I thought people might enjoy posting trivial useful tips they’ve found incredibly helpful.
Tip o’ the day:
When you lose a credit card, don’t report it lost until you’ve cleaned out the car.
How I learned this: I gassed my car, and when I got home I realized the card wasn’t in my wallet. Two days later when the new one arrived, I…you guessed it…found the ‘lost’ one when I cleaned out the car. It was under the seat.
Savings for following this tip? I would have saved a day of leave to receive the card from FEDEX and several hours updating all my autopays.
Hmmmm, maybe throw some chlorox in there. Hmmm, later still clogged. Hmmmm, lets SUCK on the outside drain line to clear it. Hmmm, inhaling chlorine gas kinda sucks.
At least when I have my next chest x-ray and the tech goes WFT? happened there?! I’ll know how to answer.
When cooking or baking, use a bigger than enough bowl. There’s no glory in using a bowl that’s “just big enough.” You’re just going to spill shit all over when you stir it.
The trick to making split pea soup: DO NOT STIR UNTIL READY TO SERVE.
I know, it’s tempting to give the soup a stir while it’s cooking, to smell the delicious pea-soupiness, watch the carrots and onions and kielbasa swirl around, maybe play with the bay leaf. Besides, it looks so sad and watery! But if you do that you will have split pea cement.
Wait until you’re ready to serve, THEN stir to get the creamy goodness of split pea soup that was properly cooked. (You do have white crusty bread slathered with butter on the side, don’t you?)
I got this off a Publix bag of split peas. Og bless Publix.
Those glasses you can’t find? Check the top of your head.
That paper towel or rag you used to wipe of the cup of water you just spilled? Double-duty: use it as a dust mop while it’s still damp.
The orphaned sock whose mate has gone on to that Big Dryer In The Sky is a gift to you from the universe, one you’ll be grateful to have when you contemplate a disgusting mess to clean and want to throw the whole thing in the trash and pretend it never happened.
I’m a big believer in learning from other people’s mistakes, so you know what? I’ll make a mental note of this. Still wouldn’t mind knowing the story, though.
Use muffin tins to freeze single size servings of barbecue beef or pork for sandwiches. Two muffin cups full of marinara are perfect for an individual meal of spaghetti.
Just fill the cups and put directly into the freezer. A couple of hours later, you can remove the muffin tin, pop the frozen “pucks” of meat or sauce out of the tin and put them in a Ziploc bag and back into the freezer they go.
Or bake individual size meatloafs in the tin and pop them out while still warm. Let them cool, then freeze.
More and more issuers have an “instant hold” feature you can activate to block use of the card while you finish searching for it. (Some even have a smartphone app for it.) You can block and unblock the card as easily as checking your balance.
I used this a few weeks ago when a card went missing and a quick search failed to turn it up. I called to cancel, with just the regrets about the hassle the OP mentioned, and was offered this option. Good thing, because twenty minutes later I remembered I had paid a plumber with it, and instead of putting it in my pocket or anything, I’d set it on the shelf next to where we were talking.
So the tip should be: check with your provider to see if they have this service and make sure your online/phone access is validated, so you can use it quickly.
Reminds me of a tip George Carlin offered once: Instead of antiperspirant, put a bay leaf under each arm. It won’t keep you dry, but you’ll smell like soup!
When cooking or baking, line up all the ingredients before you start, and as you use them, put them away. That way, you don’t have to remember whether you added something. Or even better, measure everything out into bowls for easy dumping!
When upon finding you cannot find your keys (on a key ring) make sure you didn’t leave them in the outside door-lock overnight where any passerby could see them.
(Yes, this incident involved Margaritas… )
Where has this thread been all my life? Some great tips.
Are you kidding me?? I’ve read that phrase at least in at least a dozen places today! Ok, I didn’t. What’s the sad story.
My tip: on the back of my credit card, where it wants a signature, I’ve written in: “ASK FOR I.D.” So there. Some clerks ignore it, but many don’t, and I appreciate it.
It involved a hunting trip and some kind of animal urine some critter that came into the camp and pissed all over some clothing that had been left out of the tents.
Let’s just say that cleaning it was FAR more disgusting than I had imagined.
Most of the time when customers write that and I ask them, they thank me. Every once in a while someone will get angry with me. “Are you really going to make me go run out to my car and get my ID?” Um, well, you wrote it, so, yeah. Normally I can end that argument with either ‘well, technically your card isn’t even valid’ or ‘if your card was stolen and someone used it here then you’d be mad that I didn’t demand and ID’.
Back when checks were more common, my Tip Of The Day was for people to NOT put their phone number and driver’s license number on it. A lot of people did, and still do, put it on there so they don’t have to dig it out of their purse/wallet. The problem is, if it’s written on there the clerk just accepts it. If it’s not pre printed there’s a better chance that the clerk will ask for an ID and not take the check when the person that stole your check book doesn’t have an ID.
This seems like bad advice to me. If the card is genuinely lost or stolen, are you not liable for transactions (or part thereof) that happen up to the point where it is reported missing?
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