Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

I'm not opposed to hard work and am actually pretty strong - but how does it generally work? Is it any easier on your clothes? Somehow I envision tortured, twisted clothing items, but that may just be vague memories of "I Love Lucy" wandering through my head.

I saw one of those washers that you can attach to your sink (like a dishwasher) the other day and started to lust for it -- smaller, compact, on wheels, uses cold water (which is fine by me); I'd like to have small dryer for some items in the winter when it's icy outside, but the spinner as an in-between washing and line drying for most items sounds ideal.

How do you make your soap? Have you posted a 'how to' here and I've just missed it? I've considered doing that, too just to eliminate unnecessary chemicals from our daily lives.