Recipes – Family seeks freedom

DIY General Cleaner

As I recently promised I would be making a household/ general cleaner for our no spend year challenge. This one is so simple, absolutely anybody can do this regardless of your DIY skill level. There are only four ingredients and just some basic kitchen tools are required. Just about anything can be cleaned with this one, and if you add some Bi-Carb Soda to your scourer there is not much that this stuff won’t tackle!

Let’s jump straight into the recipe for this one.

3 Lemons
1.5 Cups
White Vinegar
1 Cup Water
20 Drops Tea Tree Essential Oil
Glass Bottle With Lid
Funnel
Strainer
Mixing Bowl
Knife
Chopping Board
Measuring Jug
Spray Bottle

You can watch me make this recipe here.

Roughly cut lemons and place in the glass bottle.
Add vinegar.
Leave to ferment for 3 weeks.
Strain into a bowl
Add water and Tea Tree Oil
Funnel into spray bottle

That is it! it is so easy! There are so many benefits to making your own cleaners too. I am always excited to be able to remove another chemical from my home. This also reduces the amount of plastic packaging we are bringing into our lives and that makes this one a win-win!

Go ahead and give us some encouragement by following our story this year, here or on Instagram where I post pretty much daily, or over on you tube where we share video updates of our finances along with frugal recipes we have tried this year.

Homemade Dishwasher Tablet Recipe

With our no spend year challenge came the promise to ourselves and to all the followers of the freedom family that I would purchase no luxury items this year. We had a little debate as to whether dishwasher tablets are luxury or not, in the end it was decided that a dishwasher itself is a luxury item so anything to go with it falls into that category as well. I have to say honestly I wasn’t prepared to run out of anything in the first week of January and be in the kitchen whipping up alternatives, and truth be told if I had realized just how empty the box was I probably would have bought a new box before the challenge started. But alas this is how it happened and I have to say honestly it was fairly easy to come up with something that works quite well. So let’s get right into it.

Dishwasher tablets

1 Cup Bi-carb Soda

1 Cup Borax

1/2 Cup Salt

2 Tablespoons Corn Flour

2 Tablespoons Citric Acid

2 Tablespoons White Vinegar

12 Drops Lemon Essential Oil

4 Drops Yellow Food Colouring (for fun)

Mix all dry ingredients together in a glass or stainless steel bowl

Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl

Slowly add wet ingredients to dry, about 1 teaspoon at a time stirring in well. Do not allow the dry mixture to fizz as this is the activation of the soda and you want this to happen in your dishwasher not in your bowl. Mixture will look quite dry still but it is supposed to.

Spoon mixture into an ice cube tray. (I prefer to use a silicone one as it makes removal so much easier). Compress the mixture down very tightly.

Leave trays to set for 2-3 days. I like to leave mine for at least 3 as I live in a very humid climate and if not properly set the tablets can crumble when being removed from the tray. (when this happens I still keep it and use it as dishwasher powder)

Store in an airtight container and enjoy!

You can watch the video of me making these here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G75jAnAyrbw&t=10s

I impressed myself!

I honestly find my dishes just as clean as using the store bought tablets. I do however clean my dishwasher regularly and empty the filters weekly at maximum. This helps a lot with the end result. Occasionally if I have a lot of glassware going through I find it helps to put a small bowl of white vinegar in the top tray for extra sparkly glass.

I am also quite interested to try to make a recipe without the borax. I will have a play around and leave an update if I have any success.

If you want to join the freedom family for more recipes or anything else we are doing during our debt busting year to freedom you can find us here.

https://www.instagram.com/familyseeksfreedom/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjv3QDuYnFXfYv9PTgOVUog

https://www.facebook.com/familyseeksfreedom/