Homemade Cleaning Solutions

Homemade cleaning solutions add up to short work and big savings!

These days, we've all got our eye on that grocery bill. Have you ever looked to see how many dollars at the supermarket go to special cleaning products you regularly use in your home? These specialized cleaners hit the market in earnest, beginning in the 1960s.

Manufacturers' ads, targeting the home maker, led us to believe these new products would do the job far better than Grandma's cheap, homemade cleaning solutions. Today, we don't even think twice when tossing window cleaner, oven cleaners, grease-removing sprays and a whole hot of individual products for every cleaning task imaginable. We think we simply can't have a clean house unless we buy these products. It's high time we reinstated some of Grandma's cleaning tools, which do the job just as well at a fraction of the cost.

Here are 4 such Common Household Staples which Do Double Duty

Plain vinegar can serve as a multi-purpose homemade cleaning solution. Mix plain vinegar with an equal amount of water. Use it to clean windows to a sparkling shine, with no streaks. Newspaper works especially well, used in lieu of paper towels. Vinegar may also be used, in a half and half mixture to clean your floors. It cuts grease and dirt just like the expensive floor cleaning products.

If you've got odors lingering in the air after cooking, set a small dish of plain undiluted vinegar on the kitchen counter to restore a fresh smell within an hour or two. This also works to eat up nasty cigarette odors.

If you object to the pungency of vinegar, try this: just as you can make a flavored vinegar for salad dressings, you can make a scented herb vinegar which surpasses the expensive supermarket products. Snips of rosemary, lavender, rose petals, thyme or whatever herbs whose scent you enjoy can be infused in a gallon jug of plain vinegar. Cover with a tightly fitting lid and allow to sit for a month. Voila! A lovely scented homemade cleaning solution that lasts for many months of cleaning.

A large box of baking soda can replace garbage can fresheners. Rinse out your kitchen or garage trash cans and then sprinkle a little baking soda in the bottom. The baking soda neutralizes odors, eliminating embarrassing tell-tale smells.

Instead of using special abrasive paste tub, sink and shower cleaners, a combination of vinegar and baking soda, mixed to the consistency of a paste, does just as good of a job for a heck of a lot less money.

If you've got kids, you inevitably find crayon marks on the furniture and walls. Believe it or not, mayonnaise is a champion in the homemade cleaning solution toolkit. Apply a little with a rag, wiping in circular motions. Watch the crayon disappear without a trace.

Cleaning up broken glass is safe and easy with this unconventional cleaning solution. Use a piece of bread to gently wipe up every shard. Homemade cleaning solutions rock!

And, they help save the environment!