Clean your house for £2.23!

By changing your cleaning habits, you could save yourself £63 a year!

I don't know about you, but I hate cleaning my flat. Unfortunately I also hate dirt so that means I religiously have to give my flat a good clean every weekend.

But quite often as I'm scrubbing the bath and my thoughts start to wonder, I contemplate how much money I throw away each week on cleaning products. After all, by the time you've added all the various necessary products to your shopping basket, the cost soon adds up.

But did you know that there are far more eco-friendly and wallet-friendly ways to clean your home from top to bottom?

The money game

Using MySupermarket.com, I calculated how much it would cost if I bought a range of cleaning products for my flat. I selected the cheapest products I could find but excluded 'value' items. The cheapest basket was from ASDA and here are the results:

• Furniture Polish 78p
• Glass cleaner 98p
• Stainless steel cleaner £1.75
• Floor cleaner £1.50
• Bathroom cleaner 98p
• Mould and mildew remover £2.56
• Toilet cleaner 75p
• Drain cleaner £1.60
• Carpet cleaner £2.10
• Oven cleaner £1
• Kitchen cleaner 98p

Basket total: £14.98

Of course, not everyone will need or want to buy all of these items, so your basket total might be smaller. But this should at least give you some indication of how much can be spent on cleaning products.

The fantastic four

To me, spending £14.98 on a range of cleaning products seems like a waste of money. But there is another, far cheaper way, to clean your house. Instead of buying the above 11 items, you can get your home just as sparkling by using just four non-chemical based products. The list below shows you the items you need and how much they cost from ASDA:

• Lemon 23p
• Bicarbonate of soda 55p
• White vinegar (listed as distilled malt vinegar in the shops, and it's clear in colour) 45p
• Olive oil £1

Basket total: £2.23

This time the basket total is just over £2 - that's a whopping £12.75 less than the original basket! Not bad at all!

So can these four products costing just £2.23 really clean your home in the same way as the chemical products I listed above?

In a word, yes! Here's how:

The floors

To clean non-carpeted floors, put eight tablespoons of white vinegar in three litres of hot water and get mopping those floors!

Alternatively, if your carpets are looking a little stained, mix up equal parts of vinegar and water and simply apply it to any stains. Then blot the stains with kitchen towel until the moisture is absorbed and repeat the process if necessary.

You can also sprinkle a little bicarbonate of soda onto carpets to remove bad smells. Simply leave for a while and then vacuum off.

The furniture

Mix one part olive oil with one part lemon juice. Then rub on your wooden furniture and polish with a dry cloth. You can also use this on wooden floors.

The oven

Moving into the kitchen, it's time to scrub that oven! And once again your white vinegar will do the trick!

Mix equal parts of vinegar and water and clean with a damp cloth. For more stubborn stains, make a paste by mixing bicarbonate of soda with a little water and use a scourer to remove burnt-on food. Rinse with water. If your oven is really dirty, leave the paste on overnight.

And if you want to freshen up your microwave, put some slices of lemon into a bowl of water. Whizz them on high in the microwave for few minutes and voila!

Kitchen worktops

Sprinkle bicarbonate of soda onto a damp cloth and scrub the worktop gently. This acts as a good abrasive and a mild disinfectant.

For any stainless steel areas, use a paste of bicarbonate of soda and water and apply generously. Leave for a few minutes and then wipe over.

The bathroom

To make your bathroom shine, mix two parts bicarbonate of soda with one part vinegar or lemon juice. Apply the thick paste with a damp cloth to baths, shower doors, sinks and tiles. Leave for around 10 minutes and then rub with a sponge. Rinse off.

If there's any rust or hard water stains around the bath or sink, apply vinegar or lemon juice and leave until the stain disappears.

Cleaning the toilet is never fun. But for a cheap and easy way to do it, sprinkle eight tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda into the toilet bowl. Add a splash of vinegar and scrub with a brush. This will clean and deodorise. You can also sprinkle bicarbonate of soda onto a damp cloth to clean the toilet seat and cistern. Wipe over with a wet cloth.

The drains

If you want to keep your drains clear, put one part bicarbonate of soda down first, followed by four parts hot vinegar.

It should fizz as the chemicals react. Leave for a while (preferably overnight) and then flush with hot water.

Mould and mildew

Mould in the bathroom can be a complete nightmare!

However, black spots can be removed with one part vinegar or lemon juice to one part bicarbonate of soda. Apply this to any mould stains and leave for an hour or two. Then rinse off. If necessary, reapply.

Sparking glass

Put two to three tablespoons of vinegar in three litres of warm water and use to wash windows. If you want your windows to have that extra sparkle, dry with crumpled newspaper.

Limescale

I haven't included a descaling product in the shopping list above purely because it won't be an issue for everyone. But if you live in a hard water area and limescale is driving you mad, your bottle of white vinegar will come in handy once again.

Instead of paying out £3.44 on a pack of Calgon to keep your washing machine free of limescale, pour a capful of vinegar into your washing machine and run it on a normal cycle once a month (minus clothes) to dissolve any limescale deposits.

Similarly, to descale your kettle, boil up one cup of water mixed with one cup of vinegar.

Looking good

So if you're looking for a cheaper way to keep your home fresh and clean, why not give the above tips a go?

Of course, you may find that the non-chemical cleaning products run out more quickly than the chemical based products - but that's purely because you're using fewer products to clean more items!

But let's say you buy the non-chemical products once a month - this would cost you £26.76 a year.

In comparison, if you buy the chemical based products every two months, your yearly spend would come to a whopping £89.88! So by simply switching your cleaning habits, you could save yourself £63.12 a year!

If you have any further tips, don't forget to add them in the comments boxes below. Alternatively, why not post a question about cleaning techniques on Q&A and get other lovemoney.com community members to help solve your problems?

Thanks to Channel 4.com for some of these tips.

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