To get ketchup to pour nicely, give the closed bottle a good hard shake. Ketchup has the property that agitating it reduces its viscosity, so if you shake it up first it becomes easier to pour.
Here I go again – a paste of baking soda and water should help scrub those stains out. Just useenough water to make the baking soda hold together, let it sit on the stain for a few minutes then rub it all together as though you were handwashing, then toss in the washing machine.
Tapping on the top of a soda can may or may not prevent it from foaming over if its been shaken too much, but it can’t hurt. Give it a try.
Hairspray works on ink stains because of the alcohol in it. If you don’t have hairspray, grab the isopropyl.
If your sour cream and yogurt are in containers that are wider at the top than on the bottom, flip them and store them on their lids. It will help keep them fresher for a day or two longer.
Store your squeezable mustard upside down to avoid soaking your hot dog and hamburger with that icky watery stuff that collects on the top of the mustard in the fridge.
Another hint, from the late, disgraced Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith:
Hot pan+cold oil=food won’t stick. When sauteing or frying, heat your pan first, then add the oil.
Suprised I haven’t seen this. Maybe it’s too mundane or well known. Oh, well, I’ll post it anyways, as it has always been a godsend for me.
If you burn yourself, apply aloe vera gel to the burn. Our local drugstore (Rite-Aid) sells bottles with 100% Aloe Vera. You can also use the juice from the plant directly if you want to keep one in the kitchen. (My Mom always called them “burn” plants.) Just break off a “stalk” and squeeze the juice onto your burn. Let it stay as long as you can. Minimizes pain and scarring as well, even with pretty bad burns.
If a bag of chips, etc. won’t open when you pull at the top, get something with a point (pens work nicely) and stab it.
When a loose drawstring disappears into the tube, don’t try to retrieve it. Just pull the whole thing out, tie it to something long, thin and ridged (knitting needles are excellent), and feed the object through one end of the tube and pull it out the other, trailing the string behind it. Untie the string.
Baby wipes are the work of the gods.
I developed a habit of washing hands/face every time I walked past a sink/bathroom while working IT in hospitals, and after beginning work in other locations (and on the road a lot), I discoverd baby wipes are great for a quick clean up.
They work well on just about everything, sweat, dust, grease, grime, dirt, and most of all STAINS ON CLOTHING!!!
yep, they will remove most food based stains from clothing. Better than products that are made for that specific task. I showed my wife once while we were out, and she just looked at me all slack jawed. Amazing but true! (and it keeps you looking sharp once it dries).
My first child (daughter) is due any moment now, so soon I’ll be using them for their intended purpose as well!
-Butler
Coffee grounds are a very potent deodorizer. If something smells bad leave a bowl or cup of coffee grounds in the same room and within a few days the smell will be gone. I have seen it used to deodorize bodily functions, spoiled milk, animal carcasses and animal dropping and it worked in all the instances.
Mixing artificial sweeteners gives a much better taste than using then individually. I mix equal and Sweet & Low in a 50/50 mix and its alot better than either alone.
If you don’t want to buy a book and the library doesn’t have it, ask the librarian for an Interlibrary Loan and they will scour libraries all over the US to find the book and ship it to their library. It usually costs $1 but you get to read the book without having to buy it.
Ever find deep indentations in the carpet when you move a heavy piece of furniture to another location? Before you go to bed, simply put an ice cube in each deep section of the carpet (where the legs of a sofa were, for instance) and leave it overnight. The next day, you just brush it over with your hand and the indentation is almost invisible - and it won’t hurt normal carpeting.
To keep things from getting freezer burn, put the item in a zip lock plastic bag, then close it almost completely, insert a straw and suck the air out of the bag, and then quickly remove the straw and zip the bag closed. Yes, you can buy fancy gizmos to do it, but a straw and a ziplock do the same trick.
To keep fresh flowers i a vase fresher, longer…first cut the stems before putting them in water (duh) and then add a little bit of dishwashing soap to the water. It softens the water, allowing the stems to absorb more water and keep the flowers fresh.
Not so much a “trick” than a “gee, why didn’t someone tell me sooner” tip:
Light bulbs in my garage door opener were burning out practically every other week. I though it was a bad circuit. How was I to know there are specially designed light bulbs (you can buy them anywhere if you ask) that are designed to handle the vibrations caused when the garage door opens. Have now had the bulbs in there for over two years with no problem…they cost a few cents more, but worth it!
Another baby thing: if you need a double stroller, get the kind with one seat in front of the other. The side-by-side strollers don’t fit anywhere.
Ever had a dollar bill that just wouldn’t go into the vending machine, especially one of those worn, old bills? Wet down George Washington’s face, and four out of five times, it will be accepted.
[nitpitck and hijack]
I’m not exactly a chemist, so take this with a grain of salt - in this case a slightly charged grain of salt.
To start with, bleach and ammonia do not form chlorine gas. Bleach, which is dilute sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), when mixed with ammonia (NH3) forms a chlorine-like compound, chloramine. Chloramine (NH2Cl) can and has been used as a poison gas and as a disinfectent in municipal water supplies - it all depends on the concentration. Chloramine has similar toxic results as chlorine gas, but is not chlorine gas. Regardless, you need a nitrogen compound and a chlorine compound to even begin to attempt to produce chloramine.
Now, adding vinegar, which is essentially diluted acetic acid (CH3COOH) would form something of the following by my count:
NaOCl(aq) + CH3COOH(aq) -> HOCl(aq) + CH3COO-(aq) + Na+ (aq).
That is, sodium hypochlorite plus acetic acid yields hypochlorous acid plus acetate plus sodium ion. Or, in net ionic form,
OCl- + H+ -> HOCl .
The production of hypochlorous acid goes something like:
Cl2(g) + H2O(l) <-> HOCl(aq) + H+(aq) + Cl-(aq) Ecell=+.84V
Since this reaction is reversible, all you need to produce Cl2(g) would be to have a source of hydrogen and chlorine ion. NaCl and NH4+ are very common and fit the bill nicely. Therefore, I believe it is possible to use vinegar to produce chlorine gas when added to bleach. If done small and dilute enough, you shouldn’t have a problem, but I would not recomend doing it in heavy doses.
[/nitpick and hijak]
This also works great for clothing. If you soak the item in peroxide before the blood dries, no stain will form at all.
Another thing with getting drowsy when you’re driving, chew a piece of gum.
Recently I have stopped using the pointy end of my pick and going with one of the more rounded sides for my soloing (ala SRV). I don’t get caught up in the strings as much when playing fast and it has a nice feel to it.
It absolutely murders my artificial harmonics though.
And lemon oil for the fretboard between string changes, I cannot recommend this enough.
Chopsticks are immensely useful in Western cooking - especially such things as frying. Get a big pair of cooking chopsticks if you can (but normal ones will do). They are great for turning over items in a frying pan. You have a lot more control than with an eggslice or even tongs. They are also good for picking individual objects out of the deep fryer, and for extricating bits of burned crap from your toaster (safe as they are not metal). Also good for quickly loading items onto multiple plates when you’re serving dinner.
You can even use chopsticks for fixing things. I have often held tiny screws in place with chopsticks while I use the screwdriver in my other hand, if the screws are in an awkward spot. Or if you drop a screw or a little nut or bolt , and it falls deep into the appliance you’re fixing, chopsticks can often be used to pull it out.
In California, you can turn [bold]LEFT[/bold] on RED from a one-way street onto another one-way street.
So you move just your junk pile from room to room every week? 
When pouring carbonated beverages, to minimize foam, tilt the glass and pour down the side.
We like to eat with chopsticks, but were washing them by hand because they would fall through the grating of the silverware basket in our dishwasher. Now we’ve discovered we can was chopsticks in the dishwasher by wedging them diagonally through the grating on the side and the bottom.
Put lids on pans when you are bringing water to a boil.
There was a previous post similar to this, but this instead is for sunburn blisters on your face. This happened to me once after being out in the sun for way too long without any sunscreen. I got horrible blisters on my nose and a little on my forehead.
This is a home remedy that my dermitologist told me about. You put white vinegar in ice water, dip a rag in the solution and press it against the blistered area. Do this continually for 10-20 minutes, best if you do it multiple times in a day for a few days. It gets the blister to dry out (as opposed to filled with puss) and eventually I just peeled it off. Sorry for the extra details. It really works, though.
To clean stuck on food in a microwave take 1/2 cup of white vinager and heat for 3 minutes. All the stuck on food will come off with a swipe of the sponge.
As TeaElle said- a Giant box of baking soda is the batchelors friend. It is great for cleaning, it can work as laundry detergent (it works better as a “booster”, yes, but in a pinch it can be used by itself). Dump a cup in the toilet, stir it up, and let it sit to get rid of “that” smell. Sprinkle some over smelly trash, or pour some down the drain even.
A Gallon of cheap vinegar, and a huge box of Baking soda- and you have all the household cleaners you need.
If you’re working with small jars of model paint and the paint has dried the cap shut, don’t reach for the pliers. Simply stand the bottle upside-down and put a few drops of paint thinner on the seam between the cap and the jar. Let it soak in for about a minute and the jar should easily twist right off.
If you are vacationing somewhere in the United States and driving remember, you can turn right on a red light anywhere in the US except in New York City unless it is explicitly marked “no turn on red”. I live in a major tourist town (Orlando, FL) and I hate it when I’m stuck behind someone from out of town in the right-turn lane at a red light because they are not sure if they can turn, so they don’t.