Today’s post was inspired by the lovely Josie at Sleep is for the Weak and the Sticky Fingers Blog who wrote very temptingly about cooking lots of lovely chocolate goodies.

Although I do love cooking (and chocolate) I thought I’d share my new favourite frugal Mum product with you. Soap. Just plain old ordinary ‘household soap’ which you can get in the cleaning aisle of your local supermarket. Mine cost about 50p for two bars which will last me forever.

It’s brilliant for getting stains out of clothes. Forget expensive spray solutions, or little bars of vanish (which are ridiculously expensive by comparison).

My middle son managed to get one of his nicer tops covered in blackberry juice stains last weekend. You know those obvious purpley red stains that look as if they’ll never come out?

No problem to my chunky bar of green soap. I wet the t-shirt in COLD water (very important as warm water will set the stain) and rubbed the stain vigorously with the soap, rubbing the stained bits together to loosen the stain. Rinse once then repeat and this time, chuck the soap covered item into the washing machine and wash immediately. I did mine at 30c and it worked fine. I almost couldn’t believe it when it came out clean and stain free.