Our delightfully crafty siblings at ShopSmart Magazine are always coming up with creative ways to stretch a dollar. And when it comes to getting the last bit of food from the bottom of that peanut butter jar or the final swig in a wine bottle, they’ve discovered some very hand tips for turning kitchen dregs into culinary delight. Check out a few of their suggestions and let us know — have you devised any tasty uses for those otherwise used up bottles, jars and bags? [More]
How Do You Stretch The Contents Of Your Kitchen To Create Culinary Delights?
By August 29, 2012
You Should Really Use Google Two-Factor Authentication
By August 29, 2012
If you haven’t heard of it, Google Two-Factor authentication is a simple process that combines something you know (your password) with something you have in your possession (your smart phone.) You may think you don’t need something like this, but we suggest you read this completely terrifying article from Ars Technica that explains that with every password breach, the bad guys are getting smarter. [More]
The Secretly Awesome Design Of The Ordinary Tic-Tac Box
By August 28, 2012
We roll our eyes at instructions on totally mundane objects. “I’m an adult,” a hypothetical person might say. “I know how to strike a match.” Or inflate a balloon. Or apply shampoo to my head. Maybe the ordinary person isn’t as smart as we’d like to think, though. There are millions of boxes of Tic-Tacs circulating out there right this minute, but most people have no idea how to actually dispense the tiny torpedoes of freshness. [More]
Playing Doctor: Consumerist Readers Explain How To Cure Anything With Just About Everything
By August 17, 2012
Earlier this week we turned to you, our wise and experienced Consumerist readers, to tell us which home remedies you’ve had success with in treating various bodily ailments. Or maybe the treatment wasn’t so successful but you learned an important life lesson on the process. We’ve combed through your highly entertaining and definitely useful comments and have compiled a few of the most common and well, interesting ones here (ahem, earwax?). [More]
Use The Clock And Google Voice To Actually Reach The IRS
By August 8, 2012
Sure, it’s not peak IRS season right now, but there is quite a variety of reasons that you might have to deal with the ever-present government agency anyway. Tax Cat is out of the office, vacationing at his offshore kitty condo in the Cayman Islands, so it’s up to reader Christopher, a tax preparer, to serve us up with handy tax advice. See, sometimes you have to call the IRS. You can’t avoid it. But so does everyone else in the country. What Christopher figured out is that the IRS call center doesn’t have fixed hours like most. Its open hours depend on what time zone you live in. His solution? Use a Google Voice number to fudge what time zone he’s in, and call late in the evening when the business day is done for most of the continental U.S. [More]
Dear Customers: Stop Making My Call-Center Employees Cry
By August 1, 2012
This week, we heard from a reader who we’ll call Mr. X. He works in marketing, and handles escalated customer service issues. He’s the guy you talk to when things go horribly, horribly wrong. He listens to your phone calls, and decides whether you should receive bill credits and other nice things. Mr. X has some very important advice for the customer service ninjas of Consumerist: please stop being jerks to front-line employees. [More]
You Don’t Need The Perfect Tortilla Pan. No One Does.
By July 25, 2012
Every time I look at a TV during the last few weeks, I see ads for the Perfect Tortilla, a wavy mold designed to help you make lovely edible bowls out of a regular store-bought tortilla. At home, visiting family, even at a sports bar: the ad is everywhere. What makes it annoying isn’t the spokesman who resembles a bald Billy Mays. It’s that this product is useless, even by the rarified standards of as-seen-on-TV merchandise. [More]
Dirty Air Conditioner Filters Could Be Blowing Your Money Away
By July 16, 2012
Has anyone else noticed that it’s been pretty hot this summer? As such, your air conditioner is probably getting quite the workout. But it’s important to make sure you’re getting the most out of it as you can so it can do its very best to cool you down instead of just running up your electric bill. That goes for your dehumidifier as well. One easy way to optimize those appliances? Cleaning out your dirty filters. [More]
I Want To Reunite Lost Kindle And Its Owner, But Amazon Won’t Help
By July 6, 2012
Matt is trying to do a nice thing. The previous occupant of his seat on a plane left a Kindle behind in the seatback pocket. He took it with him, planning to reunite the device with its owner. But that person has a very common name, and Amazon has no interest in being a go-between to help reunite lost Kindles with their owners. [More]
Do Dollar Stores Always Offer The Best Deal?
By June 18, 2012
The allure of the dollar store for some shoppers is the idea that they will save money compared to what they would spend going to another retailer. But that may not always be the case, especially if you’re buying larger sizes of some products. [More]
Flying While Fat: Research And Self-Awareness Mean Smooth Travel
By May 17, 2012
Reader Mechpaul is a large man. He used to avoid flying, afraid of what would happen if he was too big for his seat, encroaching on his neighbors’ space and potentially being humiliated and marched off the plane. Instead of approaching his flight with fear, he armed himself with two essential tools: a measuring tape and the Internet. He used these to find out whether he would fit in a United Airlines seat, and to plan accordingly. [More]
Washing Your Clothes Now Involves Complicated Flow Chart, Credit Cards
By May 15, 2012
Darren’s New York City apartment building just got a new set of laundry machines. Which is all well and good, but the instructions that come with said equipment? Let’s just say the “3 Easy Steps” touted on the in-depth flow-chart appear to be neither three in number, nor easy. Whatever happened to sticking some quarters in a machine and popping your whites and darks in? [More]
10 Signs Your Used Car Is Really A Rebuilt Wreck
By May 3, 2012
We often hear from readers horrified to discover that their perfectly lovely used car was once another owner’s total loss. They only find out much later, once something goes horribly wrong due to the previous damage. But once the vehicle is all fixed up and shiny, how is the average car buyer to know the difference? It turns out that there are distinctive signs that a car was previously in a crash or flood. Some you might notice yourself, and others require a mechanic’s eye. [More]
How Hard Should I Try To Give Back Someone Else's Tablet?
By April 27, 2012
Last week, Brian received a package from the ASUS repair center. It was a freshly repaired tablet, the same model that he owns. Except he hadn’t sent his in for repair lately. Someone else’s address appeared on the return merchandise authorization (RMA) form inside the box, but the label on the outside had Brian’s information. He wonders: how much time and money should he invest in getting this package home when Asus doesn’t particularly seem to care? [More]
A Rebuttal To Important News Regarding How Much Money Is In Scrooge McDuck's Vault
By April 25, 2012
Here at Consumerist, we don’t take vaults filled with riches lightly. So when a recent story claimed to have finally calculated how much money it would take to fill Scrooge McDuck’s swimmable vault of gold, our childhood selves were all atwitter. But then, we started talking about it amongst ourselves. [More]
When To Toss Your Old Ketchup And Mayo
By April 24, 2012
I recently got a new refrigerator, and everyone knows what that means: the biennial excavating of the ancient condiments. How old is this salsa? How did I end up with three bottles of ketchup? And so on. Today, though, I learned that my standards have been woefully lax when deciding which condiments to keep around and which to toss. [More]
How Being Too Competent Can Get You Fired
By April 18, 2012
Being the weakest performer in the company or performing a service that’s utterly dispensable is dangerous to your continued employment, especially in a weak job market. But working hard and being good at what you do is potentially dangerous as well, especially if your bosses are insecure, paranoid, and just not a good as you are. To people who think this way, having a bright future within the company makes you a threat. Your future endangers theirs. [More]
Comment Of The Day: Dishwasher, Clean Thyself
We’re reviving an old-school Consumerist feature last seen circa 2008: the Comment of the Day. On this morning’s post about cleaning ‘taters and cooking salmon in the dishwasher, commenter Pasketti observed that only a dishwasher that is itself clean can clean your potatoes properly. [More]