Quick Cleaning Tips For The Thrifty Homemaker

What did we ever do before all those fancy tools and cleaning products were invented? We found our own ways of doing a tough cleaning job and we also saved a lot of money in the process!

Here are a few basic, quick tips for household chores that can save you money.

Cleaning those dirty corners:
The corners in a bathroom or kitchen, by windows and doors or even tight corners in cabinets, can become dust filled and accumulate dirt over a period of time. Just look in your medicine cabinet and you’ll see what I mean.

What to do?......

Save one of your old tooth brushes when you graduate to a new one and use the old guy for a scrubbing tool in those hard to get to places. An old electric toothbrush is a dandy help and takes less elbow grease too! Those old electric toothbrush brushes wear out too and come in quite handy in their “2nd life”.

Cleaning the microwave:
Keeping up the inside of your microwave on a daily basis is the best idea, but in our hurry, hurry world that doesn’t always happen and food and splatters can create a baked on mess in our microwave. Covering the food you plan to cook in the “mic” with a paper towel also helps cut down on mess.

When all these preventatives fail, try this….

Fill a microwavable measuring cup or coffee cup with water and add a slice of lemon. Boil the water for a minute and then leave the door closed and let the steam do its work and loosen the mess.
In about 10 minutes, open the door and wipe the away the mess! A dirty microwave is not appealing to hungry appetites. It only takes a little time to keep a sweet smelling oven ready for use.

Cleaning ceiling fans:
There is nothing worse than dust accumulated on a ceiling fan, especially if that fan is located over an eating area. Those out of reach places need cleaning too but who wants to buy fancy equipment and hunt for storage space for one item that will be used to clean the tops of ceiling fans?

Here is a great idea using a paint roller. Wrap a dryer sheet or a Swiffer sweeper refill sheet around a clean paint roller and secure the ends with rubber bands. Most of us have an extension handle for our paint roller or we can borrow an extension from a friend and just roll and dust away our dust bunnies that find a home on our fan blades! This is ingenuity at its best! There is nothing to have to store and the paint roller can go back to the garage or storage shed!

Cleaning window screens without removing them:
If you happen to have an air compressor and an air nozzle, you can clean your window and door screens in just a few seconds! Just set the air pressure at 60 psi and blow away the dust, dirt and cobwebs.

If your kitchen window happens to be over the sink , try opening the window and using your sink sprayer hose, turn your water on high and spray through the screen to the outside and voila! You have a freshly rinsed …and clean screen! (pssst…Make sure your husband is not on the outside under your window when you do it!)