Easy Kitchen Cleaning Tips for Spoonies

Kitchens should feed us, not make us ill, and that means we need to keep our kitchens clean. Easier said than done when you’re a Spoonie. However, with these easy kitchen cleaning tips for Spoonies, you should be able to keep the germs at bay. Even when you’re low on spoons.

Will your kitchen always be sparkling to perfection or look like it comes straight from an ad for a prestigious kitchen showroom? Not likely. And it doesn’t have to. It just has to be safe and workable.

Because that’s what really matters.

4 Easy Kitchen Cleaning Hacks for Spoonies

As Spoonies, we should clean smarter, not harder. Below are some hacks I use myself. While some may seem obvious, they truly make a difference.

• Wipe down surfaces immediately. This is perhaps the most important of them all. While wiping down a surface doesn’t gobble up a lot of energy, the result is immediate and high-impact. And even a soft dry cloth (my personal go-to) can work wonders.
• Single-use kitchen wipes aren’t cheating. Yes, they are bad for the environment—and your bank account. But we have to be realistic here. Sometimes, just grabbing a disposable wipe is the best we can do. Use them when you need to, and opt for a regular cloth wipe when you can.
• Keep a spray bottle handy for cupboards, backsplashes, fridge handles, etc. Get a spray bottle you can hold without pain and fill it with your favourite cleaning solution. Whether it’s a homemade Dawn-vinegar solution or a commercial one doesn’t matter. It just needs to get the job done.  
• Clean as you cook. Did I just hear you groan? I get it. I’ve been there too. But once I got into that habit, it made such a difference. Not only does it prevent spills from taking over your worktop, it also helps contain the after-cooking chaos.

Remember: a little cleaning every day keeps the big messes away.

Bonus Spoonie Kitchen Hack: Delegate or Simplify 

Just because we can’t afford to have a butler doesn’t mean we need to do everything ourselves. Maybe a family member or hired helper can do some of the bigger cleaning tasks. Also, a robot vacuum (mine lives under a kitchen cabinet) and a dishwasher are real spoon-savers.

Energy-Saving Kitchen Cleaning Strategies for Spoonies

Hired helpers and robot vacuums are expensive. So are dishwashers. What to do if you can’t afford them? Just suck it up and suffer?

Here are some other options—which also work when you do have a professional cleaner and a Roomba. 

• Get a Swiffer. Inexpensive, lightweight, and perfect for mopping up small messes on the kitchen floor.
• The aforementioned disposable wipes. (I can’t recommend them enough.)
• Microfibre cloths. OK, I hate those things. (The way they seem to cut my skin to shreds…) But my daughter—and many other Spoonies—swear by them, and there’s something to be said for them. They are lightweight and easier to wring out than sponges or regular dishcloths.
• A dishwashing brush with integrated soap dispenser. Buy one that’s comfortable to hold. No use hurting yourself with a poorly fitting specimen.
• Use dishwasher-safe kitchen tools. Tossing things into the dishwasher is way easier than cleaning everything by hand. 

And that’s still not all, for I’ve got just a few more spoon-saving tips for you:

• Timing matters. Clean when you have the most energy and the least pain. For me, that’s usually in the mornings.
• Don’t try to do everything at once. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: work in 5-minute chunks. You’d be surprised at how much you can do in such a small pocket of time.

Cool Fridge Cleaning Tips

• A clean fridge is necessity, not luxury. But that doesn’t mean you have to clean the entire fridge in one go. One shelf per day (or even per week) will get the job done, too.
• Clear bins in your fridge keep everything organised, catch leaks and spills, and are easy to pull out and clean. 
• Keep baking soda inside. Just pour baking soda into a shallow container and place it in your fridge. It will eliminate odours with zero effort. Replace once every three months. I suppose you could even just open the box and place that into your fridge, but that wouldn’t look as tidy.

How to Create a Low-Maintenance Kitchen

STUFF: Scattered Things Undermining Focus and Flow

If your kitchen looks anything like my mum’s used to do, it’s… overwhelming. She had stuff out on the worktops, and not an uncluttered space in sight. Sure, some of that stuff was used daily, but not all of it. It just stood there, collecting dust and grime. Being an eyesore.

Worse than that, it was also a major energy-drain. Physical clutter equals mental clutter, and as spoonies we don’t need any of that. Get rid of what you don’t need, and store the rest behind closed doors. Keep only a few daily-use items out.

In my kitchen, that’s some wooden spoons, my knife block, cutting board, the water cooker, a trivet, and a small cleaning caddy. That’s it. Minimal clutter, maximum mental clarity.

Ideally, all your surfaces should be easy to clean. Meaning, no beautiful but labour-intensive wooden or marble worktops. Colour matters, too. When I had my kitchen redone, I chose a black laminated worktop: easy to clean, and it doesn’t show every little stain.

My cabinet doors are plain, and their surfaces smooth. I never got the gorgeous wooden doors with bevelled panels I’d been secretly ogling for so long. And honestly, I’m happy with my choice: simple and clean is ultimately more beautiful than elegant with caked-on dust and grime. 

Kitchen Cleaning Mindset for Spoonies

If all of this sounds like too much… I get it. In fact, I’m the first to admit that I often fall short here. That’s our Spoonie reality. We’ve got to make do with the shitty hand life has dealt us, and that’s far easier said than done.

But that doesn’t mean all is lost and we should just give up trying. We just need to prioritise.

• Today, I’ll do this. Not that.
• Progress beats perfection.
• Every small win counts.

Final Thoughts: Kitchen Hygiene for Spoonies

While perfection is unattainable, a clean kitchen is within your reach. Even with limited energy. You just need the right tools, attitude, and perhaps some help from others. And there’s zero shame in asking for the help you need.

As always, be gentle on yourself. The world is hard enough on us already. You don’t need to gaslight yourself into doing more than you can without wiping yourself out for the next couple of weeks.

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