Tips and Lifehacks: Five Tips Friday #8
Well hello there friends, it’s a Friday AND it’s the first Friday of the month, so let’s get this weekend started with some really useful tips and lifehacks that will hopefully help you save time, money (and possibly most importantly) your fingernails.
As a refresher, Five Tips Friday is all about easy life hacks and great ideas with the hopes that a few of them might make your world a little simpler, a little more organized and maybe with a few more $$$ in your pocket.
And since I’m a a huge believer in crowd sourcing, if you have noodled a way to do something easier or cheaper…please consider passing it on. I’d love to incorporate tips from our readers into the Five Tips Friday list. Email your tips to [email protected]
So, if you have a hack that makes life easier, is a less expensive way to do something or saves you money…bring it!
Some of these are affiliate links and I will earn a small commission off of the sale of these products, but the price you are charged is not affected. You can see my full disclosure policy here.
Five Tips and Lifehacks:
- Make Sure Ceiling Fans are Running in the Seasonally Appropriate Direction.
With the warmer temperatures coming, it’s time to switch your fan blade direction. You can tell the direction of the fan blades by running them at a low speed and standing underneath to see if the blades are running clockwise or counter-clockwise.
During the warmer months you want the fan to blow air straight down, so your ceiling fan needs to run in a counter- clockwise direction.The warmer it is, the higher the speed should be. This direction will push cool air down to the floor. The cool air evaporates perspiration and creates a wind chill effect, which makes you feel cooler without affecting the room temperature.
Table of Contents
During the winter and cooler months, your fan should run at a low speed in a clockwise direction. The gentle updraft pushes warm air, which naturally rises to the ceiling, down along the walls and back the floor.
2. Save on Ink with Ink-Efficient Fonts
Can we just talk about how expensive printer ink is? Holy Cow!! I could buy a lovely dress for what it costs to buy a set of refill printer cartridges. I typically have my default set for fast/economical, but still end up buying printer ink more often than I would like. An additional way to save on printer ink is to set your default font to an ink-efficient font…one that uses less ink.
In terms of ink-economy here is a ranking of the most efficient inks, with #1 being the most efficient.
3. Use a staple puller to pry open those #@!&% key chainrings
Raise a hand if you’ve broken a fingernail opening those blasted key chain rings. ✋✋✋✋✋✋✋? If those things have doomed any chance of decent fingernails (that’s my excuse anyway), then this tip will surely make your day.
Use the prongs of a staple puller to open the key chainring. You’ll most likely have to slide it along with your key, but it works!
4. Use tape to mark the distance between 2 hooks on a picture
By taping a piece of tape onto the back of your frame, you can mark the distance between the two holes on the frame.
Then just transfer the tape to your wall, using a level to make sure it is straight. Hammer your nails into the two holes and PRESTO!
5. Use Lemon Juice to remove fertilizer mineral salt stains
I use Miracle-Gro for many of my (non-edible) container gardens. After several years, I started to get rings where the fertilizer water would run out of the pot and puddle around the base of the container.
I had already tried using an abrasive scrubbing cream and detergent, but neither worked…at all.
After doing some research, I tried lemon juice. I used bottled lemon juice, covered the stain with it, scrubbed lightly and then let it sit for a good hour. At the end of the hours, I rinsed well with water and after it dried, the stain was gone! You can see on the bottom picture where the ring was. You can also see a little bit of the stain at the base of the pot that I missed the first time.
Bookmark this page or pin the following image to your Pinterest board for your future reference:
For 35 more Tips and Lifehacks, check out these past Five Tips Friday posts:
Five Tips Friday #8
So, my friends, there are your 5 tips and lifehacks for this Friday. I hope you found something handy and if you have a tip you’d like to share, please pass it on! You can send it to [email protected].
Have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Great tips, my friend!
Thanks dearest!
Can’t believe you finally got those fertilizer stains out! The porch looks so good!
It was so easy! Doesn’t it look great!!!