The same ingredients you can use to make your own laundry detergent at home can be used to make your own dishwashing detergent, also at home. [More]
how-to
Get Your Tornado Insurance Settlement Check Fast
By 4.19.11
With more tornadoes on the way tonight after last weekend’s deadly twisters that killed 45 and left hundreds of homes damaged and destroyed, it’s important to have your ducks in a row to get your tornado insurance claim check issued quickly should disaster strike. After you shake off the daze and dust from the destruction, what do you do to get your cash fast and get on the road to repair and recovery? [More]
Make Your Own Laundry Detergent At Home
By 4.18.11
In just 30 minutes, you can have a five-gallon bucket of homemade laundry detergent that costs 50 cents less per load than store bought, says dollarstoremom. All you need is washing soda, grated bar soap, borax, boiling water, and large bucket. Get the recipe and ideas for adding scents and so forth on the blog. And yep, this mixture will even work on HE washers, according to the commenters. [More]
Scrub Glassware With Aluminum Foil
By 4.18.11
Don’t just toss out that perfectly lovely piece of aluminum foil. Save it, and use it to scrub your glassware, says Real Simple. A bit of dishwashing liquid and a small piece of foil can do the work of a steel-wool soap pad when getting stubborn stickies and food stains from glassware and oven racks. Plus it’s cheaper! [More]
Make The Telemarketer Repeat Themselves A Zillion Times Until They Hang Up
By 4.15.11
Now this is how you mess with a telemarketer. Reader areaman in the comments on “Annoy Telemarketers Into Leaving You Alone” pointed out this clip of comedian Jim Florentine taking on one of those debt consolidation companies. She keeps trying to read through her pitch and he keeps insisting that there was a part in it he didn’t hear and makes her go over it again and again. “No, no, before that,” is his constant refrain. She tries to soldier on but eventually hangs up in frustration. Classic. [More]
Annoy Telemarketers Into Leaving You Alone
By 4.15.11
Larry’s company was deluged with calls from this one telemarketing scam outfit. They tried everything to get rid of the buggers but they wouldn’t quit. So his company decided to annoy them. [More]
Make A Grilled Cheese Sandwich In A Toaster
By 4.14.11
It is possible to make a grilled cheese sandwich using just a toaster and not fill it with cheese goo. All you have to do, says the kitchn, is just put the toaster on its side. Place the cheese on top of the bread, slide it in, and the force of gravity keeps it on the bread. Paradigm shift! [More]
Where To Donate Your Old Heels And Video Game Consoles
By 4.7.11
So you have some stuff to get rid of around the house and you want to donate it, but you want to make sure it goes to a place where it gets the best use. Good thing the Miss Minimalist blog has a list of 101 worthy places to send your clutter to that can help out. Women’s shoes? Send them to Dress For Success, which helps low-income women get the garb they need for job interviews. Old Nintendo GameCube? How about the Get-Well Gamers Foundation which brings video games to children’s hospitals. For 99 more suggests, check out the list on Miss Minimalist. Got a charity she left off? Tout it in the comments. [More]
What Mailing Method Should I Use For The Best Paper Trail?
By 4.4.11
So you’re involved in a dispute and you want to make sure that your well-crafted complaint letter is mailed in a way so that it’s indisputable that your recipient got it. What’s the best way to shoot off your epistle? Certified? Signature delivery? Wrapped around a brick? Nay. [More]
Store Bulk Grain With Free Frosting Buckets From Your Grocery Bakery
By 3.21.11
So you’re a savvy shopper and you’re saving by buying food in bulk and cooking a lot of your own meals. But how do you store all that food, especially grain? Your wallet isn’t the only one who likes a big stash of wheat, so do mice and other critters. To solve this problem, Laura over at the Heavenly Homemakers blog likes to hit up the bakery department of her local groceries and ask for their empty 5-gallon buckets of frosting. [More]
Man Wins $5,000 Suing Debt Collectors, Thanks To Google Voice
By 3.17.11
Reader PJ sued a bunch of harassing debt collectors and won $5,000, and Google Voice made doing it really easy. Someone had put down his work cellphone number on their credit applications and ran up a bunch of debts and collectors started calling him multiple times per day. He told them he wasn’t the guy and asked them nicely to stop, but that only made it worse. [More]
Just Use "Block Caller" In Google Voice To Beat Fraudulent Debt Collectors
By 3.17.11
Using the “Block Caller” function in Google Voice is a far easier way to beat fraudulent callers than the one we described 2 weeks ago, says reader John. [More]
Stop Yourself From Overusing Credit Cards By Demagnetizing Them
By 3.10.11
People who have a hard time exercising willpower over their credit card use sometimes find it necessary/helpful to take some extreme steps. Besides cutting them up or freezing them, Lifehacker points out that serial impulse-swipers can help limit their spending by demagnetizing their cards. Just rub a high-strength magnet, like the kind found in a hard-drive, over the strip. It will be harder to go for a spree at the mall because the card number would have to be punched in by hand, but you will be able to make purchases online for airline tickets and such. If the primary way that you overspend is through a real-world shopping romp, this could be one way to curb your bad habit. [More]
Trick Fraudulent Debt Collectors With Google Voice
By 3.7.11
Steve, name changed for his protection, found himself bedeviled by fraudulent debt collectors. They bought his personal information from an online payday loan site where he had applied for a loan but never actually took it out. They called him constantly, threatening to send him to jail and take him to court. In this situation, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act didn’t matter. They were overseas scammers who didn’t care about American law, bulling people into paying debts they never incurred. The only way to stop them was by changing all his phone numbers. That’s where using Google Voice came in. [More]
How Do You Pick An Executor For Your Estate?
By 3.4.11
When you’re putting a will together, choosing the executor can be a touchy subject. [More]
How To Shop For Free, Extreme Couponer Shares Her Secrets
By 2.28.11
Uber-couponer Kathy Spencer isn’t satisfied with just having a low grocery bill. She only considers it a success if she gets everything for almost free, or even make money off the transaction. She does this by looking for loopholes in the system, like “rolling.” This is where say toilet paper is on sale for $1 but buying it generates a $1 store credit coupon. Use that to buy another roll, get another coupon, buy another roll and pretty soon, you’ve got yourself a year’s supply of toilet paper and you’re handing it out to strangers in the parking lot. [More]
How To Pass Through A Door
By 2.25.11
Ever notice how many people don’t know how to go through a door? They don’t know how to hold it for other people, and, when the door is held for them, they just keep on walking without even mumbling their thanks. How rude! To rectify this situation, designer Isadora Dantas has created this helpful flowchart that instructs users in the proper way to pass through a door. If this graphic was distributed along with building access badges, the world would be a better place. [More]
43 Ways To Save Money
By 2.24.11
I sent out an email blast to my friends and family asking them for all their best tips on ways to save money. I got back lots of great responses which I have culled down to 43. Not all of them might apply perfectly to you, as, for instance, you might not wear overalls, but they’re good for getting in the spirit of pinching those pennies a little tighter. [More]
