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Cleaning Up Your Household Budget, Part 2 By Melissa J Wantuck  |
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 This second article in our “Cleaning Up Your Household Budget” miniseries will look at ways to cut your costs when buying home cleaning products. For this article, I did some of my own experimentation with a highly recommended and inexpensive product: vinegar. I was surprised to find the versatile uses for vinegar and that its cleaning power is just as effective as liquid cleaners sold in the stores.
First, you might ask the all important question when it comes to household cleaners and that is will vinegar disinfect? The answer is yes. The acidity of vinegar kills germs so it is an anti-bacterial cleaner.
What I did was buy two 24-ounce plastic spray bottles. They cost me $0.99 each (purchased at Wal-Mart). Then I bought a one gallon container of white distilled vinegar for $1.99 (Great Value brand at Wal-Mart). The spray bottles differ in colors on their caps; one is red and the other is blue. In the red spray bottle I poured vinegar. In the blue spray bottle I poured one part water and one part vinegar.
The reason for the two bottles with different concentrations of vinegar is to have a diluted solution for regular all-purpose cleaning, particularly of glass, and then the undiluted solution for cleaning surfaces that have germs and other bacteria on them, like the toilet.
I combined my new vinegar-based cleaning solutions with the hand-knit dishtowels mentioned in Part 1 of this article miniseries. What I found is the vinegar-based cleaning solutions cleaned the surfaces of my home just as well, and sometimes better than the name brand and chemical-based products I am currently using. I simply sprayed my countertops, appliances and stovetop with the half water/half vinegar solution and wiped everything using a dry knit dishcloth and it removed grease, tea stains and food. For tougher stains and to clean bacteria from meat preparation, I used the all-vinegar solution. On the mirrors in my bathroom and on the faucet I used the half-and-half solution. The all-vinegar solution cleaned my vanity and toilet. The knit dishcloth did not leave any lint on my mirrors and once I was done cleaning, I rinsed it clean otherwise the vinegar smell lingered in it.
There is one downside to cleaning with vinegar: the smell. If you can’t stand the smell of vinegar, you may not like using it. I personally prefer its smell to that of bleach and while you will smell it when you initially spray, the smell disappears in no time. As I mentioned with the cleaning cloth, rinse it when you’re done. I found out the smell may linger in fabrics.
The benefit of switching to vinegar as a cleaning product in my home is I’m eliminating the harsh, chemical-based cleaners that are a danger to my family, particularly the heavy-duty cleaners for my stovetop that I require me to ventilate my kitchen whenever I use them. I’m throwing those out, especially because the vinegar solution worked better than they ever did!
Finally, with the switch to cloth dust clothes, cloth towels, knit dishcloths and vinegar to clean my home, I wanted to figure out my budget savings. Adding up the disposable dust cloths I normally buy, they cost me about $77 a year. By switching to cloth dust cloths, I can buy a pack of 5 for $6. That’s a savings of $71 a year, and even more for the next few years when I won’t need to buy anything.
I use on average four liquid cleaners each week. They cost me, along with the paper towels to wipe surfaces with, about $73 a year. If I compare the amount of liquid cleaners to buying the same amount of vinegar it amounts to just over 2 gallons of liquid cleaner a year. To buy just over two gallons a year of vinegar is less than $5. I’ve suddenly cut my cleaning budget from $150 a year to $5 after investing only $7 for the dust cloths and spray bottles. Add on about $6 to make about 6 knit dish cloths, which will last me at least a few years, I will invest less than $14 and then only pay $5 the next few years for vinegar. I will save my family hundreds of dollars!
I couldn’t be happier with the results from my cleaning experiment and I hope you will too!
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