Thrifty Thursday: Green Cleaners/Kitchen Staples Part 2

This week’s Thrifty Thursday tip is focused on another kitchen staple: Baking Soda.

I can clean almost everything in my home with baking soda, vinegar or lemon juice. Baking soda is a great thing to add to laundry, clean the oven or scrub the sink with. Here are a few of the many uses:

In laundry:

Use to clean and deorderize laundry. I use about 1/4 to 1/2 cup in the washing machine to give my detergent a boost, or to get the stink out of my cloth diapers. I’ve also washed lightly soiled clothes with just baking soda when I’ve run out of detergent.
For really stinky stuff, use it as a presoak. Usually I do this in hot water with 1/2 cup or more, depending on the load size.
Apply a paste of equal amounts baking soda & water to stains to help break down grease.
Use in the rinse cycle as a fabric softener.

Other cleaning tasks:

Deodorizing the refrigerator and freezer.
Cleaning the stove top, range or oven: make a paste of 3 parts warm water to one part baking soda. It will not scratch surfaces. Other places to use it: counter tops, sinks, inside the refrigerator…. the list goes on.
Mix it with a mild dish washing liquid (like Ivory) until you have a thick paste to make a good bathroom cleaner.

Baking soda can be bought in bulk at a store like Costco or Sam’s. It’s so inexpensive! Just don’t use it to with vinegar at the same time or they will cancel each other out. The exception to this is to clean your kitchen sink drain: put baking soda down the drain, followed by some white vinegar. Quickly plug the sink and let sit. This is like the volcano you made in grade school science class. 🙂 It will help remove any built up gunk in there.

Another handy kitchen staple to have on hand is that mild dish washing liquid. It can be used in a variety of ways as well, and combined with other things to make effective cleaners. Eliminating the need for all the chemicals. 🙂

A great book on how to clean anything and every thing in your home is Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook. She has lots of green and mild alternatives and always recommends starting witht the mildest before moving on to the harsher methods of cleaning.

What are some of your favorite ways to clean green? Do you love a specific brand or tool? Is there a kitchen staple that you use to clean with?