I never learned how to clean efficiently growing up and my mom was always two rooms behind on her cleaning with clutter everywhere (not to place blame; my dad did 0% of the cleaning, but yeah, I didn't grow up learning how to clean efficiently). I struggled on my own keeping my house clutter-free and clean until the past few years when I hired a housekeeper. Having someone come in biweekly has been great as it's forced me to learn to pick up after myself and not let clutter accumulate.
Now however, I'm looking to pinch the easy pennies to save even more towards retirement, and ditching the housekeeper would save me $2400 a year. However, I need to learn how to clean quickly and efficiently like housekeepers can do. Like I don't even know products to use. I try to use the products to keep my glass stove top clean and I can't get it nearly as clean as she does even with the products I've been told to use, etc.
There's gotta be some good youtube channels and such out there, right? Who's got some resources?
Tutorials on how to clean efficently
byu/killer_sheltie inFrugal
Posted by killer_sheltie
2 Comments
http://Www.flylady.net has free routines to manage cleaning and household management. You never need to clean more than 15 minutes at a time. Lots of life hacks. Helped me a million percent.
She sells cleaning products and tools to help pay for the site and everything I’ve bought has been legit but you don’t need to buy anything to get the routines.
Cleaning is only time consuming when you are just starting out. But once you dedicate time to it on a regular basis and schedule it gets easier because your place is already mostly clean.
My New Year’s resolution that started during the holidays, was to take Saturday morning and clean my house (2 bed, 2 bath, large loft and tiny basement/laundry room). The first cleaning was hard, so much so that it really took a week: one room at a time. But 5 months later I’ve gotten down to 3 hours.
Immediately after breakfast is eaten and cleaned up Saturday morning:
– I clean the kitchen counters and appliances and table
– I dust (using a handheld 3ft swiffer duster) floors, walls, ceiling fans, shelves, etc
– I vacuum the whole place at once
– I then clean the bathrooms. Note in the prime bathroom I alternate glass and stall shower (1 week I do the glass next week I do the shower minus the glass door). Note2 as the second bathroom doesn’t get much use I only clean the vanity and toilet unless company is coming over
– the final steps of the bathrooms are using a swiffer mop on the floors and continuing through the house to mop the hardwood floors.
I’ve gotten to the point where on a good day I can clean my 1600 sq ft townhouse in 3 hours.
Another key is using the tools pro housecleaners use like swiffer products and the various cleaning supplies like windex, scrubbing bubbles, pledge, etc. they are more expensive but they get the job done faster and better IMO.
Last piece of advice: perfection is overrated. Get your home to 90%-95% clean each week and you’ll be fine. As the weeks go by, you’ll overlap things you miss one week with things you clean the next.