Brenda's Tip

Here is another product that I really like and I think it will come in handy for quite a few of us if not now, then in the near future.

Greased Lighting is the only product that I have found that effectively removes certain things from clothes. I know it does more than laundry but that is mostly what I use it for.

Baby Spit-up (breast milk does not stain but formula does, and this takes it out)

Baby Poop (one of the hardest things to get clean off clothes)

Paint (got some red paint off my good gray sweats the other day)

Pen (when kids color on their clothes or I accidentally get a pen mark on myself.....no that never happens right?)

I used to buy the stuff at Costco but I haven't seen it there lately. From what I can tell you can still get it at Home Depot. I am nearly out so I will have to look there.

Tuesday Tips - TIDE

My tip today is Tide. Yep. I love Tide Stain Release and Tide Coldwater for my kids clothes. I had some baby clothes that had been dyed pink in the wash when Abe was a baby and when Tyler was born, I washed them with Stain Release and they came out BEAUTIFUL. I feel like these two products in combination keep my constantly dirty/messy/stained kids clothes looking great. Now, you know I love a deal and there are often coupons and deals for these products, allowing me to get them at a great price. There is a $3 coupon for the Stain Release pretty much every month and at least $1 (sometimes $2) for the Tide. When combined with a sale, it is pretty affordable. I will admit though, there have been times when I've run out of Coldwater Tide and I've actually paid full price, minus just my $1 coupon for it. I love it that much. There aren't many products that I would say that about.

Weekly Tip

So, I know I am a little coupon crazy, but for those who'd like to save money with coupons, but cringe at the thought of cutting them, here is a tip for you. Take your coupon inserts out of the paper and write the date on the front page of each insert(There are 3 types of insert: Red Plum, Smart Source, and P&G). Then put them all together in a folder or sheet protector. Using the Grocery Gathering or another website you can find blogs that list the weekly deals and coupon match up for stores in your area. With the coupon match ups they will tell you which insert it came in (for example: 2/7 P&G). So you can then easily find that insert, cut the coupon you need, and voila! Save money without spending a lot of time cutting out coupons every Sunday.

An OK OJ tip

This tip is more of a cooking tip, but it was all I had this week. Bryan got tired of watching me try to scoop the frozen orange juice concentrate out of the tubes they come in so one time he took the can and a serrated stake knife and cut the other end off. Then he took a wooden spoon and pushed the concentrate out and into the pitcher. It worked great! It is actually really easy to cut the other end off and just push the stuff out rather than try to squeeze or pry it out.

Tuesday Tips

Does your dishwasher have one of these?

I've had this dishwasher for almost a year and I just started using this amazing feature. And now it seems like I use it everyday!

Some times I use it:

• When I finish the breakfast dishes while the kids are eating lunch
• When the washing machine is running
• When I am about to take a shower
• When we are about to watch a movie or have company over and don't want the extra noise
• When the kids and I eat dinner before Barlow
• And many more!

Using the delay button has helped me make sure the dishes get washed and are out of the sink. I can't tell you how many times I had a sink full of dishes, but the washing machine was on, and I thought, "I'll do the dishes after the laundry is finished..." And there they sat for the rest of the day. Now, I load the dishwasher, set the delay, and walk away. Voila! Clean dishes AND clean clothes.

If you have this function but rarely use it, consider using it more. If you don't have this wonderful button, consider telling your husband your dishwasher is "broken" and buying a new one.

Tip - Drying Dishes

I know Brenda has an amazingly fancy dishwasher, so maybe she doesn't have this problem, but maybe some of the rest of you do. It seems that often after I've run my dishwasher, I open it and water is still pooled on top of many of the cups, bowls, and other dishes. Even if it has quit running hours before, I'll still find water in there. I pull them out and have to shake them in the sink and usually they are still somewhat damp. I've found that if you take a little cup or bowl and prop the dishwasher open (see picture below) for 20 or so minutes, that it dries almost everything up. You can unload your dishwasher and not worry about mold growing on your dishes in the cupboard because they were still wet when you put them away!

A Question...

What's the best way to wash delicate temple clothes- Specifically the piece that gets makeup on it?

Don't Break a Nail.....

If you have never tried these then you are missing out. It is a product from pampered chef that I can not live without. They are only about $1/scraper and come in a pack of 3, and I LOVE them. When I am cleaning dried on cereal off the counters these scrape it right off, they get off dough and sticky messes like syrup. I also use them on pots and pans, the floor, chair legs and backs and anything else that gets clumpy messes. Each corner on the scraper is a different rounded angle so that it fits into casserole dishes and pans that have different angled edges. They are really sturdy (I have gone through 3 of them in the last 3 years, but that is mostly due to them going through the garbage disposal every now and then) Give it a try.

Tip- Electric Knifes

I don't know if you are all aware, but we eat almost exclusively homemade bread.  Over the summer my friend shared a wonderful tip that has made sandwich making with homemade bread a lot easier.  The problem is that it's hard to get bread thin enough.  The solution?  Electric knife.  You can get the bread extremely thin and it makes homemade bread a lot more usable.  Hope this helps someone!

Tuesday Tip

Lately, I've noticed a lot of socks missing from the laundry. It seems every week for the last month or so I find at least two-three pairs of Barlow's without a match. Then, one day as I vacuumed under the computer desk, I found this:Apparently, everyday when Barlow sits down to work at the computer he takes off one sock. Just one.

My tip for the week: It appears the "dryer ate my socks" conspiracy is a myth! HUSBANDS are the real sock thieves. If you find a sock with no match, check your husband's favorite hang out spot. Because mine can't be the ONLY one who does this... right?

Tip - Keeping the fridge clean

This may seem like common sense, but someone suggested it to me once and it has worked out really well for us. Associate cleaning leftovers out of the fridge with trash day. (Sorry Charlotte, I guess this won't work for you!). Our trash day is Wednesday, so on Tuesday night as Ken is getting the trash ready to go to the curb, I just go through the fridge, cleaning out any leftovers or expired items. Then my fridge stays relatively clean and you don't have to live with a rotting food smell, in your house or your dumpster.

Tuesday Tip: Baking Soda

I have never used baking soda to clean with, but I have tons of it in my food storage and I don't think I will ever use it up before it expires so I started looking for other uses for it. Here are a few ideas that I found and they seem interesting. I think I will try a few.

Sprinkle some on the bottom of your kitchen garbage can. It will effectively remove any odors there.

Got a slow running drain? Pour half a cup of baking soda followed by a cup of vinegar, wait 15 minutes for the fizzing to subside, flush with hot water. The clog is gone. It’s like magic!

Cleaning your bathroom and kitchen fixtures to a blinding brilliance with a paste of baking soda and liquid dish soap.

Appliance manufacturers will tell you never to use any kind of chemicals when cleaning the inside of the refrigerator or microwave. Use baking soda and water only.

For a sour sponge, wet it and sprinkle a goodly amount of baking soda on it. Work it in and let is set up overnight. Works every time.

A grease fire in your kitchen or barbecue can be put out quickly by smothering it with baking soda.

Use a baking soda and water paste to remove scuff marks on vinyl floors, crayon from the walls.

Add a cup to bathwater to soften your skin.

Apply it on rashes, insect bites, and poison ivy irritations.

Keep cut flowers fresh longer by adding a teaspoon to the water in the vase.

Put an open container of baking soda in the fridge to absorb the odors.

Wipe your windshield with it to repel rain.

Improve the smell of dishrags by soaking them in baking soda and water.

Suck it in with your vacuum cleaner to remove the odor

Put it under sinks and along basement windows to repel cockroaches and ants.

Sweeten your tomatoes by sprinkling baking soda on the soil around your tomato plants.

Scatter it on your greasy garage floor, scrub the floor, and rinse.

Weekly Tip- Use the Snack Sizes!!

This tip was an idea I stole from a friend of mine. It has to do with portion control. Have you ever gone to buy sandwich bags and accidentally picked up snack bags? You know, the little tiny ones? Anyway, instead of buying the little prepackages chip and snack bags like I usually do for the kids' lunches and snacks, I bought those little snack bags. I then bought large bags of things the kids like and then divided them into the bags. It is saving me a TON of money (at least $5/week for chips and $8/week for snacks- that included adding in the price of the bags) and the kids are happy (because, really, the options for prepackaged little bags is pretty limited.)

Bonus plan- when I make cookies and such I make them smaller and put them into the snack bags, too. Three small cookies per bag. Anything homemade I store in a plastic container in the freezer to keep them fresh.

So far, it has worked great! I keep one container for chips (or salty stuff) and one for snacks. Every morning the kids choose one from each container (or grab something homemade from the freezer for snack).

If you want to do this, too, here are my suggestions:

• Divide out the whole bag/box at once. Otherwise the kids will get into the stuff and it won't really be saving you money. After I put them into the bags I put them back into the container they came in (if it is big enough).
• Buy the $3 container and put some of each choice in it. It makes it easier to choose when they can see the whole selection at once. I try to keep three options available for both chips and snacks. When it gets low, I add more from their stored containers (from above)
• I tried not freezing the cookies because the kids would eat them pretty quickly- it is worth it to freeze the homemade stuff.
• Don't overfill the bags. 3 vanilla wafers or 5 pretzels seem to be enough for the kids.
• Buy the name brand bags. I tried the off brand, they did not work as well.

I think that is everything. This has worked really well for us. We are still using the cheese balls and pretzel sticks I bought the first week (and they don't taste stale yet!)

Tuesday Tip

I'm pretty sure it's my turn for a tip, and it's Tuesday, so... here it is.

Recently I have found something that has worked wonders for my housecleaning motivation:

Podacasts and Audiobooks.

Specifically, on my iPod. I've tried just bringing my laptop in the kitchen to listen while I cook or clean, but there are so many distractions it just doesn't cut it. So now I stick the earbuds in, turn on my book (I'm listening to Pretties right now), and blissfully ignore the children and all other household distractions while I finish what needs to be done. This has also helped me while running- I let myself get wrapped up in the story and forget what I'm doing for a few seconds.

Podcasts I enjoy include Stuff You Should Know and This American Life.

I'd love to hear if anyone else tries this, and what books and/or Podcasts they like.

Tip of the Week

So, this is a old tip but something that I've just started taking advantage of. I'd always heard that Wal-Mart price matched, but never thought much more beyond that. Then I read an article on a blog about it and decided to give it a try. Ken loves to drink Tampico Juice and we buy a gallon a week. A local grocery store, Kroger, had it on sale 10 for $10 (we pay $1.87 a gallon at Wal-Mart) and so I went to stock up. Unfortunately they only had strawberry-kiwi flavor and we only like mango. So I took a deep breath and my ad to Wal-Mart. I put 5 gallons in my cart and .... drum roll .... it was a breeze. No problem. I saved $0.87 a gallon! We were so excited. Since then we have price matched several things at Wal-Mart, including when Target put corn on the cob on sale 10 / $10 and I went first thing Monday morning only to learn they sold out in less than an hour on Sunday. I bought over 50 ears at Wal-Mart (where they were $0.25) saving over $10. We parboiled it, cut it off the ear, and froze it and are now stocked up on corn. Sometimes the workers aren't sure how to do it and have to call a manager to help, but I've never had them give me any trouble at all. It saves time (you don't have to drive to a lot of different stores) and money.

Oh, just a note, they do not price match sales such as buy one get one free.

Tuesday Tip

Problem: Food has boiled over, burned and become encrusted on your stove.

Solution:
All-purpose cleaner
Comet
Soft Scrub
Pampered Chef scraper
Burning it off
Scraping with fingernail
Oven Cleaner

Maybe it seems like an obvious solution, but it took almost a week of having a big ugly burnt-food spot on my brand new stove, and trying every cleanser and method of scrubbing and scraping, for me to discover it. Just spray onto the offensive spill, let sit for around an hour (depending on intensity of spill and burnage) and voila! It wipes right off. Works every time.

A Game for my Tip

This is a keep kids busy/ fun family night type post. I had never heard of this game before we moved here, but it is a tradition at our school. It is called tennis baseball. Tennis baseball is played like regular baseball only the bat is a tennis racket and the ball is a tennis ball. It makes it easy to pitch, even Joseph can hit it sometimes, and requires no gloves. I played it with Ryan's class the last day of school and it was so fun, we went out and got tennis rackets to play at home.

I like that we can play it with just our family at a local park. It is also perfect for classes (the kids played it all the time at school) or church groups. Even uncoordinated people like me hit the ball. The whole time we played, I never saw someone strike out. It is really fun and you should give it a try.

LEMONS

Here is a tip I picked up in my cooking class at BYUI. After running your garbage disposal (or garbarator for those Canadians out there) simply drip in a piece of lemon, or even just lemon peel if you have used a lemon. This leaves your sink smelling great and the acid in the lemon helps to clean the disposal so that it doesn't smell bad from residual food in it. I have only done it a couple of times, but it makes the sink area smell great. (you could also use orange peels, but they don't work quite as well as lemons.)

Tuesday Tips - Kids Journals.

Sorry this took so long to post, but better late than never, right? So, I really like to have a journal for my kids of their young lives. They say and do so many cute things and learn so much everyday and it is easy to forget. I found that I was not consistent in writing in the journal that we bought for Abe though. So, I bought a bunch of cheap, small spiral bound notebooks from WalMart and put them with a pen in places in the house that we spend a lot of time (kitchen, Abe's room, toy room, car, etc). Then when he does or says something I think I would like to remember, I just jot it down with the date in the closest available notebook. Every couple of months or so, I transfer the entries into Word and voila! instant journal!

Piggy Banks/Saving Jars

This is something fun we've been doing for a little while. I took some used formula cans and covered them with paper and decorated them. We use these to keep everyone's allowance in and we have ones for certain things we want to save for. Such as going out to eat, a family vacation, our emergency cash savings, a new dryer, etc. It has been fun to use these to teach tith, savings, and spendings with our kids or kid :) Anyway I had a lot of fun decorating them and still have a few to do.