5 Things to Clean Today with Plain, White Vinegar

Vinegar for Cleaning the Dishwasher

Sure, they have specialty cleaners you can buy for a couple bucks. Or you could spend pennies on eliminating soap buildup and odors by running your dishwasher empty with just a cup of vinegar sitting in it. If you often see soap buildup in your dishwasher, you are using too much soap! Save even more pennies by cutting back. A teaspoonful (or even less) works great if your water isn't hard.

Vinegar to Clean Your Coffee Maker

Fill your water reservoir with a cup or two of vinegar, and run it through the coffee brewing cycle (minus the coffee beans, of course). This will eliminate any buildup that is accumulating inside the machine. After the vinegar cycle, run it a time or two with plain water to ensure that the vinegar is washed out. Coffee that makes your mouth pucker up is bad.

Vinegar to Clean Yor Can Opener

You know how grunge develops around the cutting blade of a can opener? If this doesn't happen to your can opener, just go away. I don't like you. I always suspected I was afflicted with grunge like Pigpen in the Peanuts cartoons. If your can opener is a bit grungy, spray those gears and blade with vinegar. Let soak for a minute, and then scrub of the yuck with an old toothbrush or vegetable brush.

Teapot

I know that water can be heated quickly in the microwave, but I am suspicious if these new fangled advancements. I prefer to heat my water for tea on the stove top, see the jolly puffs of steam, and hear rolling boil. If you use a teapot though, eventually you will have mineral deposits on the inside. Fill your pot with vinegar, or a 50/50 vinegar and water mixture, depending on the severity of the deposits. Boil for 5-10 minutes, pour out, then scrub clean. Tip: Do not inhale the steam from vinegar!

Clean Your Iron with Vinegar

Give your iron a tune up! If you use the steam function on your iron, there are probably mineral deposits in your iron as well. Don't wait for the iron to start performing badly, run some vinegar through right now. Pour straight vinegar in the water reservoir of your iron, turn the steam on full blast, and let it steam out all the vinegar. Again, do not inhale the vinegar steam. It will not harm you, but is unpleasant. In fact, you if have an outdoor outlet, you should consider using it for this job. You will avoid having your house smell like vinegar, and can make the neighbors curious about what in the world you are doing.

Want to find out about more great things you can do with vinegar? Check out Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You've Probably Never Thought Of.