Green Cleaning at its Frugal Best!

We all know one of the first and most important places to start living a more earth-friendly, family-friendly lifestyle is in the household cleaners that we use. These are some of the harshest things that we bring into our homes. Shouldn’t the fact that you sometimes get a headache, need plenty of ventilation, or just want to hold your breath be a huge sign that these things just aren’t safe? I remember having the child safety latches on my kitchen cabinets so my kids couldn’t get to the toxins when they were little. All I can say is, when you know better you do better and there are NO more cleaners in my home with harsh chemicals in them. I make my own cleaner and have two spray bottles, one for the kitchen, one for the bathroom. To make things even easier, I wrote the recipe on each bottle so if it runs out, anyone can make a new batch.
Here’s the recipe:

24oz. spray bottle
2 cups water
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon castile soap
20 drops tea tree oil
20 drops favorite essential for scent. I love orange!

Not only is this recipe safe for my family and the environment, but is SO economical! A great way to make this a wonderful gift would be to buy a nice glass spray bottle(already with a nice design) or hand paint it yourself and add a nice tag that has the “recipe” on it. Once you buy the ingredients for this recipe, they will last you for several months, making it very friendly on your wallet! Something that goes hand in hand with this homemade cleaner is a couple buckets or containers of rags(I know you have an old shirt or two that could be torn up for rags) next to each spray bottle. I haven’t bought paper towels in almost a year and haven’t missed them….EVER! This is the perfect time of year to green your cleaning routine! Just make sure you dispose of the old, unsafe stuff responsibly. Check out https://www.earth911.org/ for help with this!