Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent

This recipe is awesome we got it from ehow
Things You'll Need
Borax
Washing Soda
Bar of soap
Container
Cheese grater or food processor

1
Shop the laundry/cleaners aisle at your local grocery store or Walmart to find the Borax and Washing Soda (not to be confused with baking soda). Look in the same aisle for Fels Naptha or Zote bar soap, which is typically recommended for these recipes but often hard to find. If unable to find one of those two brands, head over to the soap section of your store and pick up a bar of soap such as Ivory.

2
Gather ingredients at home. Grind bar of soap in food processor or cheese grater. The finer the pieces of soap the quicker it dissolves. Mix in 2 cups of Borax and 2 cups of Washing Soda. Shake well and store in an air tight container. An old jar or ice cream bucket with lid works well.

3
Use 2 Tablespoons of mixture for each load of clothing. Enjoy clean clothes for a fraction of the price of store bought detergent!


Super easy, super cheap! Try it.

The Bantam Voice
"Freed People, Free People"

Dealing With Off Grid Lighting

No"grid electricity" makes you become very creative very fast. Questions like

"How do we do this now?"

Get answered fast or the idea is given up on even faster until a solution is found.

One obvious question is,

"What about lights?"

We have already conquered that a few summers ago by taping all our light switches down.

Obstacle - Lights

Solution - Candles, flashlights, oil lamps, book lights, even cell phones

We use a combination of all of the above, but rely on oil lamps and planning. If you want to collect wood and be able to see while doing it, better get it done before 5:30pm.

We have flashlights when we are looking for something in a closet or room where there are no oil lamps and even our cell phones if we can't find a flashlight close by.

We hope to get a crank flashlight soon so we don't have to rely on our batteries so much. We have solar panels, but haven't gotten everything we need to hook it all up yet. We will hook up LCD lights up to the solar panels and supply two lights into the camper, but we just aren't there yet and are enjoying how primitive everything is right now.

The Bantam Voice
"Freed People, Free People"

Dealing with Clothes Off Grid

We have been practicing not using any power inside the house for over a month with much success! We may haven't been writing much on the blog, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy pursuing the self sufficient life.

Going without electricity ("unlimited modern electricity" present many challenges that you would guess, but others that you may never have thought of.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share the biggest hurdles, the suprising victories, and the solutions to some of the issues you encounter when "unplugging" from the grid.

By far the biggest obstacle we had to climb in regards to power was the issue of washing and drying clothes.

Obstacle - washing and drying clothes

Solution - hand washing machine and clothes line

We found the washing machine used for $35.00 and the clothes line from Lowes for $14.00.

It takes patience and more time than ever before to wash the clothes, but it really gives us a sense of accomplishment that we never had before when it came to such a mundane chore.

We also are about to make our own washing detergent powder. We will post that recipe once it is complete. It is near $.02 a load vs. the cheapest store bought at $.15 to $.30 a load.

The Bantam Voice
"Freed People, Free People"

Worth Doing Poorly?

Our society and culture has raised us with the words of grandma

"If it is worth doing it's worth doing right."

Many of us would agree with that and nod our head. I would argue for Joel Salatins point in his book, Folks, This Ain't Normal, that one of the things that is wrong with America and our families today is that we are scared to try anything. We won't do something "right" or perfect the first time, but we need to try and then craft the skill.

So don't be afraid to try something new today because

"If it is worth doing it is worth doing poorly."

The Bantam Voice

"Freed People Free People"

(This was also cross-posted onto BantamVoice.blogspot.com)