Living on Less – Homemade Cleaners

Many people will look at some money saving ideas and think that “these will only save me a few pennies or a small amount of money and not be worth my time.”  I say “not so fast.”  When you are living on unemployment and the budget is tight or you are just trying to save money so that you have an emergency fund set up, then any amount of money is worth saving.  Those pennies, nickles and dimes add up to dollars saved in no time at all.  When you are living on a tight budget, every penny counts. Making my homemade laundry soap takes a small amount of time and I end up with big savings.  The cost per load is one cent.

Making my own household cleaners has saved me quite a bit of money also.  It takes a small amount of time to measure a few ingredients and dump them into a spray bottle.  If you were to look at the ingredients in your store bought cleaners, you will find that you are paying a lot of money for water.  I use a lot of coupons but have found that even with a coupon I can’t beat the price of my homemade cleaners.

When making your own cleaners you can recycle old bottles of store bought cleaners, but I didn’t want to worry about any remaining residual cleaning solutions in the bottom of those bottles.  After all, I didn’t want to mix bleach in a bottle that had an ammonia based cleaner in it and end up with toxic fumes from mixing the two.  Instead, I went to the Dollar Tree and paid $1.00 each for some new spray bottles for my homemade cleaners.  But, if money is tight, take extra care and wash out those store bought spray bottles really good and you should be alright.  Also go to a Dollar store and buy a cheap set of measuring spoons and cups to be used only when you are making your own cleaners.

As a rule of thumb, never mix bleach and ammonia together as the combinations will produce chlorine gas.  My recipes are ammonia free.  Here are my favorite recipes for cleaners:

Soft scrub

Use plain ole baking soda as a soft scrub type cleanser.  Baking soda scrubs away soap scum, black heal marks on floors, dried on food on a stove top and in cookware and a lot more.

Window cleaner

¼ cup white vinegar, ½ teaspoon Dawn Original Blue Dish Detergent and 2 cups water.

Pour the contents into a spray container and attach the spray nozzle and shake.  This is a great cleaner that really cuts through the dirt on windows.

All Purpose Cleaner

1 teaspoon Borax, ½ teaspoon Washing Soda, 2 teaspoons vinegar, ½ teaspoon Dawn Original Blue Dish Detergent and 2 cups water.

Pour the contents into a sprayer container and attach the spray nozzle and shake.  (I have Borax and Washing Soda on hand as I use it in my homemade laundry soap recipe.)

Bathroom Spray

½ cup Dawn Original Blue Dish Soap, ½ Cup White Vinegar and 1 cup water

Pour the Dawn and vinegar into a spray bottle and add the water.  This spray works great but it does have quite a vinegary smell when you spray it on.  Even so, it cuts through the bathroom grime if you let it work.  Spray it on the shower and tub and let it set for a couple of minutes.  When I am cleaning our bathroom I just spray this cleaner on the shower, tub and the sink and let it set there for 10 minutes while I am cleaning another room.  It does a great job.

Bathroom Grimy Cleaner

Dawn Original Blue Dish Detergent and Baking Soda.

Make a paste of the Dawn and the baking soda.  Use this paste on a tub that has soap scum or dirty grime around the tub.  Apply with a sponge or brush and simply scrub off the grime.  This also works great on scrubbing any grime on sinks and greasy grime on a stove top.

Daily Shower Cleaner

1 tablespoon bleach and water.

Pour the bleach into a spray bottle. Add enough water to fill the bottle.  Keep an old wash cloth in the shower.  After taking a shower, wipe the shower down with the wash cloth to get the excess water off the walls and the door.  Then once out of the shower spray a mist of this bleach solution on the walls and door.  Between wiping down the walls and the door of the shower and then spraying the bleach mist on the walls, your showers will stay clean in between your regular cleaning.

Vinyl and Tile Floor Cleaner

½ cup white vinegar, 3 drops of Dawn Dish Detergent and Water

Pour the vinegar and the Dawn Dish Detergent into 1 gallon of hot water and use to mop your floor.

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By now you have guessed that I use a lot of Dawn Original Blue Dish Detergent in my home.  It is a great cleaner and I even use it in my laundry to pretreat my clothes.  It removes grease stains in the laundry.  Dawn is on sale about every 6 weeks and I nearly always have some kind of coupon.  Remember, all of these recipes call for the “Original Blue” version of Dawn.  Don’t buy any other kind of Dawn.  The Original Blue is the best for these cleaners.

As with using all cleaners, don’t go crazy and use too much of these cleaners when you are cleaning.  Always use a moderate amount as you can always spray on more if needed.  Sometimes we get into the mindset that in order to get something clean we have to add a lot of soap or detergent and that isn’t true.

All of these recipes cost pennies and they work great.  Give one of them a try and see for yourself.