10 Helpful Household Hints and Tips to Save Money, Time and Your Health

Every mom has some tricks up her sleeve when it comes to running a household, dealing with health issues, and other domestic situations. Here are ten of my favorite tricks of the trade. You will find that they can save you money, hassle, and make your life just a little bit easier!

1. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are not only good for removing marks and writing from surfaces; they work amazingly in the bathtub! With little effort, you can remove every trace of soap scum and buildup without using harsh chemicals and cleaners. Simply wet the tub down and wipe it down with the eraser and rinse! And you don’t even have to buy the name brand ones; give the ones at the dollar stores a try! They will give you the same results for less.

2. Every household needs to keep Band-Aid Brand Liquid Band-Aid in their medicine cabinet. Have you ever heard of Dermabond that they use at the ER when you cut yourself? You know, the glue that they use to mend cuts instead of stitching them? Guess what? Liquid Band-Aid is the same thing as Dermabond! It’s even made by the same company. So save yourself a trip to the hospital, drama, and money and do it at home. Simply clean the cut with an antiseptic and after the bleeding has slowed down, glue it together. It’s easy and leaves little scarring.

3. Use hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach in your laundry. It is safe for colored items and works like magic. It is not damaging to septic systems like bleach, either.

4. Keep a can of plain Dermaplast around the house (not the antibacterial formulation!). Besides the obvious usefulness in cases of boo boos, it can serve a more intimate purpose. A small spritz of Dermaplast on your nether regions can bring great relief in cases of hemorrhoids. It is given to women in hospitals to spray on their sutures after giving birth and is completely safe and effective. And households with little ones in diapers can benefit from it when a wicked case of diaper rash is occurring. After cleaning the diaper area, spray the irritated skin, allow to dry, and then add the diaper rash creme. Dermaplast provides long-lasting numbing relief to sore bottoms.

5. Want to lower the fat content of your ground beef? After browning it in the skillet, wad up about four paper towels and place them in the skillet. Use your spatula to dab up all of the grease from the ground beef and then discard the greasy paper towels. You won’t loose any ground beef this way while attempting to strain it and won’t be left with grease to dispose of.

6. Do you have a terrible headache that won’t seem to go away? Try liquid children’s ibuprofen. Two teaspoons of this liquid equals one 200 mg ibuprofen tablet. Four teaspoons is the nonprescription dose and up to eight teaspoons would be a prescription dose (800 mg). This is a secret that many Emergency Room nurses use daily. It is much more effective and fast acting than the tablets and provides a higher degree of pain relief.

7. If you are a woman who is cursed with extremely heavy menstrual periods, you know that getting enough protection is often a serious problem on certain days or overnight. A simple solution to this problem is to use an adult incontinence undergarment. There are many different sizes and today’s protective undergarments are thin and usually undetectable. You will never have a problem with protection again on the heavy days!

8. Do you have oily skin and like using the little oil absorbing papers you can buy at the drugstore? If so, you know the price of those little packages can be pretty expensive. The next time you are in a public restroom, stick a couple of the paper toilet covers in your purse. When you get home, cut them up in small squares and you will have free oil absorbing papers. They work just as effectively as the high priced ones at the cosmetics counter and can be made in whatever sizes you need.

9. If you have ever breastfed a baby you know that breast pads are a necessity to prevent messy leaking. But the disposables can be expensive and almost all of them can shift causing accidents. A smart and inexpensive solution to this problem is to purchase a package of cheap panty liners. Each panty liner can be cut in half and used just like a breast pad. In addition, you can peel the paper off of the back and affix them securely into your bra.

10. Even if you don’t have an infant in the house anymore, keep a small package of cheap disposable diapers handy. If you have a spill on your upholstered furniture or the carpet, take a disposable diaper and place over the liquid. Apply firm pressure and you will be amazed how the diaper will suck up nearly all of the liquid and trap it in short order. Also, the filling from a disposable diaper can be taken out and mixed with potting soil when growing plants. The absorbent cotton and granules of the diaper will retain water and release it as the plant requires.

Watch in the future for more of my domestic tricks of the trade! I always have something up my sleeve.