Frugal Green Tips

According to the trusted sources at NPR, many people seem to drop their cell phones or digital cameras into the toilet.
Don’t just look at it! Quick pull it out!
The sources also suggested an old trick within the industry which is to bury the soaking cell phone or camera in the middle of a large bowl full of rice. Cover the bowl and wait at least 72 hours before trying to see if it worked. The rice should have been able to absorb the unwanted moisture.
Good luck!

A small amount of white toothpaste gently applied with a damp cloth
or a soft toothbrush can:

• Remove some scratches on CDs and DVDs
• Remove some scratches from plastic eye glasses
• Deep clean a whiteboard
• Dramatically polish metal and stone jewelry as well as silver
• Clean and luster metals such as chrome
• Cleanse skin such as the face
• Cleanse pimples and it will also dehydrate them when a small dab is left over night
• Clean and take odors away from hands and bathroom fixtures
• Take certain stains off of clothes and carpet
• Remove crayon from some surfaces
• Fill tiny holes in your walls

The beauty of this light abrasive is that it is multipurpose and avoids us to purchase items for a sole specific aim.  It saves on money and clutter providing convenience.

After using the Dry Cleaner’s Secret to dry clean at home, these tough cleaning cloths can assume a different secret life prior to recycling.
They fit perfectly at the end of a Swiffer and help dramatically in gathering the bulk prior to vacuuming non carpeted floors.  On a slightly soiled floor they will make vacuuming obsolete.

Dirt on floors seems to magnetically cling to the cleaning cloth of this razing push/swing broom like device which hardly produces dust since it is not lifted off the floor.

The cloth also works on furniture sort of like the micro fiber ones to dust the car’s dashboard.

The picture above is a 20 second razing sweep under my neighbor’s bed.
A place the maid repeatedly chose to avoid.

Rubbing alcohol in a small spray bottle is a wonderful kitchen companion.  It cleans, disinfects and evaporates rapidly.

• Counter tops, especially where tiles and grout are present, love it and so do stove tops and microwaves where spills (scrape with a thin “credit” type card) and grease need to be removed.

• Rubbing alcohol is also a mighty fine stainless steel sink cleaner and leaves uniformity without smudges.

• Spraying rubbing alcohol is also extremely successful in bathrooms.  It gets rid of soap scum unlike, in my view, the store brands.  Spray the rubbing alcohol over the shower tiles and with minimum effort watch the soap scum disappear and the tiles dry on the fly.
  It cleans chrome fixtures nicely but has trouble with hard water spots.

• A dab of rubbing alcohol can be helpful in removing sap from the car as well as a dab of paint thinner could.  Thorough rinsing of water is highly recommended and in my experience it has been totally fine.

• Rubbing alcohol is a great ally in combating sticky odorous hands and surfaces and it is also a wonderful neutralizer of mosquito bites.

• Last but not least you can spray and disable flying nuisance creatures such as flies, mosquitoes, gnats and moths prior to the coup de grace.