This morning I find myself pondering on the small ways of saving the pennies and soap came to mind. In the shower we take it for granted that we have shower gel, it is so easy to use and although I will only buy it at £1 or under so when it is on "bogof" the price is normally "right" it is still a lot of money compared to a bar of soap which would hopefully last for longer. Soap was all my grandparents had and every bit was used, when it became too small a sliver to use it went into a jar with other slivers and some water and was stored under the sink and used for hand washing clothes.
I used to have a "soap sam" from kleeneze and used to grate the soap ends on an old grater (not used for food and probably picked up from a car boot sale) and with a little bit of water moulded it into a shape to fit the soap sam and after drying out had a perfectly usable bar of soap for cleaning hands after gardening, sadly I have lost it and would love a replacement, maybe it would work without the mould, I will have to try. Soap is a bit awkward to use in the shower (whatever happened to soap on a rope?) but we have a perfectly usable soap dish in there though I think my husband may take some convincing! On a quick check in the cupboards I have 2 more bottles of scented showergel for me and another 2 suitable for husband and 6 bars of soap in the airing cupboard, so will try to get a bar of soap back into the shower. A bar of soap from Sainsburys and Tescos basic ranges costs only 15p not sure what it would be like though.
In the kitchen I have 156 washing detergent tablets, although the recommended amount to use is 2 I find 1 is enough but recently have started to use soapnuts, a large bag for about £7 (I believe lakeland have started to sell these) I use 8 at a time in a small bag, the one provided is not much use so I use one of the net bags supplied for the tablets, they last about 7 washes (and are compostable) and are great for the wash loads that just need freshening up, I just add a tiny drop of fabric conditioner for the smell. This should help to keep down the costs of wash days. Still room for improvement though so I am going to investigate making my own laundry detergent. Will keep you posted on that one.
