Spring cleaning on a budget

Woohoo, spring – the most naturally beautiful season of the year – is just around the corner. But oh, no, that means spring cleaning – the most dreadful thing of the year – is also around the corner. Decluttering and cleaning your home can be overwhelming, not only because of the workload but also because it can cost a fortune. But it doesn’t have to. Spring into action with the following tips that will save you time and money!

1. Make a plan

We can’t stress this enough – planning is key (if you don’t want to be stressed out by cleaning). Take an inventory of the areas that most need some spring-cleaning attention and make a list of the cleaning supplies you’ll need. This will help you avoid buying unnecessary items and stick to your budget.

2. Decluttering your closet

An often overlooked but important step of spring cleaning is decluttering your closet. Go through all of the clothes you own and identify what you haven’t worn in awhile.

You can donate them or sell clothes you haven’t worn in ages, so they don’t end up in landfills and thus do something good for the environment while on your mission to declutter. You can also use old t-shirts as cleaning rags. Or find clothes you’ve forgotten all about and wear them again, instead of shopping for new ones. If they were abondoned in the closet for too long, the Gorenje washing machine with SteamRefresh function, such as the WS168LNST, can freshen up the clothes from your wardrobe with steam so they’re instantly ready to be worn again.

3. Use home-made cleaning supplies

Cleaning products can be expensive (not to mention harmful to you and the environment). And when you also throw cloths, mops, buckets, gloves, and other supplies into the mix, spring cleaning becomes an even more hated and expensive chore. Many homemade cleaning supplies, however, work just as well as store bought ones and cost a fraction of the price. You can make anything, from kitchen countertop to bathroom tile cleaners with simple ingredients you probably already have at home, such as baking soda, lemons, vinegar. Another useful hack you can try is cleaning your faucets with a bit of oil in the cleaning mix to give them extra shine and make them more resistant to water stains.

4. Throw away

Although we’ve already touched on this topic in the decluttering section above, it’s so important, we just have to focus on it some more. Besides old clothes and shoes, people often forget about other things that simply belong to the dumpster. We’re talking unnecessary documents, like:

• old tax-related letters,
• old bills,
• manuals for old electronics,
• unused electronics and cables,
• old make-up (yes, ladies, expired makeup comes with risks, such as clogged pores and bacterial growth),
• expired medicine in your drug cabinet and most importantly,
• expired food in your fridge and pantry.

5. Doing a deep-dive into your fridge

Your fridge and pantry are bound to build up clutter such as countless jars and containers of who knows what. Start spring cleaning by taking everything out of your fridge and wipe it with a damp cloth – on the inside and out. Now, throw away half-used sauces and pickled jars, opened wine and juices, old condiments, and dressings. Are you confused at this point? Are you thinking how tossing food away is the exact opposite of saving money? Let us explain – when your fridge or freezer is a mess, you tend to buy unnecessary things from the store. An organized fridge and freezer therefore saves time and money on groceries. On that note, a quality fridge and freezer also save money. The freestanding ORK192X comes with FrostLess feature which saves energy (and consequently, money for electricity bill) by reducing accumulating of frost on food and ice and its FreshZone drawer preserves food’s freshness for much longer (and consequently, you will throw away less food).

You see, spring cleaning can actually be a money-saver (especially, if you use Gorenje appliances). Just follow the steps and hear the ka-ching in your wallet.