DIY Laundry Soap

I finally did it. I had all the stuff and so I made myself do it. I thought it would be really time consuming, but not so.

You will need:

1 five gallon bucket with lid

1 bar of Ivory, Fels Naptha or Zote soap

1 cup Borax

1 cup washing soda

Other tools:

old cheese grater only to be used for soap

a long spoon or paint stirer

sauce pan (comes clean)

First you will grate your bar of soap into your sauce pan.

Then you will fill the sauce pan with water. Heat to a light boil and stir constantly as the soap dissolves. ***DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED*** It can boil over quick. Or so I am told I never left it. When the soap is dissolved set aside.

Fill your bucket with 4 1/2 gallons of HOT tap water. As hot as you can get it. Add you soap soup, your borax and washing soda. Stir until well mixed.

Leave to cool for 24 hours. I finished making mine at about 8:30 PM and it was ready to go around 10 am the next day. I know that is not 24 hours but I needed clean cloths. :) It is supposed to look like this when it is done.

Then I stirred it up well and added it to my left over laundry soap bottle. Leave room to shake it up before you use it. You will need to shake it up before each use as it gells up.

I use 2 to 3 cap fulls for each extra large load I run. This come out to 1 to 1 1/2 cups.

You probably want to know cost, huh? Well I would say probably about $7 to start, with the average 5 gallon bucket full maybe costing $2 to make. Heck I pay around $2.99 for that little bottle of all and that last only two weeks.

Survivial Saturday

Yes we are starting off with bathroom needs! Where you will you pee when you have no water and the sewer systems are down? But you have septic? Humm do you have water to waste on that? Probably not.

So you can buy one all line, hit your favorite sporting goods store ( we like Sportco in Fife)or believe it or no Target has them (click for deluxe). There are supplies you will want to go without them. Also you can purchase your own bucket and seat separately but the seats alone range between $12-$14 so why not do a one stop shop?

Supplies you may want to go with this are:

1. liners ( HEAVY LINERS you so don't want a whole in theses things. GROSS!!)


2. Ties-to close the bags.


3. household chlorine bleach or other sanitizing chemicals


4. toilet paper


5. latex/rubber gloves


6. air freshener/deodorizer (optional but you REALLY might want it)

Ok so you have it and there is an emergency. How do you use it?

Place a liner between the seat and bucket (duh huh?). Go to the bathroom (yeah that is what it is for). Add some bleach or chemical. Keep lid closed between uses (another duh). When it has been used to your comfort level securely close bag. Use the bucket to carry it out to a holding container out side your home.


Container: any container with a tight fitting lid, such as a trash can (might line this with a large heavy trash bag). After an emergency contact (or this may be on the news) city officials( I tried to find a phone # for this but...) to find out how dispose of this waste. If the emergency situation goes on for an extended period of time you may need to dig a whole at least 2-3 feet deep to dispose of you waste. This needs to be at least 50 feet away from your home and all water sources.

Food grade buckets

UpDAte............No more orders for now! Hope to catch you next time!


Dear Firgrove members,

We have a great opportunity being passed to us from the Eatonville Ward. Below are the details. Please Email me if you are interested.

This week we will be taking orders for the 4 gallon buckets . Cy Wong brings these food grade buckets down to us for $2.00 a piece. There will be no gas charge for these because he includes the gas cost in his fee. If you want any of the buckets, and they are great, we have used them, we must have an order for 300 of them for Cy to deliver. As soon as the order gets to 300 I will e-mail Cy and let him know that we have enough for him to deliver. Please let me know how many you want and make a check out to Cy Wong for $2.00 a piece. I won’t add your order until I have a check or cash for Cy for $2.00 a piece.