Household products that serve double duty
Joey Green may not be a household name, but he has come up with some widely creative uses for everyday household products, persuading many a talk-show host to test his wacky tricks.
When Green was an advertising copywriter, he was asked to come up with alternative uses for some of the products he was touting. He found that many companies kept files with notes from people detailing the unusual uses for their products and so a cottage industry was born.
His latest self-help epic, Joey Green's Fix-It Magic boasts of containing "more than 1,971 quick-and-easy household solutions using brand-name products."
To prevent insects from sticking to the hood and grill of a car, for instance, spray a thin coat of PAM cooking spray on the hood and grill before you set out on your trip, Green suggests.
Need to unstick dresser drawers? Use ChapStick. Cleaning paintbrushes? Try Downy fabric softener. Colgate toothpaste will remove crayon from walls, he adds, with a brand sensitivity that rivals even Lady Gaga, the current queen of product placement.
If that’s too much to absorb, frugality blogger Len Penzo has narrowed the list to the six most valuable grocery products you should be stocking up on. These highly versatile products can save you money if used for alternative applications, he suggests. His must-haves: vinegar, baking soda, WD-40, Coca-Cola, fabric softener sheets and paper towels.
Vinegar, is actually liquid gold, he maintains. People have been using it for ages – and not just for cooking and preserving foods. You can, for instance, use it to disinfect wood cutting boards, soothe a sore throat, remove warts and keep boiled eggs from cracking.Who knew?
Tell us: Do you have any unusual family recipes for putting household products to use?
By Gordon Powers, MSN Money
Posted by: WijF | Jul 7, 2021 1:34:50 PM
Spray vinegar on young Scotch thistles. That's it!
Posted by: Peter Hyde | Jul 7, 2021 3:48:34 PM
To prevent hairballs in cats. Moisten the very tip of your little finger, touch it lightly in baking soda. Stir your finger in the cat's water. Do this every 2 days for a shorthair cat, every day for longhair. You will never see another hairball, and the cat never notices.
Posted by: Douglas | Jul 7, 2021 5:38:52 PM
Fabric softener sheets keep more than bugs away. Deer tend to munch things in the garden, but most of them don’t like the smell of the dryer sheets. I cut 1 cm. strips of a sheet and tie them in the plants at nose height for the deer. Works for us so far. In smaller plants, somewhere near the top seems to work.