You don’t have to use caustic chemicals to clean around your house. Really! Lately we have all heard how great things like baking soda and vinegar are around the house. But you need to make sure that you apply the right treatment to the matching problem. Here are 6 ways to use baking soda and vinegar around your house!

1) Use a combination of 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water as a carpet stain remover! Put the mixture into a spray bottle and spray the spot. Then use a cloth to blot, not rub, the spot. The 1 problem with this is it can get the spot cleaner than the rest of your carpet;).

2) Have a musty smell in your carpet? Sprinkle it with baking soda. Let it sit a little bit then vacuum it up. That is it!

3) Stinky garbage disposal? Seeing goop? Take baking soda (and a cut up lemon/lemon rinds if you have it) and dump it in the disposal. Flip the switch to grind it just a little bit. Let is sit a few minutes. Then dowse it with vinegar. Not only will it bit a good show, it actually does clean. Then let the whole thing sit if you have time.

4) Have a diaper pail or just a garbage can that has a musty bag? Sprinkle in some baking soda! I sprinkle it in the bottom of my garbage cans or diaper pails before putting the bag in. It keeps food (or diaper) odors away. At least until you have time to take out the garbage;).

5) Have a grimy shower or stove top? Or is that just me;)? I make up a mixture of 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 Dawn. Gently mix it together and sponge it onto the surface. You don’t have to let it sit but more you do, the less work you do. Then you just wipe it off. It isn’t a miracle, you are going to have to rub some but it is just like using any other cleaner. Except I actually think it works better. It will prevent both mold and soap scum from developing in your shower! And the smell dissipates a lot quick than those bleach based shower cleaners!

6) Cleaning anything that has a hard surface and you have to wipe it? Use baking soda as an abrasive. It is gentle so you don’t have to worry about scratching! And it really seems to be effective.

There are so many other ways to use vinegar and baking soda but these are just a few to get you going!!!

With a new year upon us it is a perfect time to do a few of the much neglected but needed household chores! You can set aside a day to tackle it all or just do 1 job a day for a few days. Let’s kick off this year with a sense of accomplishment!

Lets start with the coffee pot because I need the coffee!! A clean coffee pot really does make a difference! Run 2 cups of vinegar through your coffee pot just like water to clean away the mineral deposits and gunk in your coffee pot! Then run 2 batches of plain water through it to get rid of the vinegar smell and taste! (The smell lingers longer than the taste!)

Change all the batteries in your smoke detectors! Yes, they will beep when the batteries die but that always seems to happen in the middle of the night around here. Buy a pack of batteries, grab the ladder and change them all in one fell swoop.

Another thing we all avoid but needs to be done semi-regularly is cleaning the oven. Don’t wait for your oven to hint to you that it needs to be done. How would the oven do that? Well, I had a friend preheating the oven and his smoke alarm went off. We call that a hint, don’t wait for that. There are a variety of commercial cleaners but there are also some great homemade methods/cleaners! They almost all call for applying something and letting it sit overnight. You could also do the same thing by setting it up in the morning to sit and taking 20 minutes in the evening to wipe it all down.

I find January a good time to do your windows both inside and out. Since it is cool the sun won’t bake on any sprays. Just take a bucket of warm water and add both about 1/2 cup of vinegar per gallon and a squirt of lemon juice. You can use paper towels or the more traditional newspaper and go at it. Or better yet, have the kids do the outside!

You can also take that left over glass cleaner to wipe down your glass light fixtures. Dump out any dust or bug bodies that have collected first and dust the metal bases too.

5 Often forgotten jobs that really make a great impact! Now don’t you feel all organized?