A Cleaning Experiment

I’ve been researching lots of ways to pare down my household budget. One of the most practical and interesting to me is the use of homemade cleaners.

So basically to get started I bought a boatload of baking soda and vinegar and then I began the experiments. First I read I could use vinegar to clean my wood floors and since I was out of the cleaner I normally use (which costs over $4 a bottle) I thought I’d try it. I was worried about the scent, especially since the hubby is like a bloodhound when it comes to smells (good and bad).

Test Subject 1 – Vinegar
So I dug out my vinegar (you know I only use it to clean my coffee pot and once a year to dye eggs, no wait we didn’t do that last year…) Any hoo, I mopped the floors and they looked marh-va-lous! The smell was a little strong at first but as the floor dried the smell disappeared. Score one for vinegar. I next used it on my vinyl kitchen floor, and I have to say I think they even looked shinier. I had read somewhere vinegar could remove buildup, and I think it did! Give the stinky-stuff another point, it's a keeper.

Test Subject 2 – Baking Soda
Baking soda is good for just about anything and everything. Honestly, just swagbuck search the stuff and you’ll find hundreds of uses. One cleaning product I wasn’t sure I could give up was my bleach infused powdered cleanser (Comet). So I gave my baking soda the ultimate test right off the bat, kool-aid stains on my counter. My darling messes often drip rainbow-colored drops of that sweet beverage all over my cream colored countertops!

So here’s a picture of the spill and the guilty culprit.

I (actually one of my Mess Makers who was very interested in being my research partner) sprinkled just a small spoonful of baking soda right over the blemish. I didn’t even let it sit for long, just enough time to put the baking soda back under the sink.

I scrubbed, just a little with my scrubby sponge and voila..presto chango! The strawberry soil had vanished! Kind of hard to tell from my pic, but it really was completely gone.

Now I’m a believer! Especially when you I was able to purchase a 12 lb bag of baking soda for $5.79 and two gallons of vinegar for only $3.38. I’ll report back on how long this stuff lasts me…but really 12 pounds surely it’ll take a couple of months before my Messes need that much soda.