decided it was time to take this show on the road! 

Many a road block presented itself throughout 2013 and it looked like we would never be able to move to more land. Disappointment after disappointment was the theme, but we kept believing. We knew it was what we were meant to do.

Then, out of nowhere, the perfect spot appeared, everything lined up and...

All of our dreams are coming true.

The other day I was sitting and making a goals list and master to-do list for 2014. I had a vivid picture appear in my mind of a vision board I had plastered all over my office wall several years ago. When I say all of my dreams are coming true, that is what I mean quite literally. Every thing on that vision board will be a solid, in-person thing by this time next year.

Goosebumps.

So, what's the plan?

Basically, a lot of hard work for 2014! Darran has begun building a sawmill. We will then be sawing lumber to build our home, sheds, and barns. Our goal is to grow virtually all of our own food and live completely off-grid as far as utilities are concerned. 

There's a lot to learn about solar and wind energy, growing our own food, and about a million other things. 

We have zero budget (some of those 2013 set-backs included completely depleting our savings) and the whole endeavor looks entirely impossible.

Can't. Wait.

I hope you'll come along on our little adventure through this blog. We'd love your support! You can help out by subscribing to our You Tube channel and sharing this post on your social media.

Coming Soon...

Random chicken pic. Because, really, why not?

Thanks for stopping by my new blog! (I'm guessing you know me from 4 Acres or FitViews if you're here.) I will begin regular blogging on The Paleo Homestead within the next month.

I'm super excited for this new adventure online and off (like super, super, seriously can't wait to share). Lots of fun things planned and I hope you'll come back soon!

In the meantime, I'd love for you to leave a comment with post requests or just to say Hi!

XOXO,
Kerri O.