Great Tips... one liners

Eenymeeny

Have you noticed that the foil inner top on cottage cheese sometimes 'blows' a bit while still within date? I always thought that it was starting to go off. I've just been told that it's for protection during transport and if you remove it and only use the outer top, gases can escape and it'll keep for longer. Seems to work but please don't sue if it doesn't! (The same applies to vacuum packed pineapple apparently!)

marmiterulesok

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned,but when buying fruit and veg,if you buy small ones,you will more for your money.

By that,I mean that if you buy say 7 small apples instead of 7 large apples,you will pay less,but you will still have an apple to eat every day.

Hope that makes sense!

cjez_2

JackieO wrote: »

I love those freebie elastic bands I always find a use for them indoors.

We get at least one of these a day at work so I make them into a ball and when they get too big give them to my nephews as bouncy balls (by then they are bigger than tennis balls) and they love them. Fight over them actually! Otherwise the bands would be all over the place!

busiscoming2

Hobsons_Choice wrote: »

WD40: Protects silver from tarnishing; removes lipstick stains; loosens zippers; removes stains from SS sinks; removes tomato stains from clothing; keeps glass shower doors free from water spots; restores and cleans padded leather dashboards in cars; keeps rust from forming on saws and saw blades and other tools; removes splattered grease on stoves; keeps bathroom mirrors from fogging; removes all traces of duct tape - plus the usual lubricating squeaks etc.
Always hang your loo roll with the end away from the wall. You use less this way.
I always cut soap filled pads in half, they're far too big for a single use, usually.

I was so amazed WD40 could do all this (always thought it was a grease!) so I had a google and found this:
http://www.wd40.com/uses-tips/category/home-and-garden/

Loving this thread

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

Save a pinta, fill that old rinsed milk bottle with water and put into the bog cystern. Mine takes two, and that is a litre plus every flush!

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

Also, to reshine surfaces, try WD40.

Not food surfaces though!

PhGage

These tips won't suit everyone, it depends on how everything is laid out and how you heat your water.

We re-use the water from the dishwasher in the washing machine. We're not throwing away hot water and we're getting a little more use from the detergent (depending on the wash). If I'm washing floor cloths, dusters, mopheads or similar, then I re-use everything from the first hot water flush from the dishwasher (includes detergent). If not, then I collect all of the hot rinse water (after the 'grey water' has been dumped) and fill the washing machine with that (it's 55 C temperature and good for bedding or towels).

If the laundry is very light soil (eg, overnight visitors who've only slept in the bed for a few hours) then I capture the hot water from that and re-use it for another wash (which has to be done immediately after the first one and before the water cools too much). Again, this can save on detergent and the cost of heating water.

During periods of water restriction, I keep some of the washing machine water for flushing lavatories (we can't put it on the garden because we have a water softener for psoriasis so the water isn't suitable). I have a pressure gun and pump so I regularly re-use the water to jet clean the lavatories and sink drains.

Depending on how you move the water, you might have to be quite strong and very careful not to spill it. We do save a lot by re-using the hot water.

Because our hot water is heated by gas, but our dishwasher and washing machine are both cold fill (heated by electricity), we tend to manually fill the machines with hot tap water rather than have the machines do the heating (IYSWIM). Although the boiler is set for the minimum time, most days we don't use the amount of hot water in a day that we heat so this is a good way of not letting it 'go to waste'.

juno

marmiterulesok wrote: »

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned,but when buying fruit and veg,if you buy small ones,you will more for your money.

By that,I mean that if you buy say 7 small apples instead of 7 large apples,you will pay less,but you will still have an apple to eat every day.

Hope that makes sense!

But if you're buying stuff that isn't weighed and is sold individually, get the biggest ones you can!

Ken68

Thanks PhGage..sounds a great idea...how do you fill the washing machine, thru the drawers. Did research it once but didn't go ahead because not sure of machine could detect 'added' water.

PhGage

Ken68 wrote: »

how do you fill the washing machine, thru the drawers.

Yes, through the detergent drawer, and we only press the 'start' button when we've finished pouring the water through and our machine has no trouble detecting it. (We can do a direct fill through the open door, up to a certain level, and then carry on through the drawer after loading clothes and shutting the door, but it's harder to fit a decent size of jug through the opening and pour it out.) Our flexible waste pipe hooks into an upright pipe before going out to the drain, so it's quite straightforward to hook it into a deep kitchen bin plastic liner or a trug. (I have a very large pan lid that fits over my bin liner but a bin bag over a large cushion is also good for keeping the heat in: it's even better if you can wrap the trug/liner in an old duvet or fleece.)

We use plastic measuring jugs to transfer the water from the trug to the detergent drawer and similarly if we're filling the machine from the hot water tap (it's a monobloc tap or it would be easier to fit a short length of hosepipe to do the transfer).

I can now run a full load of laundry for about 300W where previously it could run to about 1.7 KWh (depending on the programme and temperature).

If you have a deep enough trug to collect the washing machine water it's very good for jetting out both internal sink traps and drains and the external drain. We have a trolley base that we put the trug on and it helps us to manouever it round to where we need it.

If anyone has a drill pump (you can get them from Poundland) this is a nice straightforward way of transferring the water if you can get the levels right, and depending on the layout of your machines.