Stretching Your Liquid Dish Soap
Do you find that you go through liquid dish soap faster than a sprinter nearing the finish line? In shrinking your family grocery and cleaning supplies budget you may want to consider stretching your liquid dish soap. This is so fast, and it saves so much money over time! Seriously, you can make one bottle last over a year instead of replacing it every few months. I estimate that you will make your liquid dish soap go 85% percent further.
Have you noticed that your liquid dish soap is so potent and is extremely sudsy and bubbly? It can be highly diluted and still work great with lots of bubbles! You can easily make your regular concentrated dish soap into foaming dish soap.
With this method I can make the original soap last a year instead of one or two months. Once I have an empty foaming liquid dish soap container, I can use a non-foaming dish soap to refill the container about an inch. I almost fill the rest of the bottle with water. Give yourself at least a half inch head room on the top to have room to shake. If the soap has become too thin, add a bit more concentrate liquid dish soap to the mix. If the soap is too thick, use it thick until there is a little room to dilute it with water, and shake. All that to say, it turns out pretty well.
If I spend $2 on the soap (you can get it for less with a sale and coupon), and I would have bought it every two months, that’s a yearly $12 savings on dish soap alone. I have used liquid Dawn, Gain, Palmolive Clean and Clear, and Costco’s Kirkland brand (which is my favorite now, environmentally-updated **8/14) and more. All of them have worked for me so far!
My foaming pump lasted over two years (may be three), and JSarr told me last week, it was time to get a new one. They can last a while!
So the To-Dos if this is your first time:
- Get an empty container that will hold the foaming dish soap that’s not in use.
- Buy a dish soap with a foaming pumping or use an old foaming hand soap pump.
- Pour all of the foaming dish soap out into the empty container (which is now not empty anymore), except leave an inch of soap in the foaming pump container.
- Almost fill the rest of the bottle with water, slowly stirring as you go, trying not to create bubbles. Leaving a little head room with allow you to get a more evenly distributed soap.
- Put the top on, and shake to evenly distribute the soap.
- Repeat as needed.
What are some other thrifty ideas you employ to save money for your family? I love learning from you!!
Other posts you might like:
- 3 Different Dishwasher Detergent Recipes, Powder and Liquid
- Couponing and Extreme Couponing or Not
- Three Practical Money-Saving Tips & More
- Extending the Life of Your Razor
- Stretching Your Liquid Dish Soap
- Save Money: Consider Walking or Biking
- Hang Drying Laundry
- Analyzing the Grocery Budget: Cost Cutting
- Grocery Prices to Meet or Beat
- Budgeting for 2012 Part 3
- Eating Out with Coupons
Great idea! I do this with hand soap, but I’ve never thought to do this with dish soap. Such a great money saver.
Thanks, Laura. It is a great money saver. Thanks for visiting!
This is a great idea.
Mrs. Delightful http://www.ourdelightfulhome.blogspot.com
Great tip! I too do this for hand soap in the bathrooms but had not thought of doing it for the kitchen dish soap. My kids do all the dishes now that they are older, and they tend to go through soap way faster than I ever did, so this tip just might save me some serious pennies! Thanks.
Hi Victoria. Like you, I’ve been making the hand soap for years and thought it should work for dish soap, too. Blessings!
AWESOME tip! I love it and am adding a foaming dish soap dispenser to my grocery list right now.
I’ve switched over to mostly handmade/natural soaps, but haven’t found a good recipe for dish soap. This is such a wonderful, frugal way to make it stretch.
Thanks for linking up at Thrifty Thursday!
I first started with with hand soap like you, and figured it was worth a shot to try it with dish soap. Success! I’ll be back! Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve done this before, but only with hand soap…I need to try it with dish soap too! Thanks for the idea and thank you for linking up at Thrifty Thursday! 🙂
You are welcome!
Great idea, Sonja! I am almost out of soap so it will be a great time to try it!
Divine timing! Let me know how it goes!
I do something similar! I never really looked at it from a frugal perspective though. I mainly was doing it because as you said, the soap is so potent and suddsy. You really don’t need to use it full-strength. I always felt it took forever to rinse!
Thanks for stopping by! You are a nice blog, too!