Stretching Your Dollar Tree Laundry Soap

I took a little trip out to the Dollar Tree today for 2 specific items.

1.foam cubes to create the awesome dice I found here on Miss Kindergarten's blog. (more "school stuff" to come!).

2. Laundry detergent

I only took in $2.00 for just those two items, because I can get a little carried away in the dollar store! Can I get an, "Amen?"

I didn't find the cubes (bummer), but I did get a box of laundry detergent. It's the Sun brand. I use Sun quite a bit because it's relatively cheap and I'm not picky about detergent. If it gets my clothes clean, I use it. And Sun works just fine.

The box was small, and didn't advertise how many loads it would do, just that it was a "1 cup formula." One cup sounds like a lot to me, but I was in desperate need of detergent, so I bought it. I mean...it was a buck.

So, I was curious just how many "cups" this small box of Sun contained, so I measured it out. And to my astonishment, there were only 4 1/2 cups! So, roughly, my cost would be $0.25 a load! Not a real bargain in my opinion.

But then I got to thinking (dangerous, I know). If you're only supposed to use 2 tablespoons per load for homemade laundry detergent, why can't you do the same for commercial detergents? Soap is soap, right?

So, I decided to measure out how many tablespoons were in the box of Sun, and it came out to 57 tablespoons, which, if you were using 2 tablespoons per load is 27.5 loads! The cost now? Just $0.03.6 cents ($0.04) a load! Now THAT is bargain!!!

I will experiment with the 2 tablespoons and let you know how my clothes turn out. When I use homemade detergent, 2 tablespoons always works fine. But, I'll keep you posted.

I may just smile today while I'm doing laundry!