Green And Frugal Cleaning Tips

pollyanna_26

Forgot to say Rhonda wrote 3 books . Two large hardbacks and one which was originally an ebook but later published in paperback .

I have the three books one was delivered from Aus , one from NZ and the other from Amazon . The speed of delivery was amazing and postage was free .

The two big ones are like the old household compendiums and worth having . I've been following her blog for years and it's a treasure chest of information . Well worth a look .
polly

jackyann

I too think it worth investing in some micro-cloths. Don't use them for everything - keep them for specific cleaning purposes. I clean all my glass / mirrors with water & micro-cloth.
I keep a kitchen micro-cloth, and one in each bathroom,and keep everything sparkly clean with just those & water.
I have a bottle of stardrops for odd occasions when needed.

I collect rags! All old clothes / sheets etc. are torn up for rag. I keep one in each loo for toilet cleaning, and I have a rag-bag for everything else. You will soon find you are obsessing about which fabrics make the best dusters etc!

A tip I got from here: I keep my kitchen roll tucked away so I am not tempted to use it (I use about 2 a year). I keep old tea towels in a stash and use those for draining fried foods / poached eggs, mopping up spills etc.
I keep a bucket into which I throw tea towels, dishcloths, used rags etc. If need be, I soak with a bit of bicarb or disinfectant. Once a week I do a boil wash - if you don't want to do that, then soak and wash at 60 degrees.

Rosesandrainbows

Thanks again for your suggestions and links.

Jackyann thanks for the kitchen roll tip. I am off to hide it now! i am quite guilty of just grabbing it for convenience but not anymore. I have lots of other washable cloths so will be making those more readily available.

I am off to the shops today so will definitely be picking up microfibre cloths, star drops and plenty of bicarb and vinegar. Hopefully it wont cost as much too. No more expensive wipes for me!!

bettertogether

Loving these ideas - and have just started devouring the Down to Earth blog - she's got some great ideas that I wish I had come across before.

A few that I use:

If you have a shower get a window scraper (the rubber ones with handle) - everytime you use the shower wipe down the glass and tiles with that - it'll stop water marks and limescale or pools of water creating damp.

I use a paste made from lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda to clean stainless steel such as my taps, kitchen sink etc - makes them super shiny.

I bought foaming soap dispensers online and use one for shampoo and one for washing up liquid - makes the stuff go a lot longer!

[Deleted User]

My children were born in 1967 & 1969 respectively, and I have four of their old Harringtons nappies left from then

One I use for window cleaning and the rest are used as cleaning cloths/ dusters

They are like me, quite old and very soft :) I still use them and sometime look at my eldest who will be 50 this year and think its not five minutes since I seemed to be washing these blooming things out.

Back then I had a bucket under the sink with Nappisan for wet nappies and the other ones got cleaned as best as I could then, boiled up in a big old black enamel pot on the stove.

No washing machine for me back then, but when I had my second DD nappiliners had just come onto the market which made life a bit easier and my OH and I saved up until we could afford a baby Burco boiler to boil stuff in.
Their old nappies have lasted longer than any other cloths . I too have an old pillow case with odds and ends in which is my go-to rag bag for cleaning bits that can be thrown away. I don't use kitchen roll unless its to drain fried sausages etc or if I want to wrap up the coffee grounds for the bin from my percolator

I have one tub of Astonish powder which I use very sparingly which I think I bought in a pound shop about 18 months ago.Its handy for those odd scouring jobs, and I scrunch up the net bags from fruit into a round ball and use those as scourers

Lynplatinum

Hiya

Last year I moved to a house with all hard floors (Cornish Slate and Limestone tiles) downstairs. My friend gave me a steam cleaner as a moving in present. Now, I know they use electricity but with such large areas to clean and having arthritis so going along on my hands and knees is a no -no it has been wonderful. It only uses its 250ml little capsule of water and heats it up. I now have my 16month old GD + my son's two large dogs living with me so the floors take a bashing but we need them to be clean for DG. My DIL and I vie with each other who is gonna do the steaming on cleaning day (Thursday)! Its really good value if you have large areas of hard floor.

Would also second the use of bicarb (in a paste we cleaned the oven with it and DIL couldnt believe it did such a good job). Sometimes you can find large packs in Chinese supermarkets. Also would second use of the fantastic Stardrops to get rid of grease.:)
Cheers

purpleybat

i've used bicarb for cleaning and it does do a fab job.
my question is.... can I get it anywhere in bulk? I've never seen it sold by the bag only a small pot.
thankyou in advance


I've just looked on amazon and can get it there by the multiple kilo tub

sadipeterson123

There are a lot of green cleaning companies but Advanced Green Cleaning just do it perfectly for me. They cover areas in Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Santa Fe. I'll put the link here if you guys are interested. Just search advanced green cleaning in google .

buildersdaughter

Sadi - although we do have a few posters from the US and elsewhere, this is a UK site and most of us live, work, and keep house & garden here.
However, as the thread has been resurrected, i thought I'd just see if anyone has found Stardrops recently? I am running low, and any of the stockists listed on their site are no longer stocking it (at least, the Wilkos, Home Bargains etc. near me aren't). It is neither green nor frugal to order from Amazon!

I'll jut add that since the 'password debacle' I post as buildersdaughter, but i did post on this thread as jackyann.

Someone has since told me that micro-cloths are not good for the environment as the minute particles don't degrade. So I am using up my stash, very slowly (and maybe it will see me out!). However, old 'polo shirts' (that Aertex type of cotton) also do a good job.

MikeMichael

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

Rhonda's blog is here: http://down---to---earth.blogspot.co.uk/

Helpful Blog.