I am a marketer’s dream. I could walk down that cleaning aisle and buy everything just to try out new products.

I LOVE A CLEAN HOUSE!!!!

Here are the things we do buy:

1. the stuff in the photo (except the Mr Muscle and the Handy Andy bottle – I’m working through my “stash” of cleaning things).
2. bleach
3. toilet cleaner – the gel
4. washing powder
5. white vinegar – for fabric softener
6. stuff in the photos below

TIPS!

1. I buy one Mr Muscle kitchen cleaner that lasts us forever because I dilute it 1 part: 3 parts water… and yes, it’s still strong enough to do its thing on my kitchen counters. My current one is from Oct last year and we still have to use the last bit in the original bottle. That’ll be about 9 months of using 1 bottle of kitchen cleaner.
2. I use white vinegar instead of fabric softener. No, it doesn’t make your clothes smell. Your clothes just smell… clean. I use 1/4 cup per load.
3. I use these products. My goal is to transition to just a few essential cleaning products so I don’t need a bathroom cleaner, shower cleaner, kitchen cleaner, etc.

You use just 5 ml in a 750 ml bottle of water. Shake it all up and go clean.

We’ve been using this stuff over a year and my original bottles are still mostly full. They cost about R75 initially (for both) but look how long they last.

(it’s also kid-friendly and kind to the environment, etc. if you’re concerned about those kinds of things. I am slightly hippy so I am)

Initially I bought these products at a work expo but South Africans, PnP sells them too so they’re easy to get.

I use the fabric and carpet cleaner for the sweat marks on my t-shirts (I know none of you have those!) and other fabric stains before we need to do laundry.

And that’s it.

Compared to other families, I know that we save a lot of money with this kind of thing. R200 a month might not sound like a big saving but roll that up and ask yourself what you could do with R2400…

Years ago I used to buy multi-purpose cleaner, the gel for bathrooms, stuff for our clothes, stuff for the carpets, stuff for the windows, etc. Now I have TWO bottles to take care of it all.

Once I finish those two on the top.

I will still have separate toilet cleaner (see clean bathroom obsession above) but that’s the aim.

Any tips you can share with me?

How much do you spend on cleaning stuff in a month?

(I don’t know how much we spend but probably if I had to average it out, I’d say R125- R150 a month. We go through 2 bags of 9 toilet rolls once a month.)