I am now a mother of four and have had to find ways to tighten my spending, and thanks to my mother, I have sought out every DIY solution to cleaning that our mothers and their mothers have known since the beginning.
The number one must have in your pantry, Baking Soda!! It can clean nearly anything off of walls, countertops, kitchen appliances, dishes, bathroom surfaces, laundry and the list goes on. I have cleaned permanent marker off the wall, fingernail polish off of the lanoleum, baked lasagna from the pan and turned brown grout back to white. If you make a paste you can even polish your metal faucets and handles. I make Baking Soda shakers out of glass spaghetti jars with aluminum lids just by poking holes in the lids and filling them up that way I can have shakers in all the rooms I will need them. When the laundry is heavily soiled or stinky I add 1/4 cup baking soda for a deeper clean and added freshness. I add it to cut flowers to keep them pretty longer, and on school picture days I make the kids brush their teeth with it for an extra white smile. If you dont use it for any of the things always keep in mind that, in case of a small fire and you’re with out an extinguisher, it also helps put out fires.
Another thing I can’t live with out is white vinegar! To clean glass I fill a carafe half way with water, then a fourth with vinegar and add a couple drops of Dawn dish soap. I pour the mixture into a spary bottle and for less than .25 I have the best glass cleaner I have ever used, plus all I have to do is wipe out my carafe and my coffee pot is clean. I also use it for the stentch of smoke. If you fill a juice glass with vinegar and set it on the counter it eliminates the smell of a burned dinner, smoking husband, and even the dreaded burned popcorn smell. I have also soaked some rusted tools in vinegar overnight, and it brought them back to life, as well as applied it to my windshield (three parts vinegar. 1 part water) the night before a freeze and my windshield didn’t frost over. It helps disinfect your wooden cutting boards and even kills weeds, and the best part is, it’s super cheap!
I have so many tricks on how to save money using the items in almost all of our pantries, but I got you started with these two basics. If you start creating your own cleaning solutions at home you may find that you’re more excited to clean, because you’re also testing your homemade concoctions, hoping that you too discovered a new way to stretch your dollar.