Saving Money Little by Little: #2 - Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Ok, so this post is definitely under the "Little by Little" part of our on-going discussion on saving money. It's not going to make you a millionaire by any means but it does save you some coins and it creates less waste so here goes:

The hubs and I don't buy toilet bowl cleaner.

Take note that the previous statement does not mean that we don't clean our toilets. I take pride in a clean john, thank you very much.

The hubs and I use the last of any of our soaps to clean our toilet. For example: Last week, I was at the bottom of the hand soap I use in the kitchen.

Mr. Pump was havin' a little trouble getting any more soap out. Poor guy.

Instead of flipping the bottle over in order to use every last ounce of fantastic smelling White Citrus soap that the hub's mom gave me, I simply saved the bottle for the next time I was going to clean my toilet.

When toilet cleaning day came, I simply added water to the bottle...

Doesn't have to be a ton of water.

Gave it a good 'ole shake...

"Bubbles! Bubbles! Bubbles!... my bubbles."  Name that film.

And pumped as much soap as I wanted into the toilet. I grabbed my handy toilet bowl brush, gave it a swift swirl and my toilet bowl was as good as new.

Sometimes I can get two or three uses out of our left over soap depending on how much was left in the bottle. Between hand soap, dish soap and mine, Brad and Abilene's shampoo and body wash, I'm almost always guaranteed to have some leftover soap on hand to use for the toilet bowl.

Now, before all you bleach-lovers think the Varner family is completely unsanitary, think about this:

Soap is soap.

After you go to the bathroom, you don't wash your hands with bleach, right? You wash your hands with soap and your hands are considered clean afterward. If little Abilene gets poo in her hair (which she hasn't done yet but I'm sure my days are numbered), I wouldn't wash her hair out with bleach. I would give her a bath, use shampoo to get it out (maybe wash her hair twice... or three times) and after her bath was over, I'd consider her clean. So how would the toilet bowl be any different?

If the toilet bowl were to ever get so bad that I needed a bleach-based chemical to clean it, I have a good old-fashioned gallon of bleach under my sink and I could use it to my heart's content. But if you do a decent job of keeping your toiled bowl clean (which you do, right? If you don't, just lie and tell me you do... and then go clean your toilet), you really don't need to use harsh chemicals to keep it so fresh and so clean, clean.

So! That's how we Varner's keep our toilet clean as well as use every last drop of soap that our hard earned money has paid for!

I'll end with a picture of our non-poo-covered bean because she's just so dern cute:

Seriously, how cute is that?

Confession: I would kiss those cheeks even if they were poo-covered.

Happy toilet cleaning!

Find other little ways we save money by clicking here!