Random Uses for Every Day Items in Your Kitchen

I love finding different uses for stuff I already have in my house which might potentially make my life easier.  The idea of re-purposing stuff is very "green." My Real Simple magazine comes up with suggestions every month.  Here are a few items that you have in your kitchen:

1.  Non-stick cooking spray makes your food slide off the pan but did you know that spraying it on your shovel will allow the snow to slide off easier? (April, 2010)

2.  I am not very adept at opening bottles of wine so inevitably when I do open a bottle, the cork breaks.   I was thrilled when I found out that if you use a coffee filter over the mouth of the bottle, I could pour wine for my friends without getting cork in their glasses. (April, 2010)

3. That tea steamer you bought a few years ago when you were gung-ho on using loose tea and it's been sitting in your utensil drawer with the other cool utensils you bought but never use?  Here is another use, next time you back cookies or brownies, you can use the tea steamer to dust the desserts with powdered sugar.  (April, 2010)

4.  Loved this one.  Lots of people hang up their pots and pans in their kitchens.  Cast Iron  pans are magnetic so you can tack up recipes or reminders for the week with magnets. (February, 2010)

5.  To keep your boots' shape, you can stick empty wine bottles in them (see #2).  I remember that my folks used rolled up newspapers to accomplish the same thing.

Do you have some ideas of other uses for items in your kitchen?

Found Money -- Part 3

Finally, the third and last installment.

5.  For Home Owners -- donations for itemized tax deductions

Although this is not immediate gratification, donations of  items or money to a charitable organization with a receipt can mean more money in your pocket and less in Uncle Sam's at tax time.

6.  Look at your deductions.

This was a tip from Money magazine but my father was trying to convince me for years.  If you are getting a tax refund every year, you are giving a tax free loan to the government.  If you go to IRS.gov  , there is a withholding calculator you can use by plugging in a few numbers, you can determine how many deductions you should be
listing on your W-4 to get the amount you pay to the government is the exact amount you owe them, or close to it.  Thank you, Dad.

7.  http://www.missingmoney.com/

This one is kind of fun.  It is a site which a number of states are working together to help people find lost funds.  This includes escrow accounts, CDs, trust funds,bank accounts.  Illinois is supposed to be added to their database soon.   For Illinois, the State Treasurer has a search for unclaimed funds. It is a program is called Cash and Dash.

There are other sites but some actually charge a fee to have access to their database.

So, ways to put some extra cash in your pocket.  Hopefully, one of more of these ideas will work for you.

Smartypig.com -- a contest I couldn't resist

I was going to do part 3 of my found money series, but this came into my email from The Digerati Life this morning.  There is a site called Smartypig.com .  It is a free online piggy bank for people saving for specific for goals like a vacation or car.  It is a savings account which is FDIC secured that earns 1.75%, the big difference is you define the goal which you are saving for, so you could set up multiple accounts if you have multiple goals.  Anyway there are lots of details regarding how to set goals and what the site can do to help you achieve them.

Anyway, they are running a promotion for people who have an account or open account.  It's called "Race Out of Debt"  Follow the instructions on opening up an account, and setting up a goal, which will  be set up under the "Race Out of Debt" category and you will be entered in the contest. There is a minimum deposit of $25.   You can do this between today and September 27.

On September 27, they will select 8 finalists, each who will be "assigned to live pig on the Smarty Pig Farm."  The pigs will race and the finalist with the winning pig will  get $4,951.  The winner will be announced on the website on September 28th.

It is such a random contest, and a great idea for a site, I just had to share.

Happy Savings!

Found Money -- Part 2

Okay, so here a a few more ideas to make money on stuff that is just taking up space in your house.

2.  Craig's List

I think this is a hit or miss proposition. It is important to know that any posting will only be up on the site for 7 days.  I was able to get rid of a stock pot out of four items I posted on Craig's list Which I did twice over a two week period.

Definitely think this is a worthwhile, especially if you have time to post your items more than once.

3.  Cash for gold, and silver.

I was purging a bunch of stuff  and found some old broken chains and mismatched earrings I had been holding onto for years.  I had seen the "cash for gold" ads on TV.  I was hesitant to go through the mail, like I had seen in the TV ads but thought if I could find some place local, it would be worth a try to see if I could sell anything.   Anyway, found an estate dealer in the city who bought scrap gold and silver and made a little cash off of what was useless to me.

Important note:  I found out that one of the cash for gold places was being sued for paying people significantly less than the the worth of the gold that was sent.

Definitely think this is worthwhile proposition, if you have old jewelry that's broken, not being used or has bad memories. 

4. Recycle your electronics for cash.

Old digital cameras? cell phones?  There are three sites which buy your old electronics for cash.  This information is courtesy of the website the Lazy Environmentalist. They each have free shipping. The one I used to sell an old digital camera was Gazelle.com.

Gazelle.com - Will take used cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, laptops, GPS units, camcorders, gaming consoles, iPhones...you can go to the site, and find the make and model of what you are trying to sell, it will ask you about the condition and, where relevant, what of the original items you may have.  It will provide you with a buying price.  If you decide to take the offer, a mailing label will be sent to you.   Where possible Gazelle refurbishes them and makes them available to its partners for resale. It's possible to get great deals on refurbished at items at major retailers like Target thanks to Gazelle.

They will pay you in cash, a prepaid visa, you can donate your money to a charity of your choice, or you can get an Amazon gift card and they will give you 5% extra. 

"Buymytronics.com - Buymytronics.com is on a mission to recycle used, new, and broken electronics. To make it worthwhile, the company pays you for them within 48 hours of receiving them. Send founder Brett Mosley and his team your old cell phones, cameras, game consoles, camcorders, and iPods, and they'll send you cash."

"Greenphone.com - You don't have to sell your soul to prevent global warming, but you can certainly sell your cell." Visit Greenphone.com to find out how much your used cell phone is worth and then print the free postage label and mail your phone to the company. Once Greenphone.com receives and verifies its condition, the company will cut you a check." Or, they will donate the money to one of the charities on their list.

From e-mail dated, July 21, 2010 "#1 Earn Cash by Recycling your Electronics" from Free Report: The 5 Laziest Ways to Go Green Without Spending a Dime.

Next....Uncle Sam can help too!

Found Money--Part 1

Sometimes, its nice to have a little extra cash.  There are ways to find additional money without having to get a new job.  A few of these I have used in the past, which I will get to later, but, while getting rid of a bunch of stuff over the last few weeks, I found ways to capitalize on some of the items I owned.

1. The Yard/Garage Sale.

It started a couple of  years ago, I started sticking things that I wasn't using in my storage unit.  The thought was I would eventually have a yard sale, maybe even recruit a few of my neighbors to join me.  Well, the storage unit was getting more crowded and I kept putting organizing a sale off.  Well, this year I finally set a date in August.

As I was getting ready for the sale, I found an article on the Real Simple website on how to throw a yard sale, things you need, ideas for pricing, supplies you need, how to set up, etc.  It was extremely useful.  The most useful information in the article is the secret to the succes of a garage sale was getting people to the sale, and, boy is that true.  Obviously, the more people who see your stuff, the more likely you are to get rid of it.  I put up signs around the neighborhood, put a listing on Craig's List, the Chicago Reader's site, garagesalehunter.com and yardsale.com.  Now, it doesn't help that I live on a street which is 2 blocks long but,  I definitely think that running  a few print ads would have proven beneficial.  I sold some things, made a some money but compared to the amount of time I put into getting ready for the sale, the amount I earned, didn't seem worth it.  Still,  it was money in my pocket.

Tomorrow -- ideas for liquidating things you may be thinking about getting rid of.