Reduce Use And Save Money On Household Items

How often do you use more of a product than you need to use to get the desired result?  For example, when you do a load of laundry, do you really measure out the appropriate amount of laundry detergent or do you just dump some in?  Chances are, there are many household products that you’re using more than you need, and therefore wasting money.

Laundry Detergent

Some laundry detergent measuring cups are tricky – they’ve got three or four different fill lines in them!  Most of the time, you can use the lowest fill line inside the cap and get a sparkling clean load of wash.  When you use more than you need to get the clothes clean, you get half the amount of washes possible from your bottle of laundry detergent and that means you have to buy it more frequently.  Stretch your budget and make your laundry detergent last longer by looking at the fill line when measuring laundry detergent – you may be surprised how many loads of laundry you can clean with that small bottle!

Some laundry detergents are so potent that you can even get away with using less than the recommended amount to get a clean load of wash.  This has been tested frequently with a load of towels and wash cloths.  Towels and wash cloths tend to hold some lingering detergents and soaps in between washes, and therefore don’t require as much when being washed.

Shampoo and Conditioner

Next time you’re about to lather up your hair, read the directions on the back of the shampoo and conditioner bottles.  You might be surprised to see how little the recommended amounts of shampoo and conditioner is.  Typically an amount about the size of a dime or quarter in the palm of your hand should do the trick, although people with very long or thick hair may need a little more.  Pouring soap carefully and using just enough will make your bottles of shampoo and conditioner last much longer.

Liquid Hand Soap

If you like to use liquid hand soap in the bathroom, you can water it down and make it last longer while still giving you enough soap in each squirt of hand soap to get your hands nice and clean.  Refilling a soap dispenser halfway with water and halfway with soap stretches it twice as long.  Shake the bottle with each use and you’ll use less soap but still get the job done.

Floor Cleaners

When you go to mop the floor, do you just pour in some floor cleaning product or do you measure it?  You may be surprised to learn what the recommended ratio is for floor cleaner to water in your mop bucket.  Chances are you’re using way more than needed to clean the floor and often more doesn’t make the floor cleaner, anyway!

Paper Towels

Do you rely on paper towels every time there’s a small spill in the kitchen?  Families with children tend to reach for the paper towels every time little hands and faces need cleaning after eating, but we can save money (and help the environment) if we used re-useable wash cloths and cleaning cloths in the kitchen instead of relying so much on paper towels.