How to clean your house on a budget (30 tricks)

Winner, let me challenge you: now that you’ve committed to keeping a clutter-free home, can you clean your house WITHOUT going to the store for any product or tool (that always comes with a hefty price, of course)?

If you ask yourself that question every time you have to clean your house, and always answer it with a ‘ yes’, then well done!

Because I’m willing to bet you already have everything you need to clean your house on a budget. It’s sitting in your pantry. Or backyard. Or frontyard. Only that, you might not know that. Not just yet.

That’s why you’ll find this post helpful. Because cleaning your home is an essential part of living a wholesome life. In fact, Cleveland Clinic better explain how spring cleaning is good for your health.

All it takes to clean your house on a budget is some creativity. Experimenting. Elbow grease. And patience as you figure out what works and what doesn’t.

A great place to start is with these:

30 tricks to clean your house on a budget

(I list some of these tricks in these 130 genius frugal living tips you need to start now.)

Trick #1: Trust the power of soap and water

Do you remember this sanitary guideline to curb the spread of COVID 19 – ‘wash your hands regularly with soap and water’?

Well, that guideline didn’t go round the world for no reason. Because soap and clean water on their own are truly capable of effective cleaning.

You can use clean water and soap to wash your laundry, dishes, mop the floor, etc.

Trick #2: Use vinegar to mop your floors

I bet you didn’t know you could use vinegar on your floors, or did you?

Well, now you know. Vinegar is effective at killing germs, dissolving hard water stains and rust, as well as cutting through grease and grime, among many other purposes.

Trick #3: Use old newspapers to clean your glasses and mirrors

This is an old trick that I never fully grasped in elementary school when I thought we were so poor that we couldn’t afford cloth and had to use newspapers to clean windows.

No. Turns out poverty had nothing to do with it. Newspaper is just a great glass cleaner.

Trick #4: Use wood ash to shine your pots and pans

Rural African households almost always have a fire crackling or smoldering in the backyard.

So, you can guess, we always have plenty of wood ash. Which has many uses.

As far as cleaning is concerned, you just scoop a handful of ash, and then using either your fingers or sponge, or cloth, rub the wood ash vigorously on your pot or pan.

That will get it to shine brightly.

This especially works for me if I had to use our indoor shiny pots to cook outside for an emergency (like a power outing that prevents us from using our electric stove).

And yet another helpful trick that makes this trick even more powerful is this: before setting your metallic shiny pot on the open fire, coat it with wood ash completely.

That makes it burn minimally. Without compromising on the quality of your food. Or the time it takes to cook the food.

Trick #5: Use lemon in place of vinegar

Call me cheap. But because I have to buy vinegar, I can get pretty stingy with it.

On those days (and that’s in winter), I turn to lemons because they grow freely in my frontyard.

So anything I can use vinegar for, I use lemon instead. And voila!

Trick #6: Use lemon to clean faucets

Rubbing lemon on your faucets will get them shiny in no time. Think your kitchen sink, bathtub faucets, bathroom sink, shower, etc.

Trick #7: Clean dried grease off walls with baking soda and vinegar

Is the part of your kitchen wall around your stove covered with dried-up grease from all that delicious cooking?

(Mine is. And not only from delicious cooking, but also from many failed attempts at frying something, too.)

Well, you can get that grease off your walls using ONLY baking soda and vinegar.

Just make a paste using baking soda and plain water. And then apply the mixture to your walls and let it sit for at least an hour.

Now, spray vinegar all over the affected area, as you scrub. It works for me every time.

Trick #8: Make your own cleaner

Over the Christmas holidays, I went to the store and bought 4 bottles of cleaning cream. And then I mixed the cream with other ingredients to multiply it so I can stretch it over months.

And guess what? It’s working.

But you know what? You can also make your own cleaner without even having to go to the grocery store.

Just mix water with white vinegar. And you’ve got yourself a universal cleaner.

Trick #9: Use ketchup to shine dull faucets

I have to be honest with you. The idea of using food to clean doesn’t settle well with me.

Chalk that up to growing up in an African household where it’s been drilled into us that food is scarce and we need not waste even a morsel.

But if you’re not too extreme (like I am), you can shine your dull faucets using ketchup.

Just smear the ketchup on the faucet, let it sit for a few minutes, before rubbing the faucet with a cloth and cleaning off the ketchup.

I tried that on just a small portion of my faucet and it worked.

Trick #10: Clean your stove with baking soda and vinegar

Is the exterior of your stove as well as your oven suffering the same ordeal as the walls around your stove? Grease?

Then here’s where you can use baking soda and vinegar as well.

I also used baking soda and vinegar on my baking trays (just when I was on the verge of giving up and throwing them away). They are as good as new now.

Trick #11: Clean carpets using baking soda

This is why I’m not a big fan of carpets. They are just so prone to all kinds of dirt. And they are difficult to clean.

Which is why I prefer just a bare floor which cuts both your cleaning costs and time significantly.

But to get dirt off your carpets, and to get rid of the stenches too, just spray baking soda on the affected areas and let it sit before vacuuming.

Trick #12: Tame stubborn cement floors with used car oil

Here in my rural village of Sub-Saharan Africa, our floors are not always tiled. And instead, we make do with just a cement floor that’s been smoothed and is just as beautiful as a tiled floor.

But taming your floors to get them that beautiful can be a pain. Here’s where used car oil is helpful.

You just smear it all over your floor (the smell is the problem). But mopping the oil off immediately afterwards helps get rid of the smell without getting rid of the effect of the oil on the floor.

Do this only three or four times. And you can enjoy your tamed floors for many years to come.

Trick #13: Use DIY floor polish on your floors

For your cement floors, floor polish will get them a neat finish once you’ve tamed them with the car oil.

I make my own floor polish (which lasts me months) using only candle wax and paraffin.

Trick #14: Use lemon to descale your electric kettle

Is your kettle all scaled up and yellow inside? Then lemons can easily take care of that for you.

Just cut the lemon into small pieces. Chuck them into your kettle. Add enough water to cover the bottom elements of the kettle. And let your kettle boil for a minute or two (keep the lid open so the kettle doesn’t turn itself off).

Now you can pour out the contents. And rinse with clean plain water.

Repeat as many times as you need.

Trick #15: Soak

A trick you probably overlook (I know I used to) when you clean your house, is soaking!

Whatever needs to be washed can and should be soaked first. And that’s because soaking cuts through the dirt, softening it up.

Winner, now you don’t have to use so much elbow grease to clean your house.

And here’s a shocker: you can actually enjoy cleaning your house!

Trick #16: Make your own cloth

No, you don’t have to manufacture cloth from trees (you’re probably not that magical). But you can recycle some of your discarded clothes by cutting them up into cloth.

Now you can have different textures for different surfaces. And as many cloths as you need. Completely free of charge.

Trick #17: Brighten your whites using lemons

This goes for clothes, table and/or chair cloths, pillow cases, curtains, bathroom mats, etc.

Because I have plenty of lemons during the winter time, that’s the perfect time for me to get my clothes all sparkling white again.

Trick #18: Boil your whites

What if you don’t have the luxury of a loaded lemon tree in your frontyard? Or backyard?

Does that mean you have to walk around in murky clothes?

No, you can boil your whites instead. Because boiling can be just as effective in getting your lackluster whites to bright again.

Trick #19: Use fruit bags to shine your floor

You remember how I tame my floors using car oil? And then use my floor polish on them? Well, the trick to getting them all sparkly is using fruit sacks on my floors.

I wrap the fruit sack around the brush of my broom. And then use that to scrub the floor.

Trick #20: Use baking soda to get rid of refrigerator odors

So, I’m a big fan of using my food to the last crumbs. (Remember our African mothers’ warning about wasting food?)

That, consequently, often means keeping food in the fridge for as long as possible.

But you know what happens when you get a collection of different foods in your fridge for quite a while? A hint of unpleasant smell is almost always inevitable.

It gets worse if you have some leftover fish in there as well.

So, how do I get rid of the odors?

By putting some baking powder into a small but wide bowl.

And then putting the bowl in the fridge along with my food. That takes away the stench.

Hey, you can do that for your freezer too.

Trick #21: Use paraffin to remove sticky objects like gum

Do you know the pain of getting gum stuck on your carpet, sofa, table cloth, or even your clothes? (Because I know it all too well.)

But I’ve always known about the secret of getting it off: using paraffin.

My mother used this trick my entire childhood because we’d get gum on our clothes all the time.

Just apply a little bit of paraffin to the affected area to soak it. And then rub the fabric to dislodge the gum.

Trick #22: Scrub your dishes using fruit bags

Fruit bags are just versatile gems in your house, so take advantage of them as much as you can.

Remember, they can make a loofah, you can shine your floors with them. And guess what?

You can also scrub your dishes, especially pots and pans with it.

Trick #23: Use fruit bags to clean your toilets

There’s just no end to the goodness of fruit bags, is there?

Don’t have a toilet brush? Don’t worry. Just make your own brush by tying fruit bags to a thick piece of stick.

Guess what? You can even make a brush holder from an empty cola bottle, to store your brush.

Trick #24: Use hot pepper to chase off bats

If you’re like me, you’re on your last nerve with the foul smell of bats. And the dirty stains their droppings make on the floor.

And if you want to get rid of the bats (without killing them), you can simply chase them away by burning hot pepper and placing it in your bat-infested area.

If you make this a habit, the bats will never come back (because your house is just a hot-pepper-smelling-hellhole).

Trick #25: Use lemon for your garbage disposal

That foul smell coming from your garbage disposal? You don’t have to bear it any longer.

Just cut some lemon into very small pieces (so you don’t clog your disposal). And then flush the lemon pieces down the disposal.

Trick #26: Boil lemons in microwave

With this trick, you fill a small microwaveable bowl with water, allowing room for the water to boil without spilling.

And then you slice up a lemon and add the slices to the bowl.

Now put the bowl in the microwave, turn the microwave on, and let the mixture boil for as long as is needed to soften the dried-up grease inside the microwave.

Finally, remove the bowl. And use a cloth to wipe off the softened dirt.

Trick #27: Use coke to remove toilet stains

You already know how I feel about using food to clean.

But if you have the stomach for it (maybe once in a while), you can use coke to get rid of the stains on your toilet. Really, it works.

Trick #28: Clean your flat ceiling with vinegar

You can get rid of all that dirt on your ceiling using a simple mixture of warm water, white vinegar and dishwashing liquid.

After you vacuum the ceiling and /or dust it off with a feather duster, you can spray the mixture on the ceiling and then dab it off with a clean roller brush. Or cloth.

Trick #29: Make your own wood furniture polish

You can get your wood furniture all shiny and more durable without having to spend a fortune. (By the way, furniture polish happens to be one of the most unreasonably priced items in our stores here.)

The trick here is in making your own polish. How?

By mixing some olive oil with white vinegar and/or lemon juice.

If you want a nice fragrance as an extra, then you can add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to the mixture.

Trick #30: Air your stuff

You’ll be amazed at the powerful and positive effect airing your stuff will have on keeping your house clean.

OK. So, you should cultivate the habit of opening your windows to let some fresh air and and let the musty smell out.

But you can take things up a notch and actually take your stuff outside where it’ll not only get ample air, but possibly some sun as well. (That’s double the protection).

You can air anything from your clothes, bedding, cushions, mattresses, etc.

Final word

You can clean your house without spending your hard-earned money on store products and tools. And instead, using only what you already have at home. All you need is some creativity, experimenting, hard work, and patience as you try different things to determine what works and what doesn’t.

I hope this post has been helpful to you.

In that case, please share your thoughts by commenting.

Winner, your feedback can inspire another Winner out there to also enjoy a clean house even on their tight budgets.

Last but not least, remember that it’s your journey. So, there’s no rush. No right or wrong. Only progress.

Also, remember that in everything you do, you’re a Winner. And in everything that happens, your life is always a win!