Tips for saving money on dish soap.
Fill a pump bottle halfway with dish soap and the rest of the way with water. It uses less soap, but still produces great suds.
By Robin from Washington, IA
Post your own ideas in the feedback below!
Add your voice! Click below to comment. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
I keep dishwashing liquid, diluted 1:1 with water in a handsoap pump dispenser beside my kitchen sink. Your detergent goes twice as far, and you can use it to put a drop or two (use a light touch) on your sponge, or to add a measured amount to your sink when soaking or handwashing dishes.
By Doggy
We also dilute our dish soap, but one of the things we also do is buy the same soap for everything. Plain castille liquid soap can be used for dishes, hands, showers, laundry, cleaning surfaces, even as shampoo (but it's not my favorite for that). You can shampoo the dog and wash floors with it. Liquid castille soap is not terribly inexpensive but if you use it for everything, you avoid paying a variety of prices for a variety of items and time spent having to shop around for all the best deals on 10 different cleaners. And then you can also by it by the case and get a better deal. (Usually 4 gallon jugs.)
I make my own mint bath gel/shampoo from Ivory Liquid. It's like $1.86 and add some drops of wintergreen or spearmint or peppermint. Bugs aren't attracted to mint but ARE to citrus & florals!
Dilute dish soap in a spray bottle and if you aren't going to do the dishes right away, rinse and spray some on it. Makes it a little easier later to get them clean.
If you add some vinegar to your dish water, it helps degrease and sanitize your dishes and you can use less dish soap.
Challenge yourself to use only one sinkful of water when washing dishes. Start with virtually no water in the sink, add a small amount of dish soap, and then rinse all the dishes back into the sink.
Use any gentle foaming hand pump and add water to the fill line add dish detergent and just squirt about 5 times or so and your dish detergent will last forever, thus saving you lots of money.
By Karen P in TN
It is not so much our "big" expenditures that get us into trouble for thrifty people tend to shy away from large purchases. Instead it is "the little foxes that spoil the vine". One such case for me is too much waste in dish soap. When it seemed like I was "always" buying dish soap, I decided to put a teaspoon by the bottle and measure out one teaspoon for each sink of dishes. It was "plenty" of soap and it seems like this bottle is lasting forever.
By Reta
When I ran out and needed a quick substitute, I used All Free Clear. My dry hands healed and I've never used anything else. I've saved a bundle, too.
I add a bit of baking soda to the cheaper brand of dish soaps and they work as good as the more expensive brands.
Mix 1/3 dawn with 2/3 water and it works just as well and goes a lot farther.
By Monika Bigelow
I have a topper that they use at bars or now some use on olive oil bottles. I see them now at the dollar stores. And just put the soap in a glass bottle(my sister's clear beer bottle) topped with the gadget. Now I let it set out on the cabinet and it looks good.
Try Sunshine Concentrate - Good for Almost ANYTHING - EVEN DISHES!!!
www.theherbsplace.com/
Sam's Club carries the Restaurant Grade ProForce dish detergent in the gallon size for $3.86 (as of 4/21/05). Much cheaper than the grocery store for smaller bottles.
By Syd
I am a cupon queen. Some stores double cupons up to one dollar (I know for sure that Kroger and Meijer do this.). I often get cupons for cheaper brand dish soap (Ajax or the other brands). At Kroger Ajax is 99 cents, the cupons usually are 20 cents off; since the store doubles the cupons your total cost would be 60 cents for the dish liquid. Oh, and the cupons still work on sale items too! Not a bad deal if you ask me.
If I have used any citrus fruit, I put the skins into the washing up bowl, with a teaspoon of washing soda and add hot water. This does the job as well as any dishwashing liquid, and it smells lovely too. Its also environmentally friendly. The essential oil in the skin is released by the hot water and by squeezing the skins in the bowl. Orange oil is supposed to be good for easing depression, at any rate, the lovely smell cheers me up even if I'm always getting lumbered with the washing up!
I throw most everything in the dishwasher, but for the handwashables (and bibs!) I keep my dish soap in a pretty ceramic handsoap dispenser (dh's idea) and use one or two squirts. It took awhile to get used to it, before I had a flower dishwand from Wal-mart that worked better than the more expensive brands! But we go through less soap...I have filled it twice in 6 months. We also use Barkeeper's Friend on our pot's and pans. Cuts through anything and makes them easier to clean...70 cents for a large container. It really does take rust spots off!
Side note...I use Palmolive Lavender & Ylang-ylang. Doesn't cost much more than store brand, and really does calm you down! I like to have the window open so the smell really travels!
I don't understand the concept of watering down dishsoap...in my opinion it is a waste of time. To save time, couldn't one just use less soap?
If you add half water to it...couldn't you just use half the soap when filling up the sink?
If you add a 3rd water to it, couldn't you just use 2/3rds of the soap?
Personally, I waste water when doing dishes...but I'd like to think I save soap. I pre-rinse everything, and for built up gunk I scrub in water only. With a clean water-prerinse (or soak in some cases) is complete I don't need nearly as much soap to actually clean the dishes...
Q
That's a good question, but the tip really does work for me, maybe not for everyone. The concept is... you use less soap without any effort. That's the best kind of tip, IMO. There really is no wasted time. I buy dishsoap in large bottles to save money and transfer them to small bottles to save space. You fill the small bottle half full instead of full, and fill the other half with water. It's probably quicker than filling the bottle all the way with soap. Water down your soap with 50% water and a squirt is half of what it was. It allows you to use less without thinking about it. It's an easy and efficient way to save money. Also helpful when you have people in the house who don't think about things like how much soap they use (which is everyone but me). Works well with shampoo as well. Most things you buy for cleaning yourself or your home are more concentrated than they need to be so that they will work in all cases.
Regardless of how much you dilute dish soap, it MUST be ultra DAWN for me or it EATS MY NAILS. That is the ONLY liq. soap I can use and it WORKS if I NEVER GET BLEACH ON MY NAILS. Since soap is
an alkaline and vinegar a weak ACID, mixing them makes no sense to me, sorry. Nor does it make sense to add baking soda because it is so grainy.
Be cautious altering the formula of these soaps because I've had some really bad experiences doing this with shampoos. (Last time I MIXED them, I wound up with orange WATER with a separating layer of something floating on the top 1/4 inch, yet I had not added water.
Buying the gallon to save money makes the absolute MOST sense to me. That's my vote. God bless you all for your opinions/experience.
I love this tip, I do it too! Better yet, when I empty one bottle of dishsoap, I take the new bottle and put half in the empty one, then fill them both with water. Sometimes, depending on the brand, I'll dilute if further. Always works great...and like someone else said, the brainless ways to save are the best. You think about it at the beginning of a new bottle, and not again until you get the next new bottle!!!
Add your voice! Click below to comment. ThriftyFun is powered by your wisdom!
