Soapmaking as a hobby gets pretty expensive, that is true. Hard soaps with soft oils is possible, though, even without Sodium Lactate, but you have ordered it as you said, so it will help your recipes harden up a tad bit earlier to unmold. When you run out of it, you can switch to a table salt dilution instead.
IF you are okay with using animal fats, the lard suggestion is a good one, but as I know personally, not everyone likes lard or wants to use animal fats. Also, as a frequent traveler, I have discovered lard isn't always easiliy available in all Walmarts in this country, as I tend to look in the oils aisle in every store I enter while traveling.
Soap with a high percentage of olive oil will harden up quite a bit, but takes a longer cure than soaps with a lower percentage, usually.
IF you want to try soap with some hard oils that are easier to obtain than by internet order, I don't know if you have a Dollar General or a Walgreens or similar stores that carry Cocoa Butter in a push-up stick, but I used it when I first started making soap. Locally, I have purchased it in brands called "Queen Helene" or "Cococare", in 1-ounce containers. which is a perfect size for a small batch of soap. It looks like this:
Costs vary by store, but at Dollar type stores, it is very affordable, particularly if only for a test batch.
If you keep your butter type hard oils at only 15% of the recipe, this is a good choice for a beginner.
Another option, although on the rather expensive side, is Spectrum brand shortening which is 100% palm oil. It can be found in Target in the grocery section if you have a Target near you, as well as some other grocery stores, but it is not cheap. It is 100% Palm Oil and plugs right into a
soap calculator as such; it looks like this, but may have a white lid in some stores, as online I see a new packaging is also available:
The VitaminShoppe also carries Spectrum Shortening (palm oil). If you can find it, shop around, as prices vary quite a bit on this product.
Palm will harden your soap and is worth trying at least once to see if it's something you like. You can always start ordering it from Soaper's Choice at much more reasonable price (per pound) at a later date once you know if you like it in soap.
Soaper's Choice is in the Chicago area in Illinois, so shipping to TN would be affordable for you. I usually get my orders from them within 2 days, sometimes the very next day. I have learned it's best to order more than just one item, however, as the shipping for four 7-pound containers of oil is the same as the for only one 7-lb container. Their prices are very good, even with shipping; the bottom-line price per pound or price-per-ounce, whichever way I want to calculate it, is almost always better than any other vendor.
There are other oils that can be used to harden soap as well, and sometimes vendors will have special pricing or huge sales, and you'll find we tend to share that information with each other when we run across it, so check back here in the Shopping Recommendations forum for any such notices.
Soy wax is another hard oil that can be used to harden soap, although not used as widely as some of the other hard oils, and you probably won't find it locally. There are many threads here on SMF about using Soy Wax in soap, if you want to look into that in the future. Soy oil, is not the same thing at all, so don't confuse the two.
Coconut oil, although considered a hard oil, and does harden soap, it also attracts water and makes soap less long lasting and melt away faster. Plus high amounts of coconut oil in some formulas tend to be too drying for some skin. There are folks who are fine with higher percentages of CO in soap, but that is not true for everyone. I think that some men tend to tolerate it better than some women, but it also depends on the formula itself.
And some folks have mentioned that their soap formula changes for wintertime from what their skin can tolerate in the summertime. That makes perfect sense if you skin is very dry in winter, which I know mine is right now.
Edited to add:
I forgot to mention using Crisco shortening or GV shortening (the Walmart brand). They are both in some of the
soap calculators, although if you want to use it, you won't be able to use a couple of the the calculators, as not all of them list in their list of oils. So I suggest using the one here on the forum (
link) or
Soapee.com as both have these shortenings listed. Not all Walmarts carry both types of GV shortening, however, so you are limited to what you can find locally in that regard, but it is an option for adding either palm or animal fat, depending on what is available in your local area IF you have a Walmart. Great Value brand belongs to Walmart, but you should be able to find Crisco shortening in many grocery stores.
