Often overlooked, vinegar and baking soda have saved many a homemaker from expensive repairs and costly toxic cleaners.

Here are a few of our favorite tips!

1. Remove soap scum: Moisten a rag with vinegar, sprinkle with baking soda and wipe!
2. Deodorize your garbage disposal: Simply pour about 1/2 cup baking soda into your disposal, follow with two cups of vinegar, and let it sit for a while - 15 minutes or so. Then rinse! Some prefer to freeze cubes of vinegar for this task.
3. Unclog slow drains: Pretty amazing! Pack about 1/2 C soda into your drain and follow with vinegar. If the drain is really slow, you might have to do this a few times, and possibly even plunge the drain as well, but this mixture will dissolve kitchen grease, toothpaste, and all kinds of nasty buildups you would normally have to use corrosive chemicals on or even call a plumber to fix, besides it kills the odors left behind by that kind of crud as well!
4. Whiten laundry without bleach: When I first moved to Alaska, I used cloth diapers for my babies, as it was pretty hard to stock disposables, and even harder to dispose of them, lol. I quickly found that it was nearly impossible to keep them white, until I tried boiling water with a cup of vinegar and adding baking soda! Apparently this is the only thing that will dissolve crystallized urine. I have since found that it works just as well on carpets for removing pet stains. - See next tip!
5. Remove pet stains from carpeting: Simply and pour boiling water with vinegar and baking soda (about 1 cup each to a gallon of water) over the stain, immediately pulling up the liquid with a carpet steamer's suction device. This works so well that professional cleaners don't want you to know about it - and will clear stains well enough to pass a black light inspection! If the stain is very old, deep or large, you may have to do this a few times to remove all traces, but you'll only be able to see the results with a black light.
6. Clean your coffee pot: pour a small amount of vinegar into your coffee pot, add a few tablespoons of baking soda, and a couple ice cubes, swirl it around until the pot sparkles-adding more of each if needed.
7. Clear a clogged shower head: remove lime and hard water scales/deposits: mix baking soda and vinegar in a plastic bag without holes. pull the bag up over your clogged shower head, tie it on with a string or rubber-band so that the lower portion of the shower-head is submerged in the solution and let it sit for a while, at least 15 minutes. Then simply rinse clean.
8. You can also clean your coffee maker or steam iron by running vinegar through them and following with a few rinses of clear water.