Everyone would like to spend less on things. It's not always easy to figure out where to start to make this happen for ourselves. It is true that sometimes, it takes some spending to spend less like buying the necessary tools or ingredients.

So if you wish you could resolve to spend less, do more things yourself but there is no money in the budget to buy baking soda, vinegar, Borax or other ingredients, I have a freebie tip for you to get away from the commercial cleaners.

Save your soap slivers. You know the ones that end up in the trash, keep em!

When I have about six slivers or so, I drop them into a blender and add about a cup of water. Then I blend until it is a soapy mixture without lumps.

I add this to an empty large dish liquid bottle then fill the remainer with water.

This is my liquid soap base for cleaners. It can be used as a stand alone cleaner for many things including mopping the floors. Add a squirt or two of the soap into a bucket of water and you are ready to mop, give a squirt to a towel and you can wipe down surfaces, household appliances, toys and other things.

 Reusing the soap you would toss is a great way to start on homemade products and spending less. When you do shop again, stock up on baking soda and vinegar instead of commercial cleaners and check out our solutions for homemade cleaners using these. From these savings, you can move on to that tea tree oil and increase the cleaning and disinfecting power of your cleaning soap.

Be on your way to spending less and saving more with these discussions and articles from the Dollar Stretcher:

What do you need this year?- http://community.stretcher.com/forums/t/27134.aspx

One question to you does this happen to be regretting to using your vinager thing... Free homemade cleaners are good I go vinager water and 3 drops of dish soap to the bottle spray and mop over in the bathroom no more buying floor stuff.

cheapChic:

I go vinager water and 3 drops of dish soap to the bottle

They have to buy the vinegar if they don't have it. I remember when I started out doing many of these homemade solutions, I had to buy vinegar. I had no use for it before I got really into cooking from scratch and making my own cleaners.

Saved soap would be a waste product that costs no extra money. For that matter, with a little water from the tap to make the bottle of soap, it's still cheaper than using vinegar or dish soap. Though those are very frugal compared to commercial cleaners.

I use soap in a bucket of water to do my floor mopping now. I save the vinegar for windows, bathroom and kitchen counter cleaning.

I used to save soap scraps, but years ago I discovered I much prefer liquid soap for showering - my ex-husband was, by his behavior, unable to understand the concept of leaving the soap where the shower wouldn't hit it... since the soap was always under the spray from the shower hit it, it dissolved rapidly, wasting at least 1/4 of the bar.  I also prefer to use a bath puff rather than a washcloth, and liquid soap works much better with those.  When I switched to liquid soap, that was no longer an issue, and using a bottle with a pump really limited how much I used.  But it does mean I no longer have soap scraps for other uses.  I buy vinegar in gallon bottles at Costco, so my cost is minimal - but admittedly, there is a cost.  Still, compared to commercial cleaners, especially given that a gallon bottle lasts over a year, the cost is nearly nothing.

karenteacher:

especially given that a gallon bottle lasts over a year

I was using more than that. The bottle I have now is almost empty but I have had it over a year.

Good idea. My grand mother used to soak the soap slivers a little bit, then mould them onto the new bar of soap - no wastage! That was good too. I have a big HOWEVER, to your suggestion though. (I'm sorry). The money you save (a few coins) from buying a new bar of soap, you've spent back by using a blender (electricity). In my book, my advice (to save money on cleaning) is to use washing powder to do a multitude of tasks. You can use this cheap substitute to do almost anything, from cleaning the bath to washing the floor. It also smells nice, works really great, and you never have to by extra cleaners. Washing powder is always available in your home and can be very affordable to use. It's a heavy duty cleaner that smells great if you want the fresh smell. Otherwise, I advice using vinegar with bit of lemon. Some people on this thread have already mentioned that. It really works. There's a reason so many people recommend it. It also works for cleaning microwave oven smells and so much more.

Anne Lyken-Garner:

The money you save (a few coins) from buying a new bar of soap, you've spent back by using a blender (electricity).

It takes months to use up the bottle of soap that I made. I actually use far more commercial cleaner than I do my soap so it doesn't last as long. If I were using vinegar, about two to three cups would be used to the amount of water I have in my bottle. I think this still saves when compared to the swish in the blender of softened soap.

Why not try to check this homemade cleaners