15 Cleaning Life Hacks That’ll Speed Up Your Life!

There are some things in life that you will never get over no matter how many people throw chocolate gift baskets at you. One of the things you’ll have to get used to doing is cleaning your house, cleaning your car, and cleaning up yourself. That stack of commitments makes us think it is pretty important to have some tips in place to make the process go smoother! We pulled together 15 awesome cleaning life hacks that will make you a more efficient and happier person. Keep on reading and then get cleaning, we have some tips for you!

Go chemical free when cleaning your chopping board.

Are you tired of introducing loads of chemicals into your day to day life? Who knows what sort of things happen to our body, and as a result our individual health insurance, when we fill our houses with nasty cleaning supplies. When it comes to cleaning your chopping board you can do so without any chemicals at all. Simply sprinkle down some Kosher salt and then use lemons, cut in half, to rub down the board. Ta-da!

Remove grease from your stove with oil.

The stove is extremely useful no matter what you need to cook, however it can also become quite a mess on certain occasions. Instead of letting your stove become an oil stained warzone, enlist your own mineral oil to get it cleaned up. Put a drop or two of mineral oil onto a paper towel and then rub it all over your greasy stove, freshening and cleaning immediately. We’ll accept chocolate gift baskets as a thank you, please.

Refresh your couch cushions with baking soda.

At some point you just don’t want to know how dirty your couch is, right? We know our beds get dirty from sleeping on them but our couches get just as bad thanks to the numerous people who use them. Refresh your couch and refresh your living room by coating your couch, or chair, in baking soda. Allow the baking soda to soak and then vacuum it back up.

Take some stains out of your microfiber furniture.

If you’ve got some spotty stains that you need to ret rid of on your furniture then we have just the tip for you. Take rubbing alcohol and put it into a spray bottle. Coat the area that needs attention and let it dry. Once dried take a colorless sponge or white bristle brush and get scrubbing, the results will amaze you.

Use a razor to remove paint from your clothing.

If you have a shirt that was definitely not meant for painting, you might have had some issues getting the stains out. Fortunately when paint dries it becomes easy enough to peel so long as you have the right tool. Take a razor and gently move it up and down the paint stains and watch as the build up falls away. Yes, send us a few holiday gift baskets as a thank you.

Refresh your blinds with a simple home mixture.

We dust all over our homes but sometimes we forget to attend to our blinds. Right after cleaning your windows it can be a pain to spray down your blinds, too. Instead mix up a small bowl of vinegar and water, mixed 50 – 50. Take a paper towel or a rag and dip it in there. Then do a smooth wipe down of each blade and you’ll have shining windows in no time.

Make your stove shine with wax.

You know the wax you use to shine cars? Well, you can use that same wax to smooth out and get your stove shining. The wax helps to attack spills and stains while also giving your appliance a brand new shine. Simply scrub the wax in and then wipe it away with a clean rag or paper towel.

Remove water rings forever.

Do you have water rings from people avoiding using coasters at your house? All you have to do is take a hairdryer, set it to high, and let it blow on the rings for a little while. You’ll see the ring dry out and vanish in no time. Throw down some olive oil to give it a new shine. Once you remove those rings take the opportunity to make your buddies use a coaster, it isn’t hard!

Shine up all of your metal faucets with lemon.

Instead of reaching for gross smelling and abrasive chemical cleaner, grab a bag of lemons. If you want to get those ugly water stains out of your various metal faucets and fixtures then simply cut a lemon in half and wipe ’em down. You’ll get a new shine to your faucets, a refreshing smell, and probably low cost health insurance because you are avoiding all of those nasty chemicals.

Carpet oil stains are a thing of the past.

If you’ve been unlucky enough to have oil spill on your carpet then you know the nightmare that removing it entails. instead of driving yourself crazy, simply buy some baking soda and sprinkle it on the stain. Let the bakign soda sit for around 10 minutes and then use a vacuum to clean up the mess. now mix up some vinegar, warm water, and dishwashing liquid into a cup and use it to dip a sponge into. Use said sponge to scrub away the remaining spill!

Salt away stains in your iron pans.

Iron pans are awesome but sometimes they can get to be a bit of a pain. After so many years of usage you’ll feel like you just can’t get your iron pans completely clean. Take some sea salt and fill up your pans. Use the salt as an abrasive for you to sponge away any stains that you run into. This will take some effort but you should see results pretty quick!

Prep your A/C for summer with a vacuum.

When it comes time to prep for summer don’t forget to head outside and attend to your air conditioning unit. You’ll want to replace all of your filters, of course, as well as clean the grates out. Turn your A/C off, if it isn’t already, and run your shopvac over the entire unit in order to rid it of debris and build up.

Take grease out of your clothing with chalk.

Before you toss your laundry into the washing machine you can spot clean up some grease stains. Simply take sidewalk chalk and rub it against any stains or build up that you have. Then throw the clothing into the washer to finish cleaning.

Bring some shine back to your tub.

There is no cleaning worse than attending to the bathroom. The bath rub needs your attention and it needs a lot of it. Instead of using harsh chemicals opt for a few drops of essential oils mixed in with liquid soap. Go ahead and add about a cup of baking soda as your scrubbing abrasive and mix all of the ingredients together until you get a paste. Now you are ready o scrub away.

Clean your keyboard with a toothbrush.

Don’t even look up how dirty your keyboard can get. It’s disgusting. Instead, simply scrub away at your keyboard (when your computer is off, of course) with a toothbrush. Your toothbrush bristles will get in nice and deep and attend to any sort of buildup.

Steam clean your microwave.

If you want to clean up a messy microwave all you have to do is throw in a bowl of vinegar, microwave safe of course, with an essential oil for odor control. Run the microwave for about five minutes and allow the steam to build up and remove residue. Once done you can wipe down the interior with a simple paper towel.

Tend to your glass baking dishes with aluminum foil.

For those tough to get out spots you need nothing more than dish soap and aluminum foil. Glass baking dishes can become pretty caked with baked in stains. Simply add a bit of dish soap to the surface and then take a ball of aluminum foil and use it as a scrubber.

Use a ketchup bottle lid to vacuum tight spots.

Sounds pretty crazy, right? You can use the lid of a ketchup bottle, or any condiment, and attach it to the end of your handheld vacuum hose. The pointed end of the ketchup lid will allow you to focus the sucking action of your vacuum.

Salvage old hair brushes with shampoo.

If you’ve got an old brush that you really want to save stick to this trick and make it happen. Merely soak the business end of your hair brush in a small bowl with shampoo in it. Check on it every once in awhile before completely removing, rinsing, and drying it.

Use shoe polish to get rid of scratches on leather furniture.

Your elegant leather furniture can start to look rough after a few scratches show up. Find shoe polish that matches your furniture’s color and then buff out the scratches with the polish.

Use dryer sheets to dust your home.

Are you tired of returning to your cleaning closet every couple of days in order to dust all of your furniture and appliances? If you are like me then you have plenty of furniture that seems to magically attract that pesky dust at an alarming rate. We found out that using dryer sheets will speed up the dust cleaning process and also prevent you from needing to dust more often in the future. An added bonus? You can get your laundry drying sheets in a variety of different scents in order to give your home a great smell without any liquid chemicals in the air.

Dust your fan the easy way.

Is there any cleaning task as nightmare inducing as trying to dust a hard to reach fan? While you’re going to have to fight with it a little bit, this tip should end up helping you out quite a bit. Instead of running the fan with dust on it you should take turns sliding a pillow case over each individual fan blade. When you pull the pillow case off it will drag the dust right out! This tip is easier than finding low cost health insurance in 2016 – trust us, we’ve had issues doing both.

Line your shelves with plastic wrap.

If you have the bad habit of knocking over food or letting your shelves get gunked up then here is an easy tip to change your cleaning schedule. Simply line your shelves with that see through, press and seal plastic food wrap. This stuff clings tightly to the surface while not adding any sort of clutter. After a week or two you can change out the wrap and get rid of all the stuff that spilled in the interim. You’ll have cleaner shelves and a cleaner schedule!

Get your silverware shining again.

You can get your silverware shinier than its ever been before in just thirty minutes while using stuff you can find around the house. What you’ll need to do is first take a roll of tin foil and line a pan with it. Next you are going to fill said pan with hot water, mixing in soap and baking soda in a part for part measure — about half of a cup of each. Now fill the pan with your silverware and let it sit for about half an hour. When you rinse off and dry your silverware they will be shining and gorgeous!

Freshen up your room the cheap way.

I hate spraying chemical scents in my room because I have no idea what that’ll do to me and my individual health insurance in the future if they actually are bad for me. So instead of doing that I will lay a dryer sheet or two of my favorite scent over my fan or air conditioning unit and tape them down. Run your fan or air conditioner and soon you’ll have the scent blasting around the room, no liquids required.

Keep your coffee maker sanitary.

If you are going to imbibe coffee on a regular basis at home then you had better get into the habit of cleaning our your coffee machine. To do this the efficient way you should add 1 part vinegar and 1 part water together and have it run through your coffee machine for an entire cycle. Next run two cycles of just water through the machine and you should be clean and without any vinegar smell.

Clean your mini-grill with paper towels.

We love our George Foreman Grill but we hate having to scrub it down with a ton of force just to get it shining again. Instead of dealing with brushes and elbow grease you should run your grill long enough to warm it up and then turn it off, unplugging it in the process. Now line the grill with damp towels and close the lid, trapping in the heat. Steam will issue forth and your grill will be good as new after!

Clean your oven, hands off.

If you want to clean your oven with next to zero effort then all you have to do is put about half of a cup of ammonia into a bowl and let it sit in your oven overnight. Do not turn the oven on, I repeat, do NOT turn the oven on during this period. In the morning you can remove the ball and easily wipe away any grime that was in the oven thanks to its chemical reaction to the ammonia. Easy!

Get vomit off your carpet.

If you have a kid or an animal you’ve probably had some pretty nasty stuff end up on your carpet. Fear not! If one of your little fellas ends up vomiting on your carpet all you have to do is mix some baking soda and water so that it turns into a paste. Spread this paste on the vomit and let it sit all night. Overnight the paste will dry and harden and in the morning you can simply vacuum it all up.

Ditch oil splatters on your stove top.

If you make bacon or anything else that ‘spits’ oil in a frying pan then you are probably tired of seeing it splatter on your stove top. To get rid of it quick and easy all you gotta do is add a drop or two of vegetable oil to some paper towel and wipe the mess away.

Rubber squeegee away pet hair.

We may love our pets dearly but that doesn’t mean their fur doesn’t annoy us! Instead of hiring an expensive cleaning crew to come vacuum out all of their hair you can use a cheap rubber squeegee and brush it against problem areas. The rubber works wonders when pulling up hair!

Bread away glass shards.

Breaking a glass cup or bowl is a nightmare. While it is easy to pick up large glass shards the little pieces are a problem. To make this potentially dangerous task easy all you need is a slice or two of bread. Gently press the bread against the effected area and you’ll see that the glass sticks into the bread.

Quickly clean your mattress.

Let’s put it this way: you don’t want to know how dirty your mattress gets, even if you use great sheets. So, to put your mind at rest you can quickly sanitize your mattress by filling a spray bottle with some cheap vodka. Spray a light layer over the mattress and let it dry. The vodka will kill bacteria and remove any pesky odors.

Clean your blender the easy way.

If you want to quickly clean your blender after using it to make a thick shake then we have just the tip for you. Instead of taking apart your blender and scrubbing all of the awkward hard to reach angles by hand you should just fill it up with hot water and soap. Run your blender for awhile on various settings and you will see it literally clean itself. Better than those holiday gift baskets? Maybe, maybe not, but it sure does feel good to clean quicker!

Clean your microwave the simple way.

We’ve all had those nightmare moments when a bowl of soup or some other leftover explodes in the microwave. Your first thought is probably about your ruined lunch but your second thought will be dreading to clean up after yourself. Instead of torturing yourself scrubbing out the microwave you should first put in a damp sponge and run it on the highest setting. The sponge will let off steam that will scrub out the microwave and kill a bunch of bacteria.