How to Clean Your Home on a Tight Budget.

Frugal living is all about saving. Saving money and cutting down on household waste. These days we all throw away far too much stuff and the planet simply cannot cope with the high levels of waste for much longer. We need to take action and we need to do it now. Everyone is capable of making savings, every little bit saved really does help.

Commercial brands of cleaning products can cost a lot of money and many come in excess packaging but if you want to be frugal, save money and cut down on waste but still get great results, then you might already have a few things around the house that can do just as good a job cheaply. Frugal cleaning is a great way to save money and the environment too. It makes sense to use what we already have rather than going out to buy new things to use.

Here are a few simple ways to help clean your house or clothes using things you already have around the home.

Imagine this - you pick up your amazing sandwich filled with hot, juicy bacon, lift it to your already salivating mouth and splat, a huge dollop of grease drops out of the bottom onto your nice clean clothes. If this has ever happened to you then this little bit of advice should come in handy.

Take off the clothes, it’s okay you have time to finish your sandwich first, after all, bacon is best eaten hot. Now place several sheets of folded kitchen towel either side of the grease stain so that the fabric is sandwiched between the paper. Then using a hot iron rub around the stain, this will loosen the grease and allow you to blot some of it up with the paper towels. Remember not to rub at this point just blot at the grease so that you don’t spread it around even further. Next, sprinkle talcum powder over the stain leave for a few minutes and then shake out, the grease stain should be gone.

Limescale around the shower head can build up really quickly, especially if you live in an area of hard water, it can slow the flow of water to a trickle in no time at all. The good news is that there is a quick fix available to you. Mix together one small glass of white wine vinegar with a small glass of baking soda, pour this mixture into a small plastic bag and attach the bag to the showerhead using a rubber band to secure the bag at the neck.

Leave the bag on the showerhead for a couple of hours, or better still overnight if possible. Remove the bag, you can wash it out and recycle it, then wipe away the limescale from the showerhead and then rinse with clear water. As a final rinse turn the shower to hot and allow it to run for a minute or two to remove every last speck of dirt.

Your showerhead should now be squeaky clean and free from limescale. Repeat this procedure every two or three months to keep your shower flowing freely.

The first thing to do is to place some old newspapers over the stain and press down hard with your feet. Remove the paper and then cover the stain with sand and once again rub it in with your feet, leave the sand for an hour or two to soak up the excess oil, then with a stiff brush sweep the sand away. Don't brush the sand onto your lawn, as the oil will destroy the grass. Gather up the sand and oil in a dustpan and throw it away.

When you have removed all of the sand pour a good measure of neat washing up liquid onto the stain and then rub this in too. Pour a kettle full of boiling water over the stain, you may need to repeat this step. Finally, leave to dry - the oil stain should be gone.

If your carpet is looking a little bit on the dirty side, first give it a good vacuum and then sprinkle ordinary table salt all over it, work the salt into the carpet pile with your feet, or a soft brush. Leave the salt on the carpet for an hour or so and then vacuum it again. You may find that if you leave the carpet after vacuuming that any leftover salt works its way to the surface over the next half day, if so simply vacuum again to remove all of it.

This method really does bring the carpet up very well and it has the added benefit or removing stale odours too. This method also works very well on rugs and mats, give them a good shake outside before vacuuming them if they are small enough.

A word of warning if you have pets in your home, don't leave them alone in a room that has had its carpet treated in this way, dogs, in particular, will take great pleasure in licking up as much of the salt as they can!

If someone has put a cup or glass down on your best wooden table and left behind that awful white ring or mark, don’t despair. Just reach for the hairdryer. Using the hairdryer on a hot setting hold it about a hands depth away from the mark, keep it moving in a circular direction and keep looking at the wood to make sure it doesn’t burn.

You don’t want to replace a watermark with a scorch mark. If you are worried about burning the wood than you can use a sheet of newspaper as a buffer between the surface and the hairdryer, of course, it will take much longer to remove the white mark this way. The heat drives the moisture from the wood and after a while, it can take anything up to thirty minutes depending on how bad the mark is, it will disappear completely. Finish off with a layer of furniture wax and buff to a shine. The table will be as good as new.

Microwaves are a fantastic invention, they can seem to hang on to smells though, especially things life fish or curry. This is a great way to freshen up the inside and leave it smelling like new.

Put half a cut lemon in a cup of cold water inside the microwave and heat on full power for five minutes. Wipe the inside out with a damp cloth, this method removes even hard, baked-on food residue and will even remove hard to get rid of fishy smells.

Even old dried on stains will quickly disappear and any lingering odours will be eliminated leaving the microwave once again smelling fresh and clean.

If you find someone has left dirty finger marks on your wallpaper, don’t despair, simply reach for the nearest loaf of white bread. It has to be white bread this method just doesn't work if you use brown or granary.

Remove the crusts and gently rub the bread over the marks until they disappear.This method even works for grease stains.

You might need to repeat the process if the marks are very bad. As soon as the bread starts to break up replace it with a fresh slice.