Dishwasher tabs experiment

A couple of years ago, a friend was ranting and raving about how great her Cascade action packs were.  Her dishes were spotless, she said!  I didn't buy it, literally and figuratively!  I had been buying the small 99c box of off-brand powdered dishwashing detergent for years and told her I thought mine did just fine, thank you.  She was so convinced that I would love them, she even went out and bought me a small bag of them!  I tried them and zowie-wowie, was she ever right!

The difference in my dishes the very first time I used it was amazing!  I immediately called her and told her I was calling to eat crow and that she was right and I was so very wrong!  I have been using them ever since, but geez, those little babies are expensive!  To make matters worse, I was purchasing a rinse aid that costs a small fortune, too.  Even though I would buy the off-brand when available, it still costs a lot.  I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I decided to do an experiment to find a cheaper way.

See these high dollar products?  ($13.99 and $4.59)
I'm going to find a way to replace them and save at least half!  

(Let's just pretend that's an actual bottle of JetDry

and that I didn't Photoshop it in, heh heh)

These are the new products I purchased to replace them.

And now on to phase one of the experiment, she said,
trying to sound scientific and reliable.

I took a needle and poked a hole in the corner of the 

liquid pouch.  Careful, it starts oozing out right away.

I squeezed it into 1/2t measuring spoon, guessing that

would be about the amount it would fill.

I was wrong.  It only fills 1/4t.

Next, I carefully cut a slit in the side of the powdered part.

I poured that into a 1T measuring spoon. Fits perfectly.

I poured both of these into the dispenser.

I then poured white vinegar into the rinse aid compartment.

I was surprised how much it held.  Probably almost a cup.

(It sure is hard to pour vinegar and take a picture at the same time!)

Okay, so you might think...wow! So now you know how much soap is in one of those little packs! Whoop de doo!  I'm certainly going to use the expensive ones up first, but then in phase two of this experiment, I'm going to use my cheapo products to recreate the high dollar detergent, minus the little bag it comes in.  

I got the powdered dish washing detergent for $2.94 with tax and the liquid dish soap for 1.07 with tax.  The powder has 75 oz, which equates to 179 Tablespoons dry measure, so 1.6c per use.  The liquid has 11oz, equating to 228 one quarter teaspoons, so .005c per use.    By my calculations, the new detergent mix will cost me only 2.1 CENTS per load!  Yes, that's 2 (POINT) 1 cents!  The action packs cost .25c each!  That's a huge savings!  My original intent was to cut my cost by at least half.  But an almost 92% savings is shocking!  Crossing my fingers that it works just as well!

Since I have no way of knowing exactly how much vinegar is in there right now, I cannot add that in to my cost yet, but my assumption is that it will be very minimal.  I think I'll try to see how long it takes to get low, then measure how much it takes to fill next time, thus being able to estimate the price per load. Of course, it's awfully hard to tell when those darn things are empty!

I'm really excited to see if there's a difference as far as spotting/shininess/cleanliness goes.  Right now, the dishes are very shiny and very clean each time with the high dollar stuff (they'd better be!).  I'll give you an update once I've used the new stuff a few times. I'm sure hoping it works because if it does, the savings will be incredible!  It's amazing how much we spend on these things and don't even think about it.  We think it's a necessity to have these (convenience items, essentially).  If you make your own detergent or have a cheap way of doing it aside from hand washing, please leave a tip below. 

UPDATE:  Well, crud.  I used the above recipe for several loads and all seemed to be going well.  After a few rounds in the old dishwasher, I noticed my son's plastic dishes were getting a white film all over them.  And this 'film' was not easy to remove!  I had to rub HARD with a towel to remove it.  I knew I didn't want my son eating any of that, so I gave up on this detergent.  Now, in all honesty, I never took it upon myself to actually buy some real Cascade powdered detergent to use in place of the cheap stuff.  My guess is that the cheap stuff was the culprit.  So, don't give up on this recipe altogether.  If you happen to try it with some real Cascade, let me know how it turns out.  In the meantime, my hubby found some cheaper gel type packs from Finish that do a bang-up job.  As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen my silverware so shiny!  They're less expensive than Cascade Action Packs, but still a little pricey for my (cheap) taste!

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