My Go-To List of Household Cleaning Supplies

This list of everyday household cleaning supplies has products you will use on a daily & weekly basis to keep your home tidy! Includes ideas for cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, floors, and home exterior.

Affiliate links used in this post. Read more about my link usage here.

A few years ago (the day before the first edition of Journey to Clean was released, as a matter of fact), I published a list of cleaning supplies that I used at the time. As the years have rolled on and as I have fine-tuned Journey to Clean’s system of maintaining a home, those items have changed slightly. Some items have hung around and some have exited the list; I think that’s the case for most people that care for a space they love.

My list of go-to cleaning supplies isn’t complicated; it’s a collection of a few items that I truly do use on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis to easily maintain my home. I don’t have any big secrets for keeping a clean house; I use Journey to Clean and these supplies. That’s it!

Instead of making one big, confusing list of cleaning products, I thought I’d break it down by day. If you follow my cleaning system, you know that there are certain things you’ll do every single Monday, every single Tuesday, etc. Let’s take a look at those tasks and what supplies I use to carry those tasks out.

Monday – Outside Areas

On Mondays, I tackle the outside areas of the home. I tidy up the porch, garage, and car for about 10 minutes. This might include sweeping the ground, picking up trash in the car, cleaning minor spills, etc.

I use…

• An inexpensive push broom – doesn’t have to be fancy, friends. You’re not going to be sweeping for hours at a time, so you don’t really need one of those heavy-duty push brooms meant for commercial use. This one works just fine!
• Totally Awesome cleaner – You will see this product over and over in this post. I’ve sung the praises of this time and time again. It costs A DOLLAR (yes, only a dollar) for a concentrated bottle that lasts forever. I get mine from Dollar Tree! It’s an all-purpose cleaner that can be used anywhere; floors, hard surfaces, upholstery. You name it. I use this every single day. For outside areas, I use it to clean up and car messes or minor spills in the porch/garage.
• Armor All – I use this to treat my car surfaces. The leather one is good for seats and the original is great for plastic surfaces.
• A cheap poop scooper – Guys, if I’m just being flat out honest with you, I can’t make this list without at least mentioning this one. It’s not glamorous, but ya gotta clean up the unmentionable stuff too, you know? This one has lasted us for almost 2 years and is great. And that’s all I have to say about poop scoopers on my blog. 😉

Tuesday – Surfaces

On Tuesdays, I go through the whole house and wipe down surfaces that might collect dust and spills. To do this, I use…

• eCloth Kitchen Cleaning Cloth – This is an amazing microfiber cloth that has lasted us for years now. It’s not just for cleaning kitchens! I use it everywhere. Microfiber is great at getting out set-in gunk and has the ability to remove germs.
• Totally Awesome cleaner
• Swiffer Duster – I like to wipe down dusty surfaces with one of these. It very easily collects dust!
• Extendable Duster – This is wonderful for cleaning fans, higher light fixtures, and crown moulding. And, as a bonus, this same tool can be a light bulb changer, paint roller, gutter cleaner, or window squeegee.
• Glass cleaner – I really just use this one surfaces that are likely to streak…windows, shiny tabletops, etc.
• Granite sealer – This is not an everyday thing, but a couple of times a month, I like to use this to clean my granite countertops. It cleans and seals them at the same time – something that is super important to maintaining any kind of stone surface! Plus, I love the way this cleaner smells. (And yes, it is a little pricey, but a bottle lasts forever. I bought one two years ago and it’s not even close to empty.)

Wednesdays – Fridge/Pantry

Wednesdays are the day I dedicate to tidying up the fridge and pantry – throwing away old or expired food, cleaning up minor spills, organizing food by type, and inventorying what we need to buy or need to use up. No fancy supplies are needed for this…

• eCloth Kitchen Cleaning Cloth
• Totally Awesome cleaner

Thursday – Vacuum/Mop

This is the most time-consuming of the daily tasks. Once a week, I vacuum my whole house and mop half of the hard surfaces (alternating what I mop every other week). For this, I need…

• Dyson V6 Animal – Friends – I love. this. vacuum. We bought it during a Black Friday sale last year and I’ve been so incredibly pleased with it! It’s cordless (but maintains enough of a charge to vacuum most, if not all, of the house at one time), is so lightweight (so it’s perfect for carrying up stairs), and has incredible suction. It’s an investment, but I promise you won’t regret it!
• eCloth Aqua Spray Deep Clean Mop – This is my go-to mop. It has a microfiber pad that can be washed as needed, so there’s less waste than the disposable mop pads. The microfiber is great at scrubbing even stubborn messes on the floor…I rarely meet a mess this one can’t clean! It’s also very lightweight and the spray feature on it is so nice. I originally got this through a sponsorship opportunity for the blog and loved it so much that it replaced every other mop in my house. It’s a game-changer.
• Ecovacs Deebot N79S – Although I technically don’t use this just on vacuum/mop day, it absolutely helps me keep my floors clean on a daily basis. I run this robot vacuum twice daily; it’s wifi-enabled (so I can turn it on/off from my phone if needed) and allows me to schedule cleanings through an app. It’s on the inexpensive side for robot vacuums and has been amazing!
• Lysol All-Purpose – Don’t tell the people at eCloth – but I add a little bit of Lysol into my reservoir on the mop when I clean. You’re supposed to just use water, but I’m slightly paranoid by germs and have really unclean kids. 😉 This makes the floor smell nice and ensures it’s super duper clean when I mop! (And the Tangerine Mango scent is a new favorite – it smells AMAZING.)

Friday – Toilets/Sinks

Yep, gotta clean those too. Fun fact: I originally put toilets/sinks down as my Friday cleaning task because I hate doing it, so doing it on a Friday makes it a little bit more tolerable. 😂

• A simple toilet scrub brush – I have one of these in each bathroom so I don’t have to carry it around to each toilet. This is the kind I use – it has that extra little scrubber that comes in really handy!
• Clorox Clean-Up – While Totally Awesome is my go-to for general cleaning, the bathrooms require a little bit more love in the germ elimination department. This is what I use on toilets and sinks weekly.
• Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner – This is my favorite toilet cleaner. I’ve tried a lot and just keep coming back to this. Simple, inexpensive, and no-fuss!

Saturday – Laundry and Catch Up

While I do have a couple of laundry favorites, this is probably the area where I change it up the most. I don’t have a detergent I absolutely love – I just typically use whatever’s on sale. In addition, I use…

• Oxi Clean – if this isn’t in your life, put it there. I use this to get out deep-set stains by making a paste out of it and rubbing into clothing. I also soak my stained clothing in a concentrated mix of it sometimes, and add a little bit in each load of laundry.
• Speed Queen Washer and Dryer – Yes, they’re pricey. Let’s put that out there. But it was an investment we made when we bought our current home that i couldn’t be happier about. These washer/dryer sets last forever and rarely break (mainly because they’re super simple; instead of focusing on bells and whistles, this company focuses on a solid, simple machinery that works). I couldn’t recommend these more. (These usually aren’t available online – we have the equivalent of the TR3 washer and the DR3 dryer. I recommend finding a local retailer to get the best deal on these.)
• Dryer Sheets – I’ve tried to be all eco-friendly and cut these out; I’m sorry, but there’s just no substitute if you want static-free and amazing-smelling laundry. If you really feel bad about using them, recycle used ones into baseboard dusters; they work wonderfully!
• Blue Dawn Detergent – This isn’t just for the kitchen! I use Blue Dawn to get out oil stains on clothing. Just rub a little in before washing and the grease stains will come out like magic.

Household Cleaning Supplies Used for Room of the Week Chores

Now, if you’re a Journey to Cleaner, you know there’s also a Room of the Week list that’s completed throughout the month (check out my post from Tuesday to see it). Here are a few items I use for those that didn’t make the lists above:

• Melamine Sponges – You can’t beat these for scrubbing stubborn stains and surfaces (say that five times fast). I don’t buy the name-brand; they’re available on Amazon for so much less!
• Odo Ban – I have a dog. That dog is stinky. And old and stubborn. And refuses to get off the couch. So, I fight it the second best way I can think of: Odo Ban. I spray this on my couch often to get rid of “old dog smell.” It works!
• Vinegar – If you don’t mind a little bit of a vinegar smell, this is a great all-purpose cleaner. I used to use this all the time to safely clean high chair tops and any surface my children might eat off of (which was a lot of places in our house a few years ago). Now, I use it to safely clean our oven and microwave, without worry that fumes might hurt us.
• Baking Soda – Another great natural cleaner. You’re not going to find a better, less exensive abrasive for everyday use! This is a wonderful way to clean and deodorize sinks.
• Fuzz Shaver – As your furniture gets older, you’ll notice that little fuzz balls start to pill up with continued wear and tear. Get rid of them with this! I typically use this on my furniture cleaning days to quickly make my couch look like new.
• Upholstery and Carpet Cleaner – If you have a dog and/or kids, this might just be the best investment you ever make. It’s fairly inexpensive (much less then renting a commercial grade carpet cleaner every few months) and works just as well as the big ones in my opinion. We use this all the time to clean couches, upholstered kitchen chairs, and carpet stains. I alternate cleaning our big sectional and my kitchen chairs every other month on the “spot clean furniture” task of Journey to Clean.
• Goo Gone – You never know when you’ll need it, but I guarantee that you eventually will. This is great for stubborn stickers, stuck-on messes, and the occasional gum incident.
• Bar Keeper’s Friend – I talked about this in my sink cleaning post a little while back; it is amazing for getting really difficult scratches out of porcelain! This is one of those things I didn’t know you needed until I tried it…now I couldn’t live without it.

And there you have it – no complicated list at all! This covers probably 95% of the cleaners I use in my home. With the combination of these tools and Journey to Clean, I am able to keep my home clean with such little effort. I’d say that’s my secret to a clean house, but I almost feel silly calling it a secret – it’s such a no-brainer!

What tools am I missing? Comment with your favorite cleaning supplies below.