Simple Tips You Can Try Now to Save Money on Household Items and Cleaning Products
Save money and clean your home better with these 3 easy tips. If you want to make steps toward living a nontoxic, natural, and less (or zero) waste lifestyle, this post will help you get started.
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Have you ever misplaced money somewhere only to very excitedly find it later?
When I was a kid, I hid $50 from my birthday in a trophy cup. And then completely forgot about it until I was cleaning out my room for college.
It felt like the best day ever!
Well, I’m not giving you $50 in a trophy cup, but I AM going to share tips on how you can save over $50 a month on household cleaning supplies.
You can put it in a trophy if you want.
Let’s go.
3 Easy Ways to Save Hundreds on Cleaning Supplies
1. MAKE YOUR OWN HOMEMADE HOUSEHOLD CLEANERS
I hope you knew I was going to say this.
Why should you make your own homemade household cleaners?
It is very kind to your wallet
Making your own cleaning products is very budget-friendly. Using homemade cleaning products saves you a ton of money because the ingredients you purchase are CHEAP!
All you need to clean your entire home is…
- Baking Soda
- Washing Soda
- Baby Oxi Clean
- Vinegar
- Vodka
- Sea Salt
- Castile Soap
- Citric Acid (optional)
- Essential Oils
Some of the best I’ve found for multi-purpose cleaning include peppermint, lavender, tea tree, lemon, orange, clove, and cinnamon
Check out how to make antibacterial-boss Thieves oil for less than $12 a bottle
This is the list of the household cleaning products I make and no longer purchase:
- Dishwasher Detergent
- Laundry Detergent
- Laundry Softener
- Sink, Shower, and Toilet Scrub
- Window Cleaner
- Disinfectant
- Multi-Purpose Cleaner
- Air Freshener
2. BUY HOUSEHOLD ITEMS IN BULK
Here are a few ways buying in bulk works for us with saving money on household products:
I get our baking soda and salt from the bulk section at my local store and just keep them in big containers at home. It’s at least 40 cents cheaper per pound, which adds up quickly into dollars in your pocket (I’d personally rather buy a coffee with that extra money).
Purchasing white vinegar and vodka in the biggest jugs possible will give you the best bang for your buck, too. If you buy the small containers verses the largest ones, it’ll cost you. I learned the hard way.
Side note: You should see the looks I get when I’m 8 months pregnant and buying large amounts of vodka. I need a shirt that says “I disinfect my house with vodka and I have germy children.”
Buying your paper products in bulk will also usually save you a chunk of change. We purchase our toilet paper from either Costco or Amazon, depending on who has the best price.
And we stock up.
Which can cause a problem if you don’t have a lot of extra storage space! We’ve chosen to live in a smaller home that doesn’t have a TON of extra room, so we have to get a bit creative with WHERE we store all the extra toilet paper. Here are some ideas from experience:
- Use a shelf in the linen closet
- If you have a bed on a frame, store the extras under your bed
- Add shelves above doorways in the bathroom and load them with the extras
Talking about paper products, this brings me to my next tip…
3. USE RAGS AND CHEAP CLOTH INSTEAD OF ONE-USE DISPOSABLE PRODUCTS
Now, I have not crossed over to using cloth or rags instead of toilet paper. I’m just not there. But here are things we don’t normally have in our home anymore on purpose:
Paper towels
Paper napkins
Kleenex
Swiffer pads
Disinfectant wipes
Facial cotton pads
I’ve replaced all of these with a cloth version.
- We buy cheap washcloths from thrift stores and use those for cleaning cloths.
- These same cheap washcloths can be used for facial cotton pads to apply toner or take off makeup at night.
- The Dollar Tree or local thrift stores often have microfiber towels for dusting and cleaning.
- Our tissues were replaced with either reusable handkerchiefs or toilet paper in a jiffy.
- Instead of paper napkins we use reusable cloth napkins.
- We also use old cloth napkins for paper towels and a lot of the icky jobs they do…like pat down raw meat, or catch oil from pan-fried foods. I keep a large bowl (almost a basin) on top of our washer where we put these cloths until I’m ready to wash a load of them—and then I wash them in hot water and dry with high heat. Just to make sure all that ick is dead.
Update:
Grove has the best deals on natural cleaning supplies, like my favorite kitchen scrubber and walnut sponges
You can get a sustainable living kit free when you spend $20
Which includes:• Grove Recycled Trash Bags
• Grove Glass Soap Dispenser
• Grove Gel Hand Soap
• Grove Walnut Scrubber Sponges
• Grove Flour Sack Towel
Bonus Tip: Saving money by cloth-diapering
For you parents out there, we save on diapers by cloth-diapering part time. I didn’t add this to the above list since we haven’t fully replaced disposable diapers. We use cloth diapers during the day and disposables at night or when travelling. All of our kiddos have developed diaper rash if we use cloth diapers at night, and/or they leak through.
But even part-time cloth-diapering reduces our paper product usage, saving us money and lowering our waste.
Note: If you’re going to have a baby, asking for cloth diapers on your registry is a great idea! It’s what we did and I think it is the best “keeps on giving” gift we got.
I also recommend doing research on the EWG website to see how your household cleaners rank.