It may seem like a no brainer but it's a question I've been asked a few times so here goes.

Cleaning the toilet really is as easy as slurp, brush, flush, just like the ads say. The difference when you clean the Cheapskates way is that you are not spending hundreds of dollars a year on stinky, over-powering, nasty-laden commercial cleaners.

Instead you'll be using water, vinegar, bicarb soda and for stubborn water marks and hard water build-up citric acid. And a couple of cleaning cloths. That's it. Your whole toilet cleaning arsenal shouldn't cost you more than $10 for the year!

Every Day Cleaning:
If you clean your toilet daily (and if you have toilet training toddlers or little boys you'll need to clean at least daily) you won't ever need to deal with stains. It takes two minutes - really, I've timed it - to keep your toilet sparkling clean all the time.

Step 1. Take 1 cup of white vinegar and pour it into the bowl. Use the brush to scrub the sides. Let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Step 2. While the vinegar is sitting take your damp cleaning cloth and some vinegar diluted 50:50 with water in a spray bottle. Spray the cistern, seat and lid and around the outside of the bowl. Don't forget the pipes at the back if they are visible. Starting with the cistern and working down, wipe over the outside of the toilet, paying particular attention to the hinges around the seat. Rinse your cloth often.

Step 3. Flush the toilet. See it sparkle.

Vinegar is a mild disinfectant, you won't need to use anything else if you clean the toilet every day.

For Stubborn Stains:
Step 1. Sprinkle the bowl with bicarb soda, making sure you get it on the stain.

Step 2.  Pour 1 cup of white vinegar over the bicarb and while it is fizzing scrub with the toilet brush. Flush.

For Hard Water and Mineral Stains:
To clean a toilet with hard water stains and mineral build-up is an overnight chore.

Step 1. Last thing at night flush the toilet. Pour 1/4  up citric acid into the bowl. Leave overnight.

Step 2. In the morning put 1 cup white vinegar into the cistern.  Scrub the bowl with the toilet brush, paying particular attention to the stains.

Step 3. Flush. This will flush out the cistern and the bowl, leaving both clean and shiny.

For Really Stubborn Stains:
If the water stain or mineral build-up is particularly stubborn you'll need to go into cleaning over-drive.

Step 1. Turn the water to the cistern off and flush. Then empty the bowl of water. You can use a cup or a sponge to do this.

Step 2. Sprinkle 1/2 cup citric acid over the stains. Go away for half an hour.

Step 3. Come back and using a scrub bud scrub that build-up. It should be disappearing before your eyes!  Flush and admire your handiwork.

If your toilet is particularly stained or the build-up is thick you will probably need to repeat this process a couple of times. Don't be discouraged, you will get rid of those stains and your toilet will sparkle.

To Clean the Floor:
This method is good for cleaning urine stains on the floor (common when toilet training).

Step 1. Spray the floor with white vinegar.

Step 2. Sprinkle with bicarb soda. While the mixture is fizzing use the toilet brush to scrub the floor, paying particular attention to the grout if you have a tiled floor.

Step 3. Wipe it up with a wet cloth, followed by a damp cloth. Make sure you get all the mixture off the floor.

There you have it.  Simple, frugal and green ways to keep your toilet sparkling, clean and sanitary. It couldn't be any easier.

​Ingredients:
2 "fruit" tea bags (or peppermint, chamomile, lemon ginger - whatever you like) 
1/2 litre boiling water 
1/2 litre cool water 
lemon 

Method:
Steep the two teabags in the boiling water for about 4 minutes. Pour into a jug with the cool water. Chop the lemon into wedges and pop in. Keep it in the fridge. It's best drunk within 24 hours. 

​Greeting cards - birthday, get well, sympathy, new baby, thank you and so on, are expensive.  Even from the $2 shops these days they are, well $2! It used to be you could get five cards for $2, then it was four for $2, then they were $1 each, and now you pay $2 for a very simple, very boring cheap card.

You don't need a lot of special equipment to make cards, and you don't need a lot of fancy papers and stickers and other embellishments.

And best of all, you don't need a lot of time.

In just ten minutes, you can make four beautiful cards, for less than the price of one from a $2 shop. Best of all you can make them to suit the recipient by personalising the greeting, the colour, the embellishment.

To make these four gorgeous cards in under 10 minutes you will need:

4 coloured card blanks
(4) 5-1/4" x 2-1/4"" black cardstock
(4) 5-1/4" x 2" white cardstock
3/4" Circle punch
Small hole punch
Sentiment stamp
Ink pad
Adhesive

Step 1. Take the black cardstock and using the 3/4" circle punch, punch out 7 circles, leaving a narrow border. Punch 5 small dots from the remaining black cardstock.

Step 2. Stick the white cardstock to the black cardstock, being sure to hide the holes.

Step 3. Stick the black and white cardstock to the card base, leaving a narrow border at the top and sides.

Step 4. Lay out the black dots. When you are happy with the pattern, stick them down using tape runner or liquid glue.

Step 5. Stamp your sentiment to the bottom left corner of the card.

Step 6. Stick the small dots to the bottom right of the sentiment.

Repeat for the remaining three cards.

​When kids are first introduced to Valentine’s Day it is by their parents. They are told that it is a day to show those we love how we feel about them.

These days Valentine’s Day is a day for treats as well as expressions of love. So skip the commercial hype and show your love and affection by spending time with the kids (or grandkids) and make some special sweet treats with them. Here are two ideas for making biscuits and cupcakes that ooze with love and fresh baked goodness.

Heart shaped cookie cutters will turn regular biscuits into creations of love. Kids don’t only like hearts. Let them experiment with other shapes in the cookie cutter arsenal if they want to. They can even design shapes of their own with the dough pieces that are too small to cut.

Cupcakes are much the same way. Make little heart shaped cupcakes by putting a marble or large bead between the filled patty pan and the cake tin. The marble pushes the cake mixture in, making a little indentation that forms the heart shape. Decorate with white icing and red jelly crystals or pink icing and sprinkles.

Biscuits and cupcakes can get a nice makeover for Valentine’s Day to help reflect the good feelings of the holiday as well as create great family togetherness.

Basic Butter Biscuits
Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar mixture
2-1/2 cups plain flour

Method:
Beat butter and icing sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Transfer to large bowl.  Stir in the flour, in two batches.  Knead dough on lightly floured surface until smooth. Divide dough in half and roll each half into a 25cm log. Wrap in clingwrap and  refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roll dough out to 1cm thick. Cut into shapes with floured cookie cutters. Place biscuits on greased oven trays 2cm apart. Bake, uncovered, about 10 minutess or until browned lightly. Turn cookies onto wire rack to cool.

The Worlds Easiest Cup cakes
Ingredients:
1 cup cream and
1 cup of sugar
1-1/2 cups SR flour
2 eggs

Method:
Combine cream and sugar. Beat into flour. Light  beat eggs and stir into mixture.  Spoon into patty pans and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes.

Tacos are one of my favourite quick, in a hurry, meals. They're cheap (I only use about 200g mince), healthy with loads of fresh salad and everyone loves them.

The problem is, if you use the hard taco shells, the filling falls out as you eat it, and they can go soggy.

Here's the solution, and it's so simple you'll wonder why you never thought of it.

​To keep taco fillings inside their shells, line the shell with a leaf of lettuce before adding the meat and other toppings. The lettuce will stop the taco shell from going soggy and hold the filling even if the shell starts to break.

We've all seen it happen: we pull the plug and instead of the sink full of water whooshing down the drain it dribbles slowly, putting dread into our very souls.  Before you call the plumber, try this DIY drain solution.  To help dissolve grease and gunk in kitchen and laundry sinks and scum and hair in sluggish bathroom basin and bath drains, pour a mixture of 1cup of salt, 1 cup bicarb soda and ½ cup white vinegar into the drain. Put the plug in and leave it alone for 15 minutes. Then flush with a kettle of boiling water followed by flushing hot tap water down the drain for 1 minute. You can repeat this process if necessary.  Keep your drains clean and clear with a monthly treatment.

Hint: Salt will keep small roots from taking up residence in your pipes.

​This Valentines Day say I Love You with some extra special  homemade biscuits, decorated especially for Valentines Day.

Use our Bargain Bikkies recipe, you'll get around 100 decent sized biscuits from this recipe for approximately $4.00.

Bargain Bikkies
Ingredients:
7 cups SR flour
2 cups sugar
500g margarine
4 eggs, beaten
1 dessertspoon vanilla essence

Method:
Cream butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Mix vanilla essence with eggs and add to butter/sugar, mixing well. Add the flour. The mixture becomes quite stiff at this stage but make sure all the flour is thoroughly mixed in.

Now comes the fun part – creating different varieties of bikkies.
Divide the dough into portions – 4 is a manageable number – and flavour each portion.

Variations:
Cornflake:  Take spoonfuls (tea- or dessert- depending on how big you want them) of dough, roll into balls and then roll in crushed cornflakes. I have also used the Weetbix crumbs from the bottom of the box too.

Choc Chip: Mix ½ cup choc chips through the dough. Then either roll into balls and freeze or bake, or into a log.

Thumb Prints: Roll into balls, flatten out and then poke a dent in the middle of each bikkie with your thumb. Add a dollop of red jam.

Sultana: Mix through a handful of sultanas

Sugar Cookies:  Brush the tops of the biscuits with a little milk or beaten egg white and sprinkle generously with coloured sugar.  To make the coloured sugar just  put some sugar in a plastic bag and add food colouring, a drop at a time, massaging well into the sugar until the desired colour is reached.  

Apricot & Almond: Chop a few dried apricots and add with ¼ cup chopped almonds.

Cherryripe: Add a packet of glace cherries, 1/4 cup choc bits and 2 tbsp coconut.

Coconut & Cranberry:  Add 1/2 cup dessicated coconut and 1/2 cup Craisins to the mix. Roll into logs or shape into balls and flatten.

Bake in a moderate oven for 10 minutes or until golden. Watch with the choc chip variety that they don’t burn on the bottom – the chocolate melts and may catch on the tray.

Heart shaped cookie cutters will turn these biscuits into creations of love. Roll the dough out to about 5mm thick and use heart shaped cookie cutters to cut the biscuits. Kids don’t only like hearts. Let them experiment with other shapes in the cookie cutter arsenal if they want to. They can even design shapes of their own with the dough pieces that are too small to cut.

This mixture freezes really well. You can simply flash freeze the individual bikkies and then bag them, ready to bake. Or you can roll the mixture into logs and freeze. Then simply thaw a log, slice and bake.

Last year the kids gave me a waffle iron for Mother's Day and I love it. I'm not a gadget fan, but this is one that has been well used in the 8 months we've had it.

Waffles are so quick and easy to make, no need to buy a $4 packet of waffle mix. 

We have them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert - not all at once! With fruit, syrup, ice-cream, custard, jelly, baked beans, eggs, sausages - the toppings are limited only by your imagination and pantry supplies.

Waffles
Ingredients:
1 cup SR flour
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs

Method:
Mix all ingredients together, beating until smooth. Heat waffle iron. Pour 1/2 cup batter per waffle into the wafflie iron. Cook for 2 - 3  minutes or until waffles are golden and crisp.

Click here toWhen our children were small they had a bath every night (or almost every night, sometimes they weren't dirty enough and I was too tired!). They loved their bath and would stay in it until the water was cold if I'd let them. Of course that meant that often there was a ring of gunk around the bath when it was emptied, a ring of gunk that I had to clean off. 

Then a friend with triplets shared this tip with me and bathtime, or at least cleaning up after bathtime, became a breeze.

Rhonda suggested smearing a light coat of any type of cheap shampoo around the inside of  the bathtub and letting it dry. Don't put it on the bottom of the tub, as it will make it slippery. Doing this helps prevents that ring of scum from forming. 

If you have a ring around your tub at the moment, use a small amount of shampoo on a fine nylon net scrubber sponge loofah thingy. Rub around the ring and it will come off easily and your bathroom won't have that strong chemical odour after cleaning, either. edit.