Save 74% on dish soap

A few years ago I got frustrated enough with dish soap prices that I did some experimentation, I have stuck with the blue Dawn dishsoap and not experimented with other varieties.

I found that I could use the suds pump (direct foam) with the ultra concentrate soap if I dilute it.  The soap comes in 24 oz and 56 oz  bottles.  After going through a 56 oz bottle, I pour the 24 oz of ultra concentrate soap into the empty 56 oz bottle, fill the rest of it with water (32 oz of water) and shake it up to mix it.  (Without a lot of air, you can't make a lot of suds.  I use that diluted ultra concentrate to refill the suds pump.  And there you go, cheaper dish soap!

The process of going through the initial 56 oz bottle is a bit of a pain, especially if somebody throws out the empty bottle on you.  If you use a graduated 1 cup measure, fill it to the 1/3 cup mark with ultra concentrate soap and then to the 3/4 cup mark with water.  This is NOT 1/3 cup soap and 3/4 cup water.  It is 1/3 cup soap and (3/4 - 1/3) cups water.  Then stir it gently with a fork to get it mixed but not foamed.  This makes 6 oz of soap for the pump, which takes 10 oz at a time.  So as you slooooowly go through the gigantic 54 oz bottle, you have to refill the pump about halfway at a time.  At least that is how I did it.  You could always just use an alternate container and mix a bunch up at once.

So, how cheap is it?

at walmart.com the 30.9 oz refill bottle is $5.64 or $0.1825 per oz.
The 24 oz ultra concentrate is $2.63, but we dilute it to 56 oz, for $0.0469 per oz.

That is a savings of 74% on the refills which Dawn claims already saves a bunch of money!

Update: I have tried the purple Dawn ultra concentrate and maybe I messed up the ratios some how but it is not pumping right.  Even if it was a mistake on my part, I will not be doing more purple just in case.  I got it because it is my daughter's favorite color, but she was unhappy when I diluted it and put it in a blue container making it not purple any more.