This week we are focusing on natural housecleaning in preparation for the Natural Housecleaning Carnival this Friday! If you haven’t heard about it, check it out and prepare all your tips and recommendations.
I wanted to share with you three different frugal and effective housecleaning tools. I am always looking for ways to re-purpose and reuse items after their original purpose been spent. Two of the three ideas accomplish that to the fullest extent!
Scotch Brite Scour Pads
Scotch Brite Scour Pads are very useful when you need a good scrubbing for various housecleaning tasks. I keep one at the kitchen sink for all my dishwashing needs. I have used many different scrub brushes over the years specially designed for the task but they don’t work as well. The Scotch Brite (or green scratchy as I call it) works so well on scrubbing all the leftovers off both my stainless steel cookware and my favorite hard anodized non-stick pan and everything else. I use it to scrub all the gunk off my stove top as well. When you have some dried food product on a glass or plate, the green scratchy saves me so much more time and energy because it scrubs effectively. No intense elbow grease needed here! I also keep one in my cleaning bucket for those tough water stains in the toilet or bathtub.
Make sure to get the variety that has the green heavy duty scour pads on both sides for ease of use and effectiveness. I have found the blue softer side on the other variety to be pretty worthless. They are very cheap and are available everywhere. Tip: You can wash them in the laundry multiple times before they start falling apart, thus stretching your dollar. Also, just make sure to wash the dishwashing pad from the cleaning bucket one. 
Re-Purpose an Old Toothbrush
When your toothbrush has seen better days, before throwing it into the trash, consider adding this useful tool to your cleaning bucket or by your kitchen sink. A toothbrush is a good instrument for getting into all the crooks and crannies of housecleaning. Scrubbing around the toilet or sink, drain and cover, faucets, in the tracks of sliding shower doors or windows, tile grout, or any small hard to access places. Keep one in the kitchen for cleaning the wheels on your can opener, baby bottle lids or sippy cups,
Handy Dandy T-Shirts
When your old t-shirts have pass their prime, re-purpose them for cleaning your house! My husband’s old cotton undershirts are my favorite housecleaning rag! I just cut or tear each shirt into four rags. They work great for all my needs including windows. I have completely eliminated paper towels from my house because I didn’t like the waste, so t-shirts is my substitute. Surprisingly, they leave very little lint behind.
Those are my favorite tools. What are yours?