Out of dishwasher detergent

While cleaning the other day I had the dishwasher all loaded and ready to clean dirty dishes when I realized I had ran out of dishwasher detergent. My child was asleep, which is why I had a few minutes to actually make my house presentable, so running to the store was out of the question. I really didn't want to beg more off of my neighbor since I had borrowed a load's worth fairly recently and that just gets tacky after awhile. So I did what any modern mommy does in a cleaning crisis. I Googled "out of dishwasher detergent" and let the internet work its magic.
After wading through a bunch of hippy weird-os and their off beat posts I noticed I did find a similar recipe on most pages. Equal parts Borax and baking soda. Some helpful advisers also recommend a bit of oil for smelling purposes but I don't particularly want my plates to smell like essential vanilla anyway so I decided to omit this. It's a personal choice, feel free to add it if you wish.
Unfortunately for me though, I had never actually heard of Borax before this internet sojourn. So I had to wait until Killian awoke from his slumber anyway, but I was intrigued by this supposedly cheap and effective dish washing method. On my next trip to The Bowels of Hell, (you may know it as WalMart) or TBoH, I located said Borax near the laundry soap and it seems to have a myriad of uses. They're listed on the box so I won't bore you with them here but I now keep a box in my laundry room and I find myself using it more and more.
Now for the dishes I do supplement some regular dry dish detergent but I keep my baking soda/Borax mix in an old spaghetti jar next to the detergent and I use about a Tablespoon of each for my dishes. According to the Internet Advisers I am helping to reduce the pollutants introduced into my city's sewer systems and therefore the world at large and also saving myself a few dollars a month. Who knows, I may even save enough to not feel so guilty about that $5.00 latte?