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Cleaning Green and Cheap!
Posted By Frugal Living Moderator
I’ve been spending a lot of time today looking at the Sunday circulars in anticipation of my ‘big’ grocery shopping trip this Friday. We shop once a month and it takes a bit of planning to make sure I purchase all the things to keep our home running smoothly. There is nothing worse than having to run back to the store constantly in order to purchase something I’ve forgotten….not to mention having to pay full price for it because I hadn’t planned well enough.
One of the things I have decided to do for next month is to take a walk on the Green side. I’ve been reading about how hard cleaners can be on our bodies, especially our lungs. With Parker lungs being rather beat up, cleaning green is something I’ve been wanting to try. An added bonus is the fact that I am extremely chemically sensitive and so the less exposure the absolute better.
As I have researched natural cleaning there have been a couple of things that have really grabbed my attention. Cleaning is BIG business. Have you ever stopped and just looked at how many options there are just to clean a floor, or bathroom? While there aren’t as many options on the shelves of my local health food store, the prices on what is available is outrageous! What’s a girl on a limited budget with a desire to clean safely and naturally to do?
Well, I’ve got a plan:
I’m going to trade out all my chemical based cleaners for four simple and cheap items! Dr. Bronner’s all natural soap. Vinegar. Baking Soda. Essential oils.
My basic recipe will be simply a fourth of a bottle of white vinegar (the cheapie stuff from Costco) a small amount of Dr. Bronner’s soap (there are tons of great scents!), a few drops of essential oil (my favorites are sweet orange and peppermint!) and then fill the rest of the bottle up with water straight from the tap. I’ll be using this recipe from everything from kitchen cleaning and bathroom cleanups to scrubbing off those fingerprints that always seem to collect on my doors and molding. To add a little variety to my life I am going to experiment with different essential oils for different areas of the house.
I have already been using baking soda in place of Soft Scrub. I am extremely allergic to Soft Scrub and was thrilled to find something that worked just as well, was cheap and didn’t bother my skin! As a matter of fact I’ve found lots of ways to use baking soda in this article.
For my laundry I’ve been looking at this recipe:
1 C Grated Fels Naptha Soap
1/2 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Borax
You would need less than 1/4 of a cup for a heavily soiled large load of clothes.
I already know that washing soda works exceptionally well at getting clothes clean and white. But I’m just having a problem finding it in large amounts here locally. I’ll have to do more researching in that area.
As I’ve been thinking about going Greener I’ve been pretty interested in reading articles such as this one:
The other day I noticed that on the back of my bottles of cleaning products that say they kill viruses and germs that the directions state for the area you are cleaning to stay wet with the cleaner for several minutes before any little critters actually bite the dust. How many of us have actually been doing that? I know I haven’t.
Well, that is pretty much my plan. What about you guys? Do you clean Green and cheap? What have you found that works well for YOU?
Apr 22nd, 2007
I do a lot of cleaning with vinegar. (http://thoughtfulmom.blogspot.com/2007/03/works-for-me-wednesday-plain-ole.html)
I’m with ya on the frugal, green recipes. I’ve been using the vinegar/soap/water cleaner around the kitchen for a while and it works great.
Just last night, I made the laundry detergent recipe you mention. I’m experimenting with adding a little orange or lemon essential oil for a nice scent. I had a hard time finding the washing soda, too, but found it at Publix in the laundry section. Fels Naptha soap at Kroger. (Don’t know if you have those stores in your area?)
I’m experimenting with how much detergent it takes for a really dirty load of whites. 1 Tbsp = not enough. 2 Tbsp = not enough. Working up one more Tbsp for the next wash.
I’ve read that if the dry laundry detergent doesn’t get stuff clean enough, you can make liquid detergent and it works a little better.
Lots of frugal, green recipes, including dry and liquid laundry detergents here:
FrugalShopper.com.
Hydrogen Peroxide is also cheap and works great for disinfecting. I also use it in place of bleach for laundry and anything else you would normally use bleach for. I dilute it 1/1 with water except in the laundry as my washing machine adds the water automatically. I like it better than vinegar because of the odor, and it works just as well.
Smart&Final had large bags of baking soda, isn’t it the same exact thing as washing soda?
Mara,
Baking soda and washing soda are actually different.
Baking soda is used in cooking. It can also be used as a cleaner, etc.
Washing soda is specifically for laundry uses. NO ingesting this stuff!
Washing soda was actually the first type of laundry detergent before things like brighteners, fragrance, etc. became mainstream in our laundry washing.
Thanks for everyone’s comments!
I love reading the ideas on this site! I became “green” quite some time ago due to allergies & asthma that was affecting my whole family. I use vinegar & water to clean my windows and to get the stains out of my toilet from well water.
For the majority of my household cleaners, I actually use Melaleuca’s EcoSense products and I haven’t found anything that works as well for our laundry and is as safe…my hubby is a welder and comes home quite dirty EVERY DAY and his clothes used to to have to be washed twice. Now, I just wash them once and they come out cleaner than they did when I was using some other “brand name” products. The Consumer Product Safety Commission states “Of chemicals commonly found in homes, 150 have been linked to allergies, birth defects, cancer, and psychological abnormalities”. I think that this is just AWFUL! Check out my blog for my 2 cents. ; ) Blessings!
Awesome! I have gone very green as well. I use Peroxide, baking soda, vinegar for so many things. Thanks bunches!
Yes I have found allergies and asthma problems decrease and it costs less to use these simpler products. I also use dish detergent with lemon in it for much cleaning. It smells good and works well or inexpensive shampoo such as sinks,toilets,bathtubs and floors.
Great tips! We’ve been using “green” cleaning supplies ever since I got pregnant with my son (2 years ago). I love all the money that we have saved and the fact that our home is a safer place for our toddler.
I’m so glad to have found your site! I’m glad to have other opinions on some of my crazy antics of trying to live GREEN, clean, & THRIFTY as well… saving for our future needs is so important to me!
So here are some of the things in my arsenal for living my best quality of GREEN clean & THRIFTY living (Please pass along any of your own ideas to me as well):
I use Baking Soda, Peroxide, Lemon Juice, Rubbing Alcohol, & Vinegar…. I’ve used several store bought GREEN brands (I’m just toooo thrifty to or cheap to buy expensive GREEN cleaners, especially if & when I can make them myself).|
There are several (pre-made or pre-mixed) good laundry detergents available at Whole Foods, Harry’s Farmers Market, &/or Wild Oats… depending on where you live… I urge you to thin or try less then what the label suggests (almost every time I’ve tried this, it was a sure thing – I could get clean results with less waste); slowly add or take away little bits at a time till you come to your desired ration for the cleaning needs you have (another words, don’t let someone else dictate your home’s needs, you know what’s clean or what’s not clean enough… your water – soft or hard – makes a difference in cleaning products as well – you may already know this though
A few products I’ve used & liked were : Dr.Bronner’s soaps, Ecover laundry detergent & fabric softener, Shaklee…..
I’ve heard good things about Melaleuca (hope I’m spelling that correctly), I haven’t used it myself. I’ve also heard good things about Amway laundry soap; again I haven’t used this one either.
I’m kind of thrifty or cheap, depending on whom you ask (LOL)!
I’ve gone through the house & replaced all but very few bulbs w/ eco lights (FYI: know what soft white really means before buying a bunch of these bulbs, if you don’t want soft white you don’t have to go with soft white lights… you can still get eco lights, & not sacrifice your vision - soft white can be too soft in some areas, & just right in others),
Always check the bulbs packaging information before placing it outside, there are specific eco bulbs for outdoor use…. Changing out shower heads, faucets, etc to low flow shower heads, faucets, etc (bottom line, the less you misuse water, the more water you can use & reuse & conserve)….
Thank you so much for allowing me to share my secrets, as I have enjoyed reading yours too!
I will be trying that new laundry detergent recipe… I’ll look forward to using it!
So, here we go, leaving this earth w/ as small a foot print as possible from us… we want the earth to be little worse for the wear of having bore our lives here! We want to leave a clean & thriving planet for our generation, & for generations to come! We want to share our knowledge, & grow from learning new things from others!
Thank you for sharing your site with us! Have a blessed day!
recipe for fabric softener : warning this is a GREEN friendly PRE-MIX trick on the CHEAP
take ECOVER liquid fabric SOFTENER & poor it into a SPRAY BOTTLE filling the spray bottle about 1/8 full of the FABRIC SOFTENER solution… put WATER in the REST of the BOTTLE, & shake… NOW, use this solution to spray on the INSIDE of the DRYER before placing clothes to be dried into the dryer… or you can spray a sock or cloth & toss it in… I spray the drum of the dryer or squirt it w/ a reused hair detangling bottle from forever ago (see, I told you I’m cheap LOL)! WORKS like a CHARM!
I use peroxide in place of bleach, it’s especially good on mildew stains in showers, on tile, etc… love baking soda to soup up detergent or to clean in place of harsher products…. if you need something a litle stronger, simply add in a little lemon juice with your baking soda, or add in some vinegar instead with your baking soda… this creates an acidic gritt & this will break up & scour down the dirt pretty much anywhere. Another cool trick I picked up along the way is to put 1/2 cup of water in a microwave & heat for about a minute or two - then whipe down the inside of the microwave… if it’s newly baked on grit, it should whipe right up.. if you need a little more power, use some baking soda to give it a bit of umph!
Oh yeah, don’t want to use fabric softener at all? & don’t want stiff clothes? simply put 1/4 - 1/2 box of baking soda into the rinse cycle of your wash load… it acts as a water softener (I’m too lazy or busy to hang out till 1/2 way through the wash cycle or to sit around waiting for the rinse cycle… so, I do the ECOVER fabric SOFTENER secret SPRAY bottle of FRESHNESS in the DRYER trick)
I just reallized, there are people doing more conserving then I am, who don’t use their dryers at all, now for those folks.. I’d say go for the baking soda idea 100% of the way… sorry, I can’t be that big of a die hard, I wish I could… my family is not small enough & I just don’t think I could keep up with that grand a scale of conservation (yes, I feel terrible now).
Thanks for the reinforcement on old ideas and for some new ones. I started being “Green” 35 years ago because it saved money as well as being safer for my family. One of the most important in Alaska with it;s hordes of mosquitos was insect repellent that didn’t melt the children’s nylon jackets or my fishing line. Now with West Nile it is just as effective.
In a pint of olive oil put 5 drops of each of these essential oils: citronella, patchouli, lemongrass, peppermint. This can be thinned with witch hazel and put in spray bottles.
I also put these oils in an alcohol base and add to my fabric softner so all our clothing is bug repellent.
Be careful of those Melaleuka products. I used to purchase them and found out if company does not list the ingrediants on their product~it’s not safe and full of chemicals. Just a heads up. They claim to be natural~they are not!
Great site!