This selection of tips from the Everyday Cheapskate column brings together a few simple, tried-and-tested hacks that help save time and money when travelling and around the home.
One reader suggests that if you are desperately short of time on the way to the airport, you should head not for Departures but for Arrivals, if that is closer to the terminal you need. It can cut down your journey time, although you will have to take your luggage up in the lift.
Another reader recommends replacing expensive baking chocolate with a mixture of 3 tablespoons of cocoa and 1 tablespoon of oil. This works for recipes where the chocolate needs to be melted and helps save both money and time.
For a more comfortable soak in the bath, it is suggested you use a large baby bath sponge as a soft backrest. It grips the surface of the bath well, helps keep the water warm and can be washed in the machine from time to time.
To make it easier to hang clothes up after drying, the owner of a long, narrow utility room installed a tension shower-curtain pole across the space. That way she gained extra room for hangers with clothes on them.
For cleaning windows, one reader uses a solution of 1 tablespoon of dishwasher rinse aid to 2 buckets of water. The mixture is applied with a new sponge that has no traces of soap. She says the windows come up clean and shiny, without streaks, although very dirty surfaces may need two goes.
Another tip concerns household supplies for emergencies. After hurricane season, one family decided always to keep at least one spare of the most important non-food items: toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, dry pet food, paper and ink for the printer, basic school supplies, as well as a small cash reserve kept at home.
A military family that moves frequently, instead of buying bubble wrap and collecting newspapers, uses sheets, towels, tablecloths and T-shirts to pack fragile items. Once everything is unpacked, the textiles simply go back into the cupboard, with no time wasted clearing up paper.
Columnist Mary Hunt runs the blog EverydayCheapskate.com about living frugally and is the author of the book “Debt-Proof Living”. In her daily consumer column she publishes readers’ tips on saving money and running a household efficiently.