Cleaning your house is not only a time consuming task, but also one that carries with it certain unavoidable costs. For example, purchasing cleaning supplies including all purpose cleaner, window cleaner, toilet cleaner, toilet block, sponges, cloths, floor cleaning detergent, dish wash detergent, and the list goes on!
A common technique to mitigate these costs is to hire a professional house cleaner on a regular basis. The regular costs of a cleaner generally add up to the costs of purchasing supplies and doing it yourself, and of course mean you have a little bit of spare time on your hands!
We all know that even if you hire the services of a professional house cleaner on a regular basis, the most used rooms of the house such as kitchen, lounge and bathrooms need to be kept clean and tidy in between visits. Therefore, here are some tips which we have gathered over the years to keep costs down and time spent cleaning to a minimum.
1. Purchase your cleaning chemicals in bulk - This is a tried a tested method to keep costs down. If you purchase your cleaning supplies from a store such as Bunnings, you can easily find 1L or 2L bottles of concentrated cleaning liquids. You simply mix these liquids with water in some empty spray bottles. As a result, you have approximately 3 months worth of supply for a fraction of the cost! Some examples are:
- Window and glass cleaner concentrate: $8.98 for 2L - will last up to 12 months
- All purpose disinfectant concentrate: $21.95 for 5L - will last easily for 6 months
- De-greaser concentrate: $24.95 for 5L - will last for 12 months
- Bleach: $6.98 for 4L - will last for 3 months
- Sugar soap concentrate - $1.98 for 1L - will last for 12 months
Add in a set of inexpensive spray bottles for $4.98, and the majority of your household cleaning chemicals can be purchased up front in bulk for less than $100 per year.
2. Consider making your own cleaning products - If you search the internet, you can find a tonne of websites and blogs explaining the benefits of using home made cleaning products. Whilst purpose made cleaning products are generally advocated, take a look at some examples in the website below:
http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2007/12/housecleaning-on-budget.html
3. Purchase cleaning cloth in bulk - You can purchase a bag of rags for a little over $6. This will easily last an entire year, and probably more!. Alternatively if you wanted to save extra money you could easily cut up old clothing into an appropriate size and use those instead.
In addition to this, you can purchase scourers in bulk (less than $2 for 10) from most stores. These will last you 2-3 months quite easily. Try ebay for even greater discounts on larger purchases.
4. Purchase a vacuum cleaner without bags - The cost of vacuum cleaner bags is quite extensive. Professional cleaners will often prefer bagged vacuums as they generally have better performance. However for the purposes of cleaning in between house cleaning visits, a bag-less vacuum will do the trick. Bags generally cost anywhere from $10-$20 for 5 bags which can be filled up easily within a month. Therefore if you purchase a cheap bag-less vacuum (which can be had for less than $50), you will be saving within the first 3-6 months.
5. Don't over-use cleaning products - The mantra 'less is more' is what we are talking about here. There's no need to over apply cleaning products when doing a general tidy up. 2-3 sprays of all purpose cleaner on kitchen benches is sufficient. In the example of window cleaning, spraying too much window cleaner can actually result in unwanted streaking and foam marks.
6. Keep a cleaning schedule - In other posts such as our Weekly Cleaning Schedule we advocate the use of a cleaning schedule. This can be really beneficial in saving money. For example, wash all of the clothes on a weekly basis rather than every 2nd or 3rd day. Doing washing in bulk means you will save costs in terms of washing detergent, water and electricity.
The list above is not exhaustive, however will give you a good starting point to cut costs and save time when cleaning. Feel free to read through the other house cleaning tips on our website.
If you are interested in obtaining the services of a house cleaner, check out our house cleaning packages!
Thanks!
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