Homemade Window Cleaner --- What are the most effective, environmentally friendly cleaning products?

Homemade window cleaner --- What are the most effective, environmentally friendly cleaning products?

Our home is a place for rest and for sharing precious time with our loved ones.  It can be quite surprising to know that this home where we are supposed to be safe can also be one of the most toxic places due to products we use everyday. 

By using a lot of chemical products, our homes have literally become a toxic waste dump. The cleaning products we normally use at home contain harmful ingredients like:

• Neurotoxins that poison the brain and nervous system
• Carcinogens that cause or aggravate cancer
• Teratogens that interfere with fetal development
• Endocrine disrupters that interfere with our body’s hormonal and reproductive system
• Mutagens, that are also typically carcinogens, and cause permanent genetic change in a cell

These chemicals also make their way to the environment when they are flushed down the toilet, poured down on sinks, sprayed into the air, or thrown into the trash. They cause harm to plant and animal life and contribute to pollution of groundwater, contamination of the soil, and depletion of the ozone layer.

Homemade or natural cleaning products can be used, instead, as an inexpensive, effective, and environmentally friendly way to keep our babies, pets, and loved ones safe, while also protecting the environment. If you are interested on how you can clean and be green, read on…

Homemade window cleaner and other homemade substitutes

A lot of the traditional home cleaning products are very effective, safe, and inexpensive. There are many resources in the Internet and in books where you will find homemade recipes to solve a lot of your household cleaning needs such as Papa’s homemade window cleaner recipe of white vinegar and water, wiped to windows using old newspapers.

Here is a list of common, green cleaning products that can be used alone or in combination for a wealth of effective and environmentally friendly household applications. 

• Baking Soda - cleans, deodorizes, softens water, scours.
• Lemon - one of the strongest food-acids, effective against most household bacteria.
• Borax - (sodium borate) cleans, deodorizes, disinfects, softens water, cleans wallpaper, painted walls and floors.
• White Vinegar - cuts grease, removes mildew, odors, some stains and wax build-up.
• Cornstarch - can be used to clean windows, polish furniture, shampoo carpets and rugs.

Messy Bessy: I clean. I green. I educate.

Other homemade window cleaner solutions are available over the Internet and we can also buy available nontoxic and biodegradable cleaners sold commercially. 

A growing number of commercial non-toxic home cleaning products are also becoming available here in the Philippines, and my favorite has been Messy Bessy’s line of cleaning products.

Messy Bessy is a line of worry-free household cleaning products made with safe, non-toxic, all natural, biodegradable ingredients that are good for your health and for the planet. 

For example, their Squeaky Clean Window Cleaner is made only of natural ingredients like lemon essential oil, tea tree essential oil, distilled white vinegar (sugar cane, water), extra virgin coconut oil, olive oil, anti-oxidants, and water. 

Messy Bessy works closely with experts to ensure that all products remove dirt and kill bacteria without leaving toxic fumes and chemical residues. I myself use their products at home, and boy, do they clean!!! 

Their environmental responsibility goes beyond their products. They make sure that every step of the business is done with a “green mind” like choosing labor over machinery, recycling their waste, pricing the product line to encourage refills, and choosing sustainable packaging.

What’s more interesting about this business is that they do not only clean and green. The business was put up by Krie Lopez in November 2007 in order to educate, train, and employ young adults and the disadvantaged youth of Manila through development programs that the business funds. 

By using Messy Bessy products, I clean, I green, I educate!  

Start having your natural household cleaning kit by using the ingredients I mentioned earlier or checking out Messy Bessy products.  For cheaper, safer, and more nontoxic cleaning recipes, environmentalist Karen Logan's "Clean House Clean Planet" offers a lot of good recipes to help clean your home while keeping your loved ones and our environment safe.

By using natural cleaning products. we can all clean, green, and even educate! Doing good can all start through ways as simple and inexpensive as a homemade window cleaner.  

References:

http://eartheasy.com/ live_nontoxic_solutions.htm

http://www.messybessy. com/index.html

Examples of how going green saves you money – How can we all cut down and save some money?

Examples of how going green saves you money are all over the internet. It is no wonder, that these days, more and more people are finding ways to save money. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, an astounding $50 trillion of wealth was erased globally. People lost their jobs and were driven to the streets to demand for justice and support. Even until now, the global economy has not been fixed and incomes, jobs, and credit are still in short supply.

Before it happened, a lot of people knew that the level of consumerism in the world has been at an all time high but a lot of the money spent never really existed.  People where spending at debt.  According to a website that offers services to erase debts:

• 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
• 85% of Americans have a true net worth value of less than 250$.
• 62% of Americans say that money is their biggest problem.
• 41% of Americans do not have an emergency fund.
• 80% of marriages that end in divorce cite financial problems as the leading reason.
• 60% of college students leave college with loans and credit card debt.
• 96% of those 65 and over die broke.
• The average American saves less than $0.02 of every $ earned.

Has the crisis hit you in any way?

If not, are you prepared to lose your job should another downturn happen?

Are you also currently in debt?

Do you have enough savings to support you through retirement?

Controlling spending and consumption is one of the greenest ways of sustaining our lives and also rescuing our planet. This is also one reason why examples of how going green saves you money has become a topic of interest. It is a win-win for both man, as we save money, sustain our lifestyles, and reduce the stress that comes with having too much unnecessary things that clutter our lives; and nature, as we employ more efficient ways of using our natural resources, slowing down on consuming limited resources, and putting a stop to all types of pollution that slowly kill the only planet we live in.

We can start generating a lot of savings by slowly changing how we purchase and consume some of our basic necessities like food, water, and clothing. Although this may entail some sacrifices, the benefits you will reap far outweigh the little changes you will make in your lifestyle.  Read on these examples of how going green saves you money and calculate how much savings you can generate by trying them. 

Food

• Eat less meat. Try cutting your meat consumption little by little. Aside from it being more expensive, meat is also one of the most resource-intensive food to produce.
• Eat raw.  A lot of material exists about the health benefits of eating raw food. And because you consume less or no energy in preparing them, you save money as well. You (and the planet!) save a lot more when you buy fresh, locally produced food items.
• Eat less junk. I know a lot of people who feast on junk food everyday. Imagine the savings you can generate (and litter you reduce) by simply skipping on your favorite junk and replacing it with healthier, cheaper options.

Water

• Break-a-bottle-a-day.  Billions of money are spent consuming bottled water. Imagine the savings you will generate if instead of buying 1 bottle a day, you buy a reusable water container made of glass, aluminum, or PET 5 plastic and refill that with clean, free water.  
• Turn off the tap. Dripping faucets and leaks will cost you a lot.  Fix them as soon as possible to save water and money. Keeping the water flowing while brushing your teeth, for example, is a very costly (not to mention, insensitive) way of wasting a very precious resource.

Clothing

• Think before you buy.  Do you really need to buy another shirt or dress? Clothes have become one of the fastest moving items these days and as they become cheaper and cheaper, people are drawn to stuff their closets with clothes that are in trend but that they will usually just wear a few times. How much money will you save if you plan your shopping and become smarter with your clothing choices?

Here is a very interesting infographic that describes how an average American spends their money.

Using this as an example, list where you would normally spend your monthly paycheck and put average values or percentages in each of your spending categories. Doing this simple exercise will help you identify more opportunities where you can save a lot of money and at the same time go green.

You might think you only save very little by cutting your consumption or making smarter choices, but little things do add up and produce so much value for your pocket and benefits for the environment.

An old cheapskate saying goes: The surest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your wallet.  David Bach, a renowned motivational and financial speaker and founder of FinishRich Media, shows us how small daily savings from living green add up to a richer future in his book “Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying”.

If you value true well-being and a secure future for yourself, your family, and the world we live in, start saving money while saving the planet at the same time through these examples of how going green saves you money. 

Photo thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/ meddygarnet/

Sources:

http://www. acedebteliminator.com/

http://www. thesimpledollar.com/

http://www. visualeconomics.com

http://www.creditloan.com/infographics/how-the-average-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/

Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth, Juliet B. Schor

Homemade Window Cleaner --- What is a homemade solution to clean windows?

Homemade window cleaner: remembering the good old days

Do you know that our homes are one of the most toxic places--- even sometimes more toxic than the outdoors?

As kids, my siblings and I were taught how to clean the house.  I remember Papa assigning each of us a house chore in the morning and walking around the house to see how well we do our tasks.  

One of my favorite tasks is cleaning windows.  I would smile, feeling I have done a good job, whenever I see our windows shine in the sun after wiping them with nothing else but newspapers dipped in some solution my father would prepare.  

I never realized that there is value not only in being taught how to do chores but also in the simplicity of the way we cleaned. 

Green cleaning

It is really interesting how the products we buy to clean our homes are the same toxins that pollute it, causing various diseases such as cancer, asthma, and other lung problems. 

Chemicals in cleaning fluids that are available in the market contain some of the most common environmental toxins. The average home today contains 62 toxic chemicals. Chemical cleaning supplies found in our homes not only threaten our health but also end up polluting our soil, rivers, oceans, and air. And because moms, infants, pets, and the elderly spend most of the time home, they are more exposed to these chemicals! 

Because household cleaners take up a large portion of our budgets, and they can make us sick, pollute our environment, and threaten our loved ones, green cleaning using nontoxic cleaners is something we should all learn.

Homemade solutions to clean windows

Baking soda, vinegar, and salt are timeless, nontoxic, and effective household cleaning agents. 

Here’s a very simple, cheap, nontoxic and effective homemade window cleaner recipe from Papa:

1 part vinegar 

4 parts water 

lemon juice (optional, I’d rather make lemon juice to quench my thirst after cleaning the windows!)

1. Mix vinegar and water (and lemon juice). 

2. Crumple old newspapers into a ball. The size will depend on you but the bigger the ball, the easier it is to use to wipe off the grime from your windows.

3. Dip the newspaper ball into the solution. The newspaper ball only needs to be wet (not soaked) with the vinegar solution to allow you to use the ball to wipe your windows without it being torn to pieces.  (Besides, this recipe is very effective you really don’t need too much of it to be able to clean!)

4. Wipe your windows using the newspaper ball dipped in the vinegar solution. 

5. Polish windows with a dry newspaper ball for a gleaming, beaming finish.

Simple enough?  You can find other homemade window cleaner recipes over the Internet or buy available nontoxic and biodegradable cleaners sold commercially. The key thing in buying these products is to read the labels. There’s a good chance that if you can’t read the label, less pronounce the words, it’s not good for you or for the environment. 

For cheaper, safer, and more nontoxic cleaning recipes, check out this book by environmentalist Karen Logan.

We really don’t have to kill ourselves trying to keep our houses clean. Being green can be as simple and as cheap as using a homemade window cleaner.

Photo thanks to http://www.flickr.com/ photos/ dominicspics/

Examples of how going green saves you money… and makes you wealthy

Examples of how going green saves you money

A lot of people say that going green is difficult and expensive. 

You go to the supermarket and find that there are no green household products you can buy.

You want to eat healthy but cheap, fresh, farm produce are only available at the farmer’s market that’s too far from where you live.

You go to a beauty store to buy green products and find that they are more expensive than your usual brand.

Going green does involve changing our mindsets and our lifestyles and, as in any type of change, it can be painful and difficult, at first. Some even say that going green is only for the rich because of the price you need to pay in exchange for a green product or the shift to the green lifestyle.

But what if going green can actually make you rich?  How can a green lifestyle help you save money that you can invest for some returns?

Consider this:  If you invest $10 a day and earn 10% annual return, in 30 years you would have $678,146.  You may say, that’s too small (really now?), but what if you can save more and find investments that can earn you more?

In this article, we will see how going green can also be easy and rewarding by simply trying these very simple examples of how going green saves you money. We will explore more ways of affordable green living in this blog but right now, let us look at these 3 simple ways:

• Unplug
• Brown-bag
• Outdoors

Unplug! 

Do you know that even when your appliances are turned off, they continue to suck energy out of the wall and, yes, money out of your pocket? The “phantom load” or “standby power” or “idle current” totals 5-15% of your monthly electricity bill and accounts for about $4 billion a year on electricity that Americans are not using! 

How much money do you spend on electricity per year? Take 10% off that and see how much money you save.  If you want to save that amount, then try unplugging your appliance before you leave home (Easy enough?)

Brown-bag!

Do you go out with colleagues for lunch everyday? For example, if you spend $9 a day for lunch, that’s $45 a week and $2,250 a year! 

Brown-bagging your lunch is not only cheaper, it can also be healthier to you and friendlier to Mother Earth. Take-out food packaging, for example, creates 1.8 million tons of trash in the US per year and I’m guessing, you normally take fast food for lunch, which is not healthy at all! (Convinced?)

Outdoors!

Going green and saving mother earth is also about having more fun!

Brisk walking, running, hiking, biking are just some examples of activities that require minimal investment in gear, keep you fit, and gets you outside to appreciate nature.  

Let’s say you spend $50 a month for gym membership.  Why not try moving your workout outdoors and save $600 a year?  

At the office, we hold sports competitions every year and some of the best and most memorable events are the ones we do outdoors such as ultimate Frisbee and football. Through these activities, people are able to de-stress and gain more friends in the process!

I also remember when we were kids, Papa would usually take us out to the basketball court in the morning to bike, play basketball, or just bask under the sun while having fun.  Those times were not just fun and memorable, they also helped strengthen our relationship with our father.  

(Do I see you nodding now?)

Learn more examples of how going green saves you money from the author of consecutive bestsellers and financial expert David Bach.  He says and I quote, “It is not what you earn that makes you rich or poor, it is what you spend.” If you too want to know how to make a difference through little, simple things and get rich trying, check out his book “Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying” and start going green and living rich.  

If, like me, you want to be wealthy, start with these really simple examples of how going green saves you money!




Photo thanks to http://www. flickr.com/ photos/rmgimages/