I read about some great household cleaning tips on the Internet. My favorite sites are Pinterest and Frugal-Freebies.com.
It’s 
amazing what you can do with borax, washing soda, bar soap, baking soda, essential oils, vinegar and lemons. For example, borax, washing soda, and bar soap makes a great laundry detergent and would cost less than $25 a year. You can make your own dishwasher detergent, floor cleaner, carpet cleaner, air freshener…the list goes on. Usually with a combination of a few of these ingredients.
Here are some uses:
Carpet or air freshener – baking soda and a few drops of essential oil. For carpet, place in a shaker (empty parmesan cheese shaker works great) and sprinkle on carpet. For air freshener, place in an open candle jar or small bowl. Those little canning jars with lids work great. Then, just shake it occasionally, with lid on, then remove lid and leave open jars around the house. They will freshen any room.
Carpet cleaner – baking soda and a few drops of your favorite essential oil. Add Borax and it will kill fleas and insects. Place in an empty parmesan cheese shaker and sprinkle the carpet. Leave it on longer to get rid of fleas and insects.
Dishwasher detergent – 1 1/2 Cups Lemi-Shine (They come in 12 oz containers, so this is a full one), 1 1/2 Cups Washing Soda, 1/2 Cup Baking Soda, 1/2 Cup Sea Salt (any will do I’m sure). If you can’t find Lemi-Shine at the grocery store, look for it online. Citric acid should also be substituted for lemi-shine. Mix all ingredients and use 2 Tablespoons per load. If you like, vinegar can be added as the rinse agent in the event that you have any cloudiness. This should yield approx. 32 ounces, which is 32 loads. This works better than Cascade and doesn’t cost as much. Source: http://theecofriendlyfamily.com/2011/10/diy-dishwasher-detergent-without-borax/
Fiberglass tub or shower – Sprinkle some 20 Mule Team Borax on the floor of your fiberglass shower (would probably work well on porcelain, too), then scrub with a wet scrub brush. It does take some elbow grease if the stains are bad; my hubby’s elbows did just fine! 🙂
Garbage disposal freshener – slice lemons and place in ice cube tray, cover with white vinegar and freeze. Place in ziplock bag and keep in freezer. Just pop one in the disposal and grind away! Another tip – add salt and it will help clean the blades, too.
Grease cutting floor cleaner – Heavy duty floor cleaner recipe: 1/4 cup white vinegar • 1 tablespoon liquid dish soap • 1/4 cup washing soda • 2 gallons tap water, very warm.
Hard water stained faucets – white vinegar. Soak paper towels in vinegar and wrap around faucet. Press to get close to faucet. Let sit for at least an hour (I let sit while I do all of my other cleaning). I thought I would have to replace the faucet, but this works great!
Laundry detergent – Uses only 4 ingredients (six ingredients if you add the optional OxyClean and fabric softener). Ingredients will cost you about $23 a year. This recipe will make a batch that will last you a whole year! 1 (4 lb 12 oz) Box of Borax, 1 (3 lb 7 oz) Box of Arm + Hammer Super Washing Soda, 2 (14.1 oz) Bars of Zote Soap or Fels Naptha or Ivory Soap, grated, 2 (2 lb) Boxes of Arm + Hammer Baking Soda. Stir occasionally to help keep from clumping up, and break up clumps with a fork. Skeptics will be impressed with this recipe.
BTW, I read that washing soda is for washing/cleaning and borax for whitening and deodorizing. That’s why they work so great together. Also, washing soda is just baking soda without the moisture. If you bake baking soda in the oven it will dry out and convert to washing soda.
These products can all be found on Amazon.com, but you should be able to find them at your local grocery store for less money.
Check out http://frugal-freebies.com and http://pinterest.com for more frugal household and cleaning tips.
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