Creating a Healthier Home: Frugal and Nontoxic Cleaning Tips, Part 1

CREATING A HEALTHIER HOME

My journey towards a healthier lifestyle began well before I had kids, but became much more urgent after my husband passed. I have always enjoyed healthy food and exercising, but I didn’t know that products I used every day could be harmful to our health. My desire to have less toxic cleaning ingredients actually began as a desire to simplify what I used and save money. Join me as I share my frugal and budget-friendly tips for making your own cleaning products, starting with something you probably have in your cupboard. It's incredible how one simple ingredient can clean almost your entire house without the worry of harmful side effects. Let's take this journey together towards a safer and healthier home!

One of the first things I began using was white vinegar. When I learned how versatile vinegar was, I started using it all the time. Not only is it effective, it’s super cheap and not full of harmful ingredients.

Here are some ways I used white vinegar:

As a rinse aid in my dishwasher
To mop my floor
As a fabric softener in my washing machine
To clean and disinfect surfaces
To wash my windows

While I loved the nontoxic and effective cleaning power of vinegar, I wasn’t a fan of the smell and neither were my kids. After doing a little more research I decided to try adding essential oils. I purchased some orange essential oil and began adding it to the vinegar when I was cleaning, and it made such a difference! Instead of being greeted with a strong vinegar smell, there was a clean, citrus scent.

As I slowly began modifying what we were using, I started researching the ingredients in common cleaning products. The more I discovered, the more I learned how harmful these things can be to our health! Some of the ingredients I learned about are known carcinogens, yet they are still allowed in store bought products. I wanted to avoid them at all costs.

Our skin, our largest organ, is permeable, meaning it can absorb the substances it comes into contact with, allowing them to enter our bodies. If I wash my floor with a chemical based product and walk barefoot on it or my child sits on that floor, those chemicals could absorb into our skin and then into our bodies. This realization pushed me to continue to find alternative solutions that would unburden our bodies from harmful chemicals.

Eliminating chemical based cleaners and body products from my house is something I continue to be mindful of. I didn’t switch everything out at once, but made small changes over time, which has resulted in better health for all of us and has kept my penny-pinching heart happy. I will be sharing more frugal and nontoxic tips in future blog posts, but for now, please enjoy this simple DIY cleaner.