Did you accept the challenge Spring Clean Kitchen Challenge? It’s been six weeks since I wrote about our big kitchen remodel and my determination to follow Cynthia Townley Ewer’s (Cut the Clutter) three rules for organizing an efficient, convenient kitchen. I invited my readers to accept the challenge and many did.
It’s time for a confession and an update.
Confession: My beautiful new kitchen finished but it is not yet an organized and efficient kitchen.
Related: Spring Clean Kitchen Challenge
Do you recall Cynthia’s first step in creating an organized kitchen? She says we must harden our hearts and dare to dump everything that is not absolutely necessary and useful. I thought this would be easy. It’s not. There have been days I have felt like giving up and just throwing everything back in the way it was. I’ve been doing a lot of praying.
There are lots of ways to stay cool when the temps of summer soar—most of them holdovers from our childhoods.
However, running through the sprinklers, dumping a bucket of water on your head, or drenching your t-shirt in cold water before putting it on do not offer particularly appropriate options especially if you are, for example, at work. Or any number of other hot situations—indoors or out.
Check out these super fun, cheap ways you can keep cool even when it’s really hot!
PHONE FAN. This tiny-but-mighty Phone Fan plugs into your phone—iPhone, iPad or Android Smartphone/Tablet. Yes, it’s adorable. But more than that, it works! And it’s quiet enough to use anywhere you get that need for air. Don’t worry about it draining your battery because this little gem works on precious little power. Pack of 3 Phone Fans: About $12.
COOLING NECK TOWEL. Think back to Fifth Grade Science Class. Evaporating water plus moving air equals cold. That’s the principle at play with this fabulous Chill-Its Cooling Towel. Wet this towel thoroughly and it will give cooling relief for up to 4 hours, depending on the relative humidity. Simply re-wet to start again. Drape it around your neck, shoulders, and head for drip-free cooling relief as temperatures rise. The secret here is the absorbent and hyper-evaporative PVA material that holds more water, making Chill-Its the most effective cooling towel on the market. Comes in a variety of colors. About $7. Read more
It’s no secret that more and more people—especially seniors on fixed incomes—are sinking deeper into credit-card debt. Why is this? I don’t think it’s because we’ve had so many emergencies (the reason to have credit cards, right?). It’s because we don’t want to feel poor.
At this point, I should define this term, “feeling poor.” It’s not easy, but it’s real. And I’ll bet you’ve felt it from time to time no matter your season of life.
It’s a sad, sorry feeling of inferiority. It’s that feeling you get when faced with an invitation to join all of your rich friends for a chi-chi lunch and you’ve got $8.43 to your name. It’s that feeling you get when you hear your friends are all taking a Caribbean cruise and you can barely scrape together gas money to visit your grandchildren.
The worst response when feeling poor is to do the very thing that should prove you’re not: spend money. Sure, that might make the feeling go away for a time. But as soon as you realize you’ve just plunged yourself deeper into debt and made your situation worse, you’ll feel even poorer. It’s a vicious cycle that comes to no good end.
I have a better idea. Stop feeling poor in the first place. Here are three surprising steps to follow.
COMMIT TO A CLEAN CAR
No matter how old, how scratched, how new, how leased or how ugly, if you keep your car sparkling clean inside and out, you won’t feel poor.
Related: Car Dealer Spills the Beans on Treating Leather Interiors
Remove every coffee cup, every paper and every item other than the emergency equipment in the trunk every time you leave the car. Wash it weekly. Make sure the windows are always spotless, the tires scrubbed and the chrome shiny. Do this and you’ll feel like a million bucks. Read more
Imagine paying outrageous amounts of interest to a greedy finance company and loving every minute of it. Or how about making off-the-record, back-alley deals with a loan shark so you can skip all the credit checks and paperwork?
Impossible? Not if that loan shark is you. You’ll be borrowing from yourself, making payments to yourself and collecting high rates of interest—all from you, for you.
The original idea of the credit union was to get the little person out of the clutches of the big money institutions. Credit unions are still a good idea! But even credit unions have their limits and standards when it comes to qualifying for personal loans. Being your own lender simplifies even the credit union strategy to just one person—you. And when you’re wearing the loan officer hat, dealing with you the borrower, both the lending and repayment benefit only you. What a deal!
So, how does it work? Read more
While planning a wedding and their new life together, most couples aren’t thinking about how marriage might affect their credit. Will her student debt show up in your pristine credit file? Will your bankruptcy destroy his excellent credit score? Should you close the accounts you have but don’t use?
Dear Mary: I’ll be getting married in a few weeks. I have excellent credit; my FICO score is 820. My fiancé, not so much. She has pretty bad credit and even filed for bankruptcy two years ago. Once we are married will her poor credit hurt my credit scores? Travis
Dear Travis: Congratulations on your upcoming marriage! Fortunately, your spouse’s past credit history will have no impact on your credit profile once you are married. Only when you apply for credit as joint account holders or you add her either as an authorized user or a primary user to one of your credit-card accounts will any information be shared on both of your credit reports.
However, when you want to buy a home together, your spouse’s negative credit history will impact your mortgage rates if you need both of your incomes to qualify for a mortgage. It’s going to be important for you to work together to improve her bad credit score. Her bankruptcy will remain a matter of public record forever, but only reportable for 10 years. Eventually, it will fall off her credit reports. I wish you both a lifetime of joy and happiness!
Dear Mary: My husband and I do not have, nor ever have had, any joint credit, such as credit cards, bank accounts—with the exception of one mortgage on which we are joint tenants. We’ve been married for two years.
Rarely do I gush. But gush I do over my Eufy Cordless Stick Vac. Can’t help it. Eufy is so handy, easy to use and serves us so well in our home, office, garage and alas, my husband’s woodworking shop.
Eufy HomeVac Lightweight Cordless Upright-Style Vacuum Cleaner (NOT to be confused with the Eufy Duo 2-in-1 Cordless Vacuum Cleaner, of which I am not such a fan) is not a broom, not a mop and not even a substitute for a good vacuum cleaner.
Eufy is sorta’ (kinda’) like an electric broom that picks up dust, dirt, hair, fur, cat litter and all manner of debris from hard surface floors and from the surface of low-pile carpet.
Eufy is cordless, super lightweight with a swivel head and sports a Lithium-ion battery that holds a charge like … forever!
Eufy stands up alone, unlike most of its competitors. It’s just awesome. And inexpensive. But even Eufy cannot go very long without a decent cleaning and a good bath. Read more
From pet odors to the smell of cigarette smoke, rotten food, burned popcorn and all manner of other stinky stuff, there’s no getting around the fact that we live in a smelly world. And when stubborn odors invade our living space we need to know how to take care of them quickly and efficiently.
Odor elimination is not the same as room deodorizing. One takes it away, the other covers it up. Perhaps you’ve experienced this. There’s just nothing like a terrible odor mixed with the artificial smell of flowers or soft Polynesian breezes.
It’s been many years since a terrific product called Nok-Out and I found one another. Our friendship has deepened to the point that I can’t imagine living without it. There’s just nothing like Nok-Out.
Related: It’s a Smelly World Out There
Our big household trash can doesn’t smell anymore because I routinely wash it out and then spray it down with a dilution of Nok-Out (one cup Nok-Out to one-gallon water).
I didn’t have to send a fairly new upholstered chair to the landfill due to an unfortunate accident involving a sick grandchild, thanks to Nok-Out.
The horrible stench of a large bag of disgustingly rotten potatoes hiding behind a storage rack in our basement (how did that happen!?) made me gag when the source of that odor was finally discovered. But not a problem. Nok-Out completely eliminated all traces within only a few hours. Amazing.
And I’m not the only one in love with Nok-Out. Every week I hear from readers who have experienced a Nok-Out rescue.
I often wonder why is it that weeds have no problem at all with drought-like conditions. They don’t require a thing—not water, fertilizer or protection from pests and predators.
Weeds don’t even need soil. They’re happy to grow in cracks in the sidewalk—even asphalt.
Weeds don’t complain, don’t need to be babied and do their best work under the worst of circumstances—the hotter the better! Weeds never give up. I wish I were more like weeds.
Still, weeds are the bane of every gardener; a problem for every homeowner. Read more
This summer, a cash shortage need not eliminate the idea of a family vacation. Clever and creative parents can turn time off work into an amazing vacation experience, without leaving town.
The idea here is to take a stay-at-home vacation or a “staycation.”
Make a plan
Determine the dates of your staycation. Create a schedule and itinerary that includes activities and meals. Make a big colorful chart and allow the kids to participate in the planning.
The point of a staycation is to make it feel as much like a real family getaway as possible, without leaving home. So, to make sure the whole family is on the same page, it is good to establish ground rules that everyone can agree on.
Save the date
Start with deciding exactly when your vacation at home starts and ends. Make sure these are dates you clear of all regular life, just as if you and the family were leaving town for a period of time.
Establish guidelines
Set a few guidelines for what your family may and may not do during this time. These could include all or some of the following: Read more
Just this past week I heard from my dear reader Penny who is frustrated in the face of needing to purchase a new dishwasher. She writes:
“Our dishwasher is more than 20 years old and every time I think I have decided on a new one and read the reviews, I back out. I know that you recently purchased new appliances. What brand dishwasher did you go with? How does one filter all the reviews, good or bad?”
My husband and I have just completed our big kitchen remodel. It’s been nearly a year since we started planning so you can be sure I’ve been researching appliances ad nauseam.
Here’s my conclusion based on credible evidence, product reviews and long conversations with appliance professionals: They just don’t make ‘em like they used to!
These days you won’t find a dishwasher with an expected lifespan of 20 years. The best we should expect from new dishwashers is 8 to 10 years, which is by design. Industry insiders call this “planned obsolescence.” And we have to assume that those will not necessarily be trouble-free years. It’s sad but true.
Nearly all appliances these days come with a one-year warranty. Most appliances pros will tell you that if an appliance is going to fail, it is most likely to do that during the first 90-days, so a one-year warranty is supposed to be sufficient. Anything beyond that is called an extended warranty, which brings up another matter, altogether. Let’s just say it gets complicated.
Related: Best Inexpensive Stick Vacuum—Finally!
There are two brands I suggest you stay away from—Samsung and LG. While their appliances are lovely when they’re in good working condition, these companies do not have a solid infrastructure for service and repair in the U.S. That means you’ll have a difficult time finding someone to repair them whether they’re under warranty or not. And when you do, you could wait weeks for parts to arrive from overseas.
On the other hand, the Whirlpool family of appliances (Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana to name a few) are made in the U.S. Whirlpool has a reputation for making good appliances with repair, service, and parts readily available.
With all that being said, I do have some really good news—and a solid recommendation, which may surprise you. Read more