Clean tiles once a week with baking soda and white vinegar to prevent dirt build up.
The mail bags are full again and the frugal community has some suggestions to last week's questions.
Michelle from Invercargill has his great grout and shower cleaning tip. "Like a lot of things, regular cleaning of tiles and glass saves a lot of hard work later on. For glass, always wipe dry after a shower with your towel or glass scraper. Once a week, use a cleaner or micro-cloth to remove any build-up. For tiles, every week use baking soda and white vinegar with just enough water to make a spreadable mixture. Once it has black mould you need to use bleach or a product containing bleach, like Exit Mould to kill the spores. After cleaning tiles and glass, you can polish dry with car wash or car wax. Both will create a barrier to make cleaning of water spots and soap scum easier."
"Anyway" from Whangarei has sent in a number of tips for those with larger families.
"As a family of eight, I find natural yoghurt (even spiced up with some flavours), to be a healthy and economic food source. We use Homebrand powdered milk, and two good sized soup spoons from a 6 pack of Meadow Fresh yoghurt, into the yoghurt maker, and that makes a litre of quite thick yummy yoghurt. Costs about $2 a litre."
"I prefer the option of online grocery shopping. It's easier for my lifestyle, and it's actually easier to control what you spend. On the surface of things, Pak'nSave looks cheaper, but if you know how to use your online shopping features, you can make it work quite well for the budget. One of the best features is the ability to sort items by 'unit price -- low to high'. It tells you very quickly which is the cheapest item, by bulk and price. The other aspect of online shopping, is that if you have a set budget, you can see straight away if you are going over it (before you buy), so you put items back, or exchange them for something cheaper. I have found it much more reliable to stick to a budget."
"I have six children (and counting), and have found that lots of baby items that you buy are pretty much a waste of time. There is nothing that your baby will like better than being in your arms (rather than those gadgets). Front packs and beds are good, but apart from that, I have found that even prams can be excess to requirements. Also if you're cooking dinner, this is a really good time for a busy daddy to get to know baby. Except for my eldest, all my kids have been out of daytime nappies by 18 months and mostly out of night time nappies by two years. Good relationships make parenting easier -- and children much easier to train. No equipment will ever replace that."
Last week, Cheryl-Anne from Auckland asked for help cleaning blue nail polish off a light-coloured carpet. Andrea from Christchurch has replied, "Use hairspray and a damp cloth. Spray the hairspray on to the nail polish and rub gently with damp cloth. It will take a bit of patience but it does work. I took out nearly half a bottle of black nail polish out of a beige carpet using this technique."
And Carolyn from Perth asked for ideas about creating a family cookbook. Pat from Rotorua has this suggestion. "In our family we have five girls and one boy! One of my sisters photographed our mum's recipe book and put it on a memory stick. It is nice to have her recipes in her writing. They could be printed and put into a folder if you prefer. Love the tattered and marked pages. Sweet memories!"
"Peggy" from Whangarei is looking for ideas on the best use for duck eggs. "We have adopted a wild duck with one leg (which we named Peggy). Every morning she flies on to our lawn so we feed her with bread and corn seed. Peggy is returning the kindness by producing an egg a day -- on our back lawn! We now have a dozen duck eggs and I'm looking for ideas on the best way to use them." If you can help, please send in your tip via the oilyrag.co.nz website.
You can send your suggestions and questions, as well as join the Oily Rag mailing list, by visiting oilyrag.co.nz -- or you can write to us at Living Off the Smell of an Oily Rag, PO Box 984, Whangarei.
Frank and Muriel Newman are the authors of Living Off the Smell of an Oily Rag in New Zealand. Read our wealth of tips at oilyrag.co.nz