In our effort to adhere to ways on how to save money, we must recognize the fact that there are few things in our home we undervalue. Or that we failed to see that each of these items has superpower compared to other overrated hand tools.
When I say superpower, I mean that when we add the store price to the equation, the job of each item trumps its price tag in the store.
Like you can say that you only pay a hair in your back to get that item and yet it performs way better than what you expect from them.
You see when we buy a power drill, we pay justifiably a high amount of money. When its time to use the tool, we just shrugged off its performance because what it does is already given and expected of it.
The ordinary items given star status in this article are not actually equipment or tools that you use to perform tasks at home.
Interestingly, they are agents, either chemical or mineral, which help in changing an area of another thing.
Now that you know it, more so that you need to read it because as of now it might be that you don't know what you're missing as far as saving money through the utilization of these items.
Most underrated home stuff
1. Liquid bleach
In Filipino households, bleach is popularly used in laundry washing, either by hand or a laundry machine.
Its store price is very inexpensive. But for some busy individual with almost no time to spare and always say their hands are full, they could use some bleach in home multi-tasking.
Maintaining a toilet bowl immaculately clean is a repetitive chore. With the help of the liquid bleach, you can skip using a toilet bowl cleaner brush and still manage to have your toilet bowl clean for days until you have the time to hold a cleaner brush.
- Just let a few drops of bleach fall into the inner side of the bowl and let it stand there.
- The chemical agent will do its work, and it is extremely noticeable.
Other wonder jobs of bleach
1. Used items sterilizer
If an item is given, secondhand or gleaned from a thrift shop, you can bet that its dirty. A solution of mixed dish-washing soap, boiled water and bleach can make you confident that your newly acquired secondhand stuff is cleaned to the max.
2. Sanitizer spray
You can quickly disinfect any surface around the house including handles, knobs, countertops, etc. with the use of bottle spray filled with the mixture of warm water, detergent powder and a right amount of bleach. You need to use a cotton waste cloth to wipe target areas.
3. Tiled floors keeper
Tile floors get dingy over time. Even if you maintain the tiles themselves cleaned, the clearances between them becomes dark and dirty looking. Once those spaces blackened, your entire floor will look filthy. By occasionally swabbing pure bleach on those areas before mopping, the whiteness will not be darkened by dust and other dirt.
2. Charcoal
Part of our culture and tradition is our penchant for barbecued seafood and meat products. For that, charcoal became a must in every home.
But aside from making sure we are provided with grilled dishes, charcoal has other power to boot.
It can absorb bad odors of any kind.
From the bad smell of newly painted walls to the bacterial bad odor inside our refrigerator, charcoal can rid your home unwanted smells.
Although the recommended bad odor absorbent is the leveled-up activated charcoal, especially if the subject is the fridge, your excess from last barbecue party you had can do the trick. I mean would you spend extra for activated charcoal?
- Put the remaining charcoals in a small open vessel.
- Place it in the area you want to be smell free.
- Leave it for as long as the odor permeates.
- For a newly painted room recommended is to have one vessel of charcoal in each corner.
- Large rooms can use extra in between corners.
3. Vinegar
The most used condiment in Filipino households. Aside from being the main liquid ingredient we add to Philippine's most famous dish, adobo, vinegar is a must, readily available in our dining table.
We can't eat without vinegar sauce for fried dishes. We used it as a preservative to pickled fruits like cucumber relish and papaya atchara.
Now you can add a powerful force of vinegar to its role in your life that would put it to the level of home super stuff.
Some of you might already know it, some don't. While others are hesitant about using it.
You can claim vinegar's superpower by its ability to trump fabric conditioner as the most effective cloth and textile conditioner.
- Instead of commercial fabric conditioner, pour appropriate amount of white vinegar onto fabric conditioner slot of your washing machine on the last rinse.
- Or by hand pour the vinegar onto your washtub and rinse your clothes there and air dry them in a clothesline. Now that's how to save money.
Fabric conditioner has chemical components that made fabrics old prematurely.
To prove that, I suggest you run an experiment on two towels.
Use fabric conditioner in one towel for months and without any conditioner in the other.
I assure you right now that the one washed with conditioner repeatedly would have its lint and fuzz came off over time, making the towel look old and overused.
While the other not touched by fabric conditioner would retain its fuzz and its thickness still holds.
Do you want to save money? Don't use fabric conditioner. It's a sure way to 'not saving money' in clothes.
The right amount of vinegar will do the same softening of your clothes, but it won't damage them.
4. Salt
Another item we can't live without is the mineral salt. There is no home without it. There is even the folklore that claims it can drive away a bad spirit.
But the basic reason for us to buy salt is for cooking, right?
But what if I said — there is a lot of ways you can use salt to improve life and by so doing save money in the long term?
In my personal experience, salt has helped me in accidental skin burns as long as the burn doesn't penetrate like oil spatter hit my body while prying.
It hurts but if you cover the burn with salt as fast as you can, the pain goes away and the salt stops the redness. The salt also aids mosquito bites and sting pains.
But the most remarkable help salt has given to me was when it cured excessive sweating of my hands and feet.
- Just add 2-ladles of salt onto a half-full pan of water.
- Boil it and turn off the heat.
- Wait for the water to cool down until it is lukewarm.
- Transfer the lukewarm solution onto a small washing basin and dip your hands or feet for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Depends on the intensity of sweatiness you experience, one to three times can eliminate that unwanted perspiration.
Other wonder jobs of salt
1. Flower freshness extender
By adding salt onto the water of the vase, it lengthens the freshness of flowers in it.
2. Anti-slip hand aide
By covering your hands with salt before you clean and wash fish and meat, you will save time as it will be done quickly because your hands won't slip in holding them.
3. Extra cleaner
Use it in brushing your teeth from time to time to extend days of your toothpaste. Also, by regularly pouring boiled water and salt onto the drain of your sink, it will be kept disinfected and clean.
5. Detergent bar
If you are tired of scouring the outside bottom of your pots and pans every time, you could use the help from the detergent bar.
- By soaking a detergent bar in water until it becomes pasty.
- And applying it to the entirety of the outside bottom of the pan before cooking.
- That outside area will not be scorched and darkened by the gas stove flame.
Final thoughts
If we only discover a lot of ways how to utilize in other purposes different stuff in our homes, the impact in savings is so huge.
Do you have stuff that enabled you to use in other purposes? Do you maximize the usages of things in your home? Have you ever tried one or two mentioned in this article? Let us know in the comments' below.
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