Here's a Hint

Recently my auntie who was moving gave me, among other things an old book called "Here's a Hint" it was printed in the year I was born (1977 shhhh).  Its a book of hints for all parts of the house, easy way to do things, different homemade chemicals to use and ways to reuse things and save money.

Yet again it reminded me of what a throwaway society we live in.  People buy disposable wipes, disposable nappies, disposable cleaning cloths, disposable containers for the kitchen, disposable wraps. Basically everything comes in a disposable version.  But do you know what....... we don't have to follow the norm and all the advertisements selling us another throwaway product.  Because although they may say they are disposable they are only disposable to us, not to the environment, hell half these throwaway products will still be hanging around the dump in 30 years time.  So not only do these products cost us more to buy but they are going to cost us and our environment in the future. 

OK off the bandwagon now, I thought I would just share my favorite hints with you, if your lucky I will include some funny ones too.

• Hold a tube of toothpaste under hot running water to extract that last bit of paste.  This saves quite a bit that would otherwise been thrown away (bet you never tried that hard to get that last little bit out).
• To cut down on electricity for water heating, have the thermostat set to 65 C turn hot water switch on just before going to bed, then switch it off when you get up each morning.  You'll find you have plenty of hot water to last you all day. This is a great saver if you live alone or have a small family.
• Fix a small hook near bathroom, kitchen and laundry sinks if you like to remove your rings when washing or washing up.  There will be no chance of rings being lost if they are always hung on one of these hooks.
• To clean the copper base of saucepans, place in a jar one cup of flour and two tablespoons of salt then mix to a paste with vinegar.  Rub on copper with fingers.  Cleans in seconds and requires no hard rubbing.
• To clean the inside of a thermos flask fill the flask with boiling water then add one teaspoon of baking soda.  After all bubbling has stopped, wash flask normally in warm water.
• Instead of boiling the jug of hot water every time you want to make just one cup of tea, fill a large thermos with hot water in the morning and get your hot drink from there all day.
• Put a small bell on the fireguard that way you will know as soon as a child touches it.
• Sometimes mothers are faced with a child who will not stop crying.  When this happens, immediately get a bottle so that not one tear is wasted.  When we try to get a bottle full of tears, it  is amazing how quickly the tears stop (this one made me smile).

And the book goes on and on all  in all a rather interesting read.  There is a lot of stuff on how to use old pantyhose to clean, mmmmm lovely.