cleaning house
March 8, 2011 § 5 Comments
My Mom will tell you that cleaning was never my strong suit as a kid. When I was working full time I was more than happy to pay someone else to take care of our place. I didn’t want to spend my precious free time cleaning. Now that I work from home I find that I am much more willing to clean a bit here and there vs waiting for the cleaner to come. It’s actually kind of foreignly enjoyable to me. I crunched the numbers and we can save about $2,000/year by cleaning ourselves. That trumps my spare change exercise from yesterday.
I also took stock of the cleaning supplies we use throughout the year. Isn’t there some saying about the best marketers being the most susceptible to marketing or something like that? I have totally fallen for the marketing ploy to get people to buy a separate cleaning product for just about every surface of your house. I’m also embarrassed to say that I never really switched over from the more traditional products which are both expensive and fairly toxic.
I found a number of helpful tips on cleaning alternatives that have the benefit of being much better for you and for the environment at a fraction of the cost. Just using vinegar alone as an all purpose cleaner I can eliminate 5 different products I typically buy, plus I can use it as a fabric softener which saves me another $25/year. Normally I would be put off by the smell but apparently it goes away as it dries and deodorizes. Lemon juice acts as a natural bleaching agent & when mixed with olive oil is a natural alternative to cleaning wood surfaces. Many of these natural alternatives were what people used back in the day before we went and complicated things. My budget, my body & the environment will be happy with these changes.
If anyone has any other good “old school” cleaning methods or savings tips they want to share, pass them along.
52 To Do 
vinegar and water is good for hard wood floors.
cut a lemon in half and take one half and scrub your kitchen and bathroom sink hardware with it. clean and super shiny. smells divine.
i use some mrs. meyer’s stuff (basil) because i love the smell. but if i had to put it side-by-side with a more “traditional” (chemical) product for efficacy? most of the time, the chemical product wins. meh. it’s a trade-off. i wish i could say i buy mrs. meyer’s to save the world. i don’t. i buy it for the packaging (which rocks) and the smells are great. did i mention the packaging? ugh. such is the life of a art director/designer.
i’m going to put those skills to work missy when you come to Colorado! when is that btw? I can tell you the drive from Vegas here is quite nice.
darce! vinegar as a fabric softener, really?! fill me in once you try it. miss you, chica. xo
Might your former roommates weigh in on your cleaning skills? Granted, it was 15 years ago…
at least Sally always had me beat. i would say my room looked spotless in comparison. 🙂