Vinegar is one of my favorite super products. It’s cheap, and it’s got so many uses! Here are my top 10 uses for vinegar.

1. Flavoring cucumbers. My favorite way to eat cucumbers is sliced up and then soaked in equal parts apple cider vinegar and water. Yummy!
2. Making “buttermilk.” I have a few recipes that call for a cup of buttermilk, but I don’t want to go out and buy some when we won’t drink it and very few recipes call for it. Instead I add a tablespoon of vinegar to a measuring cup and then fill to the one cup line with milk. Let it stand a few minutes, and you’ll have a great substitute for buttermilk.
3. Cleaning carpets. We’ve always used equal parts vinegar (white tends to be the cheapest) and cold water to clean up pet stains. Soak up as much liquid as you can, and then using an old scrub brush or rag, use the vinegar and water solution to clean the carpet and neutralize the smell. The resulting vinegar smell should disappear as it dries.
4. Cleaning showerheads. I did this just this past week. Our showerhead’s pressure was getting low because of hard-water build up, so we removed the showerhead and soaked it in a bowl of vinegar and water. It was far cheaper than chemical cleaners you can buy at the store, and I liked not having to use a harsh chemical at all. This is like natural CLR.
5. Cleaning drains. This won’t clear a clog, but it can help keep your drains clean. Just pour some vinegar down the drain once a month or so. Vinegar is naturally anti-bacterial, so it will kill anything lurking in your drain. For added fun and to better get at gunk starting to coat the sides of the pipes, pour some baking soda down the drains first. This is lots of fun, especially for kids. It’s like having a volcano science experiment in your drain!
6. Making rocks bubble. Yes, I admit that this is really dorky, but it was fun when I was a kid. It seemed like magic. My dad used to take pieces of limestone and put them in vinegar for us. The rock would then bubble because the vinegar was eating the lime (same concept as cleaning the showerhead—vinegar eats lime buildup, which is what limestone is made of).
7. Soothe a bee sting. Put a bit of vinegar on it to relieve some of the pain. Another option is a paste of meat tenderizer and water.
8. Laundry softener. As an alternative to expensive products like Downy or Bounce, you can add ½ cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle. The vinegar smell will be gone when the clothes are dry, and they’ll be left extra clean because the vinegar will get rid of any lingering soap residue.
9. Disinfect a cutting board. It’s important to disinfect cutting boards occasionally to kill any bacteria that might be hiding in the knife marks. Many people recommend bleach, but an alternative is vinegar, which is anti-bacterial and better yet—won’t stain your clothes if you spill it!
10. Clean the dishwasher by pouring 1 cup of vinegar into the bottom and then running it empty.

 When he arrived he asked how we were going to be paying for the service visit. When he said this, I worried a little as I was under the impression our landlord had taken care of payment when they made the reservation. I had tried making a reservation with A&E but gave up when I was told the machine was no longer under warranty. When he asked about the payment I told him that the landlord had told us it was under warranty which resulted in him calling his dispatch people. If you think it is bad when you have to call a call center, imagine how bad it would be if you needed to call a call center for your job and they hung up on you! After the dispatcher hung up on the repairman, I called the landlord. The landlord said that yes it was under warranty and gave me the confirmation number she was given as well as contract expiration date.

 This was the first saving opportunity for the day and had our landlord not written down the confirmation number, the $150 service fee would have come out of our pocket. Usually when I call and receive a confirmation number I either simply pretend to write it down or write it down and lose the number amongst my messes. Luckily my landlord did not behave the same way.

 The second saving opportunity arose when I was out running errands. Seeing how my wife has a full time job and I do not, I have become the errand-boy. One of the errands I needed to run was to get a new printer. While a quality printer-scanner-copier did come with the desktop computer we purchased two years ago, and it does still run, it will not recognize the refilled printer cartridges we would buy on eBay. 

 While printers are relatively cheap, the company makes their profit off the ink. I learned during my undergrad that companies that make printers (HP, Lexmark, etc.) are willing to actually lose money on making printers, but continue to make printers knowing they will make their money on cartridges. Because of this profit-making business, they sometimes set up their printers to not run if you try to replace the ink yourself rather than purchasing a new cartridge. Because our cartridges were not being read, things that would be automatically sent to print, such as coupons on coupons.com were not printing. We decided to get a new printer in order for these coupons to print so we could save money (paying for the printer with our savings in just a couple of months).

 I told my troubles to the customer service rep at Best Buy and he recommended a printer-scanner-copier by HP that ran on their new 560 series of cartridges and told me how many pages per cartridge it was able to print. He also was unsure which printers would read replacement cartridges and which ones would not. I started to think, while yes this printer-scanner-copier does look pretty interesting, I don’t think I need all of those functions. What I really need is a printer that will have give me a high volume of pages printed per cartridge. I then decided that since our primary printing duties are documents and things in gray-scale, it would be a good idea to get a laser printer. The price of the HP printer with the bells and whistles the sales associate was trying to get me to buy was $250, the Brother laser printer was priced at $150. Even better, the toner cartridges for the Brother were the same price as the HP ink jet cartridges with the added benefit of being able to print three times as many pages as the ink jet cartridges. 

 After I had decided on the laser printer I used my iPhone to see if I could get the laser printer online. I checked eBay and I was able to get the same printer that was in the store for $50 cheaper with free shipping. Besides that $50 savings, the printer online also did not require a sales tax. If you are not as fortunate to have an iPhone or a phone with internet capabilities, you can still compare prices with eBay by texting the product information you are interested in buying to either Cha Cha (242242) or KGB (542542). Depending on your phone carrier, both services are free (check with their websites before your first use).

 By simply writing down the confirmation number and passing up the bells and whistles we were able to save money that day as well as have the ability to save even more using a laser printer than if we were to stay with a ink jet printer that goes through cartridges like it were a kid with candy after Halloween! Keep in mind, you never know when you will need a confirmation number and you can always save money if you are willing to sacrifice.

Josh

Last April I was getting to the point where my pants barely fit.  I refused to buy new ones (at least in a larger size), and I was tired of packing myself in them like a sausage in its casing.  I’d tried exercise programs in the past, but my problem was I’d be really into it for a couple of weeks, but then, like most people, something would come up.  I’d get sick, and I couldn’t handle the cardio.  I’d get too busy for a week or so, and then I’d just forget to go back to whatever my current plan was.  I depended too much on Josh, and it was hard for us to both be motivated at the same time.

Despite all of that, my plan still wasn’t for me to lose weight.  I was content to be discontent and just deal with it because nothing else had worked for me.  What really triggered me to start walking was a 5k for my aunt, who has MS.  My aunt, uncle, cousins, and I, along with many of my aunt’s friends, were going to be walking in a 5k to benefit MS research in late April, and while I intellectually knew how far 5k was, I physically didn’t.  I wanted to practice a few times because I was afraid that it would leave me exhausted and embarrassed. 

I went to the store and bought a pedometer.  Then I just started walking.  With the pedometer, it was easy to see how much (or little) I walked.  While before the pedometer, I found that I only walked 1-2 miles a day, I found that the 3.1 miles (5k) I was aiming for was no big deal.  I found easy ways to add more steps to my day–I walked around my classroom more; between classes I’d do a lap around the building; take the long way to get somewhere; instead of carrying a whole load of something, I would do one thing at a time.  All of those little steps added up, and without even intending to, I lost seven pounds in 2 1/2 weeks!  I didn’t do any other exercising, and I didn’t change what I ate; in fact, I probably ate way too many calories–we were going out to eat far too often.

In May I decided to walk 125 miles.  I tracked my miles every day on an excel document.  It was tough, but I made it (barely).  By the end of May, I had lost a total of 20 pounds.

Unfortunately, my motivation dropped over the summer.  Josh and I got married out of state, and we spent a few weeks staying with his family, so Josh and I were in an environment where exercising and eating healthy were mocked.  As a result, we kind of just let it fall to the side.  Plus without the structure of school and having a set schedule, I found that I was not very productive.  I’d go on occasional walks, but nothing like May or even April.  So in that time I only maintained my weight, but that itself for me is a victory, because in the past, every time I lost weight, as soon as I stopped working hard at it, it immediately came back with some friends.

Now school’s back in session, and I’ve already lost 3 pounds.  My goal is to have lost another 10-20 pounds by Christmas.  I don’t want to set an exact number because now that most of my flab is off, it’s harder to lose weight, and while walking is easy enough, I’m not going to commit to a hardcore workout routine–I’m just too exhausted by the end of the day.  Walking is great because I can incorporate it throughout my day.  Plus more and more studies are coming out saying that walking is the best exercise you can do to lose weight–it keeps you moving, but it doesn’t cause you to work out so much that you’re exhausted and super hungry, which causes you to compensate by moving less and eating more.

I’d like to know what has worked (or what hasn’t work) for other people.  Any motivation tips to share?  Exercise ideas?

Lindsey

We are now in control.  We are taking control of our bodies, our money, our food, and our house.

We’ve both put on some pounds over the years, we’ve tried off and on since we’ve been dating to lose the weight, but then we’d get busy or get lazy, and that would stop.  Last April I finally decide enough was enough, and I got moving.  I’ve lost 25 pounds since then, and I’m still 22 pounds from my goal.  Josh has started working hard the past couple of weeks.  Hopefully he sticks with it.  He wants to drop about 100 pounds in the next year.

Our money habits are something we’re trying to change, too.  I’m a teacher, so I think it goes without saying that my income is not huge.  Josh was a graduate teaching assistant last year, but he graduated in May, so obviously that income from teaching classes and the scholarships he had is gone.  He’s struggled to find a job here; the economy sucks, and not many places are hiring.  He’s working as an adjunct instructor at a community college, so he is getting some income, but we’ve experienced about a $10,000 pay cut this year.  We’ve also got one car loan, increased insurance fees (his parents kindly gave us their old car when they got a new one, so we now have 2 cars to insure), and some credit card debt–nothing exorbitant, but had we been smarter with our money, it wouldn’t be there at all.  We’re trying to manage our money and pay our bills without having to make dramatic changes to our lives.  This will likely be the hardest part of all.

Food is a weakness for us, as you probably guessed when I mentioned we have weight problems.  We both love food.  Even worse, we both love to eat out, which has contributed to money problems.  We’re trying to change so that we’re in control of food, rather than food controlling us, our money, and our weights.  We’re cutting down how much we spend on food; we are going to avoid eating out as much as possible (I’d like to say we’ve cut it out altogether, but I know we wouldn’t be able to stick to that!).  Josh is going to try to cook more (he’s still a beginner), and even though I’m tired when I get home, I’m going to suck it up and cook anyway.  This will help us save money and eat healthy.

Our final challenge is getting control over our house, specifically all of our stuff that clutters the house.  It’s not trashed or anything, but we do have stuff that doesn’t make it back to its appropriate home like it should, and in some cases, we have stuff that doesn’t have a home at all.  We need to get rid of stuff, get more organized, and make a committment to put stuff away right away.