Isn't she a beaut? Having 2 toddlers around the house (boys, nonetheless) makes for a lots of messes. After every single meal, no matter how unmessy I try to make it, my dining room floor is blotched and sprinkled with whatever was supposed to go in the boy's tummies. I found myself sweeping and mopping multiple times a day. Some people would suggest just doing a quick spot sweep/mop after meals and doing a good job of it after the day is over. This works for some people but I needed to find an alternative. And so the heavens opened up and out came this baby. The Swiffer Vac. She mops AND vacuums!!!!!!!!! Can you sense my excitement?? My floors have never been so clean :)So the only problem with SwifferVac is the wet cloths that you use for the mop part. They work great...don't get me wrong. But Geesh! They're expensive! Even the store brand was $8.64 for 24 cloths! Since I use this thing 2-3 times a day, that was only going to last me a little over a week. I felt like it was worth it though, so I indulged.
Not anymore! By using the same concept as the Baby Wipes I'm now making my OWN refills. I've been using these for about a week now and barely notice a difference. Here's the Recipe!
Homemade SwifferVac Refills:
- 1 roll Bounty Papertowel (Bounty is the only brand strong enough for the job! Oh and make sure you don't get the kind that are perferated into thirds...you'll need 1 full sheet and the perferations will just make it tear easier while you're mopping)
-3 Cups Water
-1/2 Cup your favorite floor cleaner (I'm a Pine Sol gal)
Combine the water and cleaner. Place the WHOLE roll of paper towel into a large bowl & pour water mixture over it. Wait about 30 minutes and the cardboard center should be soft enough to pull right out. Use 1 paper towel the same as you would a typical refil cloth. I went to the dollar store and bought a storage container for these...just make sure it's long enough, about 13 inches.
As always, the price breakdown:
Store brand refills: $8.64 for 24= .36 each
Miller Brand Refills:
Bounty Papertowel: $1.41 for 54 sheets= .03
PineSol: $1 for 28oz= .03 (using 4oz for cleaning solution)= .12
Total: .15 each!
Happy Savings!
I love this idea! Although, I think your math for the homemade refills is possibly off. If it's $1 for 28oz, and you use 4oz for the entire batch, that would be $0.12 for the whole batch, not per sheet. If so, then the .12 divided into the 54 sheets would barely be even 1/2 a cent. Sweet deal!! I stopped buying the swiffer refills because they were too expensive, but this would be too great to pass up!
ReplyDeleteI looked for the SwifferVac yesterday. The only one I saw had dry sheets for the mop part - it was a dry mop more for dusting while you vacuum. Do you just use the wet cloth refills instead or do I have the wrong model?
ReplyDeleteHey damamatomany, I've never seen the dry one before. I think you could probably just use the dry one and put wet cloths on it. Let me know how it works!
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