Five Tips Friday #7: Lifehacks and Tips

I am embarrassed to admit that it has been 3 months since my last Five Tips Friday post. You know how it is.  One of my dad’s most used terms to describe situations like this is ‘OBE’…’Overtaken by Events’…which surely sums up the lack of FTF posts. So, please accept my apology and let’s look at some great tips!

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 Lifehacks or Tips:

The first two of my lifehacks or tips this week came from a very good friend of mine; I’m excited to share her tips with you…I only wish you could also get a taste of her wit! She wicked clever!

1. Whenever I would get a copy of a recipe from my friend Heather, there would be little annotations along the margins. She makes notes in all of her cookbooks so that she knows when she last cooked something and if it was well liked or not, which can be useful when trying to remember a certain recipe.

The notes also come in handy when she entertains so that she can be confident that she isn’t serving the same recipe over again. But even more than that, her cookbook notes have become a sort of a family diary, marking events when she cooked a certain meal.  I love this tradition that she started when she was married, 24 years ago.

2. The second lifehack I got from Heather was to store your unpeeled ginger in vodka in the fridge.  I did a little research after seeing this in her fridge and it seems to be the time-tested way to keep your ginger fresh! It’s a simple as making sure your ginger is completely covered by vodka.

3. My third lifehack tip today is to attach a little white label (you could even do this with whiteout fluid) onto your gift cards.  This allows you to write the balance on the card if you don’t use it in one fell swoop.  Just make sure your label won’t interfere with the swipe strip.

4. This is an oldie but goodie in my home.  With all the fruit we have sitting in the fruit bowl and my compost bucket under the sink, fruit flies inevitably come to visit a couple of times a year. To that end, I keep a fruit fly trap under the sink, next to the compost bin. The jar contains a little wine or beer, a drop or two of dish soap and a piece of some sort of fruit and has a lid that has several small holes in it.  The fruit flies find their way inside, but rarely find their way out. 

5. I was surprised just how easy it is for regular folk like me to shorten electrical cords.  We have a lamp on our kitchen island, but I didn’t want the requisite length of cord lying on my island as well.  Enter, a simple plug…you cut the cord to how long you want it, put the cut end inside this plug and then screw it down. Done and Done! It couldn’t be simpler.

So my friends, there are your 5 lifehacks or tips for this Friday. 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].

And if there are some tips you want to remember, bookmark this page or pin it for your future reference.

I hope you have a great weekend planned, whether it is filled with activity or filled with relaxation…whatever it is that you need.

Many Hugs,

Thanks for making my day by SHARING!!