I promise I’m not a hippy. Although some of my oldest, nearest, and dearest friends are, and maybe over the years some of it has rubbed off on me but still I Am Not A Hippy! I’ve slowly been moving my family out of the grocery store and into locally sourced products and more and more homemade stuff. I started this in an attempt to save money and for my family to be healthier, but I’m not a hippy. Among my homemade projects (instructional posts to come) include homemade laundry soap, homemade fabric softener, homemade dryer sheets, homemade detangler (my Hippo has curly hair that she likes to “brush” but not let anyone else brush so we use a lot of this one), we also use homemade fabric napkins, fabric coasters, and fabric “paper” towels. You’re prolly wondering how this all saves us money and I’ll explain using the homemade fabric softener and dryer sheets for an example.

First, I coupon. Not in an extreme (get it all for free and get money back from the store) type of way but in a “hey, I use that. Its on sale and I have a coupon so it’s darn cheap, I should buy like 4 of them” sort of way. This is just one way I try to save my family money. My fabric softener is very easy to make and only has 3 ingredients (Conditioner, White Vinegar, and Water). I try to use Suave conditioner because its cheap to begin with (and usually comes in yummy smelling flavors), for example on target.com it is currently $1.84 for 14.5 oz and there is currently a $1 off Target coupon, and a $0.50 off 2 manufacturers coupon so if you buy 2 its $0.59 a bottle and you’ll need 2 bottles for 1 batch of fabric softener.

Second I comparison shop. So the vinegar I get is from Sam’s Club and I get 2 gal for $3.58. Its not a name brand, its the Sam’s Club “off” brand (I think its called Bakers and Chefs) but its vinegar. Its not like I’m going to eat it or drink it so I don’t care that its the “off” brand. Which means for the 3 cups you’ll need for this recipe its like $0.86. That means our homemade fabric softener is $2.04 and its enough to last me for at least 4 months! And since we only use it for dryer sheets, at approximately 10 loads a week thats $0.01 per load! Thats CHEAP!!! I mean before this I was buying the Bounce unscented sheets and it was like $9 with a coupon for 180 sheets (or $0.05 per sheet, which isn’t bad except I guarantee 1 sheet won’t last for 5 loads).

So I guess while I’m not a hippy I am thrify and I’m okay with that. Who else wants to be thrifty?

As promised here is my fabric softener recipe with instructions on how to use it for dryer sheets.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Conditioner (pick one that smells good to you)

3 Cups Distilled White Vinegar

6 Cups Boiling Water

Mix the conditioner and vinegar in a bowl with a whisk. Mix into the boiling water until well combined. Allow to cool and pour into a spray bottle for use and a regular bottle for storage. To use for dryer sheets, spray on white wash cloths until damp and toss into the dryer.

So this was a spendy batch because I had Pantene Conditioner on hand so thats what I used

I also used up the last of my spendy vinegar.

After filling up my spray bottle this is how I stored the rest.