Daily Thrifty Tips August 27, 2004

Hello,

We have a great newsletter today. Lots of useful tips, feedback and some tasty recipes on the website.

I have a favor to ask! If you know someone who may like this newsletter, please forward it to them. We are going to install our new server this weekend and hope to grow our readership to make use of the new machine.

Thanks for reading,

Susan

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Today's newsletter contains:

Today's Tips:

• Coca Cola for Removing Rusted Bolts
• Clean the Shower While You Clean Yourself
• Use Diluted Dishwashing Liquid
• Different Ways to Hang Dry Your Clothing
• Keep Baby Socks Together in the Wash
• Make Your Own Trail Mix
• Removing Lint From Clothing Tips
• Save Leftover Paint for Touch-ups
• Make Your Own Cut Veggies
• Feedback: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss
• Feedback: Outrageous Meat Prices
• Feedback: Low Carb Pancakes
• Feedback: Thrifty Uses for Salt
• Feedback: Throwing a Baby Shower
• Today's Recipe: Spaghetti Sauce Seasoning Mix and Recipes
• Today's Recipe: Eggplant Recipes
• Today's Recipe: Deviled Eggs - 5 Ways

New Requests:

• Rust Stains in a White Sink
• Vegetation Killer for Poison Ivy and Sumack
• Making Spaghetti Sauce Less Sweet
• Ice Machine Not Working
• Yellowish Stain on Jeans

More Reading:

• Crisis Fund

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Today's Tips

Coca Cola for Removing Rusted Bolts

Have a bolt that you budge? Pour some cola on it and let it set for a few minutes. Then try removing again. The cola will eat away at the rust and often make it easier to turn.

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Clean the Shower While You Clean Yourself

Keep a Mr. Clean Cleaning eraser in the shower. Save time buy scrubbing the walls and tub while you in the shower. No toxic fumes to smell, no soapy mess. After you dry off (and while the room is still steamy), use your towel to wipe down the sink, vanity, and toilet. Everything will be damp and will wipe off easily. Toss the towel in the hamper, bathroom is clean and so are you! By Kim McG

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Use Diluted Dishwashing Liquid

I keep dishwashing liquid, diluted 1:1 with water in a handsoap pump dispenser beside my kitchen sink. Your detergent goes twice as far, and you can use it to put a drop or two (use a light touch) on your sponge, or to add a measured amount to your sink when soaking or handwashing dishes.

By Doggy

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Different Ways to Hang Dry Your Clothing

So Many Ways to Hang Your Clothes To Dry: You don't need yards-n-yards of clothesline or a big back yard. Try these alternatives, and I'm sure you can think of more:

(1) Racks from a freezer or refrigerator. After the freezer goes ka-put, salvage the racks, hang them up on nails with wire coat hangers.

(2) Use regular hangers with clothespins. You can hang these almost anywhere, even on one another. You'd be surprised how much laundry you can hang in a small space this way.

(3) String a couple strands of wire between 2 hooks in your ceiling, either in front of your closet or in the shower. If the wire sags in the middle, put a few clip clothespins along it in intervals to hold your hangers.

(4) Also if you have a wooden clothes drying rack, it can stay in your shower all day long, not too bad to just move it once a day when you take a shower.

(5) Be sure to keep your shower curtain rod clean so you can drape something over it to dry if you're in a hurry.

(6) In fair weather, drape your throw rugs, blankets & quilts over your bannister. You can turn them over once during drying if they are really thick and heavy. There now! You hardly have to use your electric or gas dryer at all.

By Jayne

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Keep Baby Socks Together in the Wash

Put your baby's tiny socks into a zippered lingerie bag when you put them in the washing machine. They won't get lost, so this cuts down on unmatched socks and the subsequent replacement costs. By Lisa Trudeau

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Make Your Own Trail Mix

Do you love the trail mix that you can purchase but don't love the price you have to pay? I make my own mixing walnut pieces, almonds, raw cashews, currants, raisins, small pieces of dried pineapple and sunflower seeds. Use your imagine and add or subtract what you like or don't like with my recipe. Every week I make a batch and have about 2 Tablespoons per day. Delicious & very inexpensive & healthy too. Happy snacking. By joesgirl

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Removing Lint from Clothing

To remove lint, hair, and especially cat hair from your clothes, take about 6 inches of Duct Tape, wrap it around your hand with sticky side away from your skin and stick end to end. Then dab away. Not much will escape the Duct tape sticky.

By SusanL

Post your ideas!

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Save Leftover Paint for Touch-ups

My tip is: When you're painting a room and you have a small amount of paint leftover, don't throw it away. Find a small container to put it in, preferably a tin or a jar, close the lid tight, label it and save it for touch-ups.

By Lisa Trudeau

Editor's Note: Another good idea is to put a label on the jar with the batch code number from the can, the exact paint name, the manufacturer name and the solvent that can be used for cleaning brushes.

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Make Your Own Cut Veggies

With 4 kids I am always trying to find ways to save on my food bill. My kids love the pre-cut veggies from the store, so I buy bags of veggies and cut them up while the kids are in school. They don't know that I made them. This saves me about $20. a week By dsbaby14

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Feedback: Alternate Uses for Dental Floss

I use it to make bracelets and necklaces. As a project with my son, we take rubbing alcohol and mix it with food coloring until it's the color we like it. Then we soak macaroni (in interesting shapes) in it for appr. 30 minutes and let it dry overnight. The next day we string them like beads using the dental floss in place of thread. It's alot stronger and will hold up a lot better under the not so delicate care of younger children. You could use anything you like, beads, shells. It's using your imagination and a fun family project.

By Suzanne S.

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Feedback: Outrageous Meat Prices

Check your supermarkets for those ones that reduce leftovers and place them in the meat cases in early AM and buy the discounted meats. I have one that has all leftovers including bakery and meats every morning at half price, others reduce meat about 1/3. I make a meal from the meats I buy, usually can find a few days worth at a time. That way I can shop 2X week and have all meat reduced and affordable.

By ScotFinn

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Feedback: Low Carb Pancakes

1/4 cup, 0 carb egg protein powder (vanilla or plain)
2 tbls flax meal
1 egg
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup heavy cream or coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla
Pinch of sweetener (splenda, nutrasweet, etc)

Add all ingredients into large mixing bowl and cook as you would regular pancakes.

6 g. per cake

By Suzanne S.

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Feedback: Thrifty Uses for Salt

Great salt tips! Using it to control fleas is a great idea; I'd never heard of that. I use boric acid for a number of pest control problems but it must be used very carefully so pets and children can't get to it.

I use salt or baking soda for scouring many things, depending on how coarse or fine I need the abrasive. For salt my favorite use is cleaning my cast iron cookwear. My skillets and such never see soap... just hot water and salt. Ditto for the baking stone except I use soda on it unless something is cooked on pretty badly... then out comes the salt. Also try either for scrubbing coffee stains out of cups and coffee pots.

By Alph

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Feedback: Throwing a Baby Shower

I have given 3 baby showers and some of the games that got the most laughs were....

I took a tray & gathered about 15 or 20 assorted items from around my house...they can be anything as long as they are small. I passed them around the party and showed them to all the guest telling it was part of the memory game....then I left the room (act like you have to get something or go to the restroom) and have someone who is in on the game tell everyone they have to write down as many things they can remember about me....clothes, hair, jewelry, makeup...whatever. The guest will groan & grumble and laugh that it's not fair but it's quite funny to see how unobservent many of them are.

Another great game is get a pack of newborn diapers & take out 10 (you can give the rest to the mom to be) number them with a marker 1-10. Then you put stuff inside them...some ideas are mashed up green beans, mashed snickers bars, peanut butter, baby powder, lemon juice, vicks vapor rub, cinnamon, beer, nacho cheese, guacamole, juicy fruit gum (I cut a little slit in the diaper & put it in the liner so they can't see it) and so on...you can use just about anything. Then pass them around & the guest have to try & guess what they are by smell...it's so funny!!!! I got lots of great pictures of guest with their nose in the diapers....great for the photo album or blackmail.....Good luck & have fun!

By lilmama44215

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Other Active Topics

Be sure to check out our active topics page to follow the discussion.

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Today's Recipe: Spaghetti Sauce Seasoning Mix and Recipes

This recipe makes the equivalent of 8 packets of a similar mix that you can purchase at the store. Great for flavoring Spaghetti Sauce with Meat and for making Sloppy Joes.

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Today's Recipe: Eggplant Recipes

3 delicious eggplant recipes submitted by Gill, a long time reader.

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Today's Recipe: Deviled Eggs - 5 Ways
By Brandie Valenzuela

Deviled Eggs are a delicous treat at time. Many cooks prepare them for get-togethers, picnics, and potlucks, but they are also wonderful addition to your family dinner, and a great to use up those extra Easter eggs the kids hunted for!

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Tip Contest

Submit a tip or recipe and you could win a prize...

In our newest contest we are giving away a digital camera. Submit a tip and you could win... Argus DC 1610: This fun digital still camera combines ease of use, fashion-forward styling and all around value. Quick PC connectivity and one-click controls mean fast, on the go snapshots anytime.

Complete with..

• Status LCD
• 8 MB Internal Memory
• Stores up to 104 Photos
• 3 in 1 Digital Camera: Photo,Web and Video
• USB High Speed Download
• Photo/Video editing software
• 2 x AAA Batteries included

Enter the contest!

New Requests:

Rust Stains in a White Sink

I recently moved into a house with an old porcelain sink, where the previous tenant clearly didn't take much pride in keeping their sink clean. It has stains in it (rust? spagetti sauce? who knows!) that two rounds of soaking with a bleach solution and a couple of Comet scrub downs have not gotten out. I've made a dent in them, but I'm not convinced I'm going about getting them out the right way. Any suggestions on how to get these stains off of this otherwise beautiful white sink? Michelle

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Vegetation Killer for Poison Ivy and Sumack

I need to find a home made vegetation killer that is safe to use anywhere and will kill poison ivy and sumack. Any help? cram

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Making Spaghetti Sauce Less Sweet

I made lots and lots of homemade spaghetti sauce, although its mighty tasty, I think its way too sweet, is there anyway for me to change it, when I am ready to make some pasta with it. I think I probably put too much brown sugar in it. Please Help! Genny from Portland, Oregon

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Ice Machine Not Working

Hello! My refrigerater ice machine has not made ice since our water was shut off to fix a broken sprinkler head out in our yard. It seems to go through the motions of making ice but we do not get any cubes! Could it be air in the line and if so, does anyone know how I can get the water through without flooding my house? Thanks! Mara in Texas

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Yellowish Stain on Jeans

I bought a pair of jeans about 2 months ago. I wore them at a previous job I had that required handling dirty boxes all day. I cannot get the stain from the boxes out. It's like a blotchy dirt stain with a yellowish tint. Any suggestions? PLEASE help me. These are my favorite jeans. - FormulaChic

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More Reading

Crisis Fund
By Terry Rigg

What would it be like to have a pot of money available when you have an unexpected expense? I used to think that unexpected expenses was something that happened very rarely. But it seems like these days I have as many unexpected expenses as I do regular bills. One of the vehicles is always needing tires or repairs, the washing machine needs replaced or buying a new water heater (like I did just last week). That is where the Crisis Fund comes in.

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Thanks

Susan
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