karen2754
There’s nothing like a tasty (and by that I mean salty) snack on a hot summer day. The problem is, those snacks can be pricey.
Enter the decidedly “old-school” air powered popcorn popper. According to PayLessForFood.com, “Using a hot air popper, which can be purchased for around $10 to $15 at Walmart or Target, you can make popcorn for an insanely low 8 cents per serving!"…
Not only is popcorn made with an air popper cheap, its also healthy. With an air popper there’s no need for oil and you avoid all the salt and additives found in microwave popcorn. As a former “dripping with butter” popcorn lover who is now trying to watch my cholesterol levels, I have learned to love popcorn without the added heart clogging butter.
Popcorn is naturally low in calories and high in fiber. The perfect food. I make popcorn ahead of time and then portion it off into sandwich bags so that I have a cheap, quick, healthy snack whenever I want something to crunch on.
"The Ultimate Cheapskate Snack"
Drew Avery
We’re selling our house, so lately I’ve been interested in how to “dress up” your home without spending a fortune.
The July 2009 issue of ShopSmart suggests that you “Clean up the landscaping. Cost - About $150"…
A few landscaping tweaks don’t have to cost a lot. You can bring a patchy yard back to life by seeding bald spots and pruning overgrown foundation plantings.
If you decide to add shrubs around the house, choose varieties that won’t grow bigger than 3 or 4 feet, and plant taller bushes and trees at the edge of the house to frame it.
10 Cheap Ways to Boost Your Curb Appeal
tanakawho
I just love it when somebody sends me a tip - it means I don’t have to think. (I don’t like thinking, because it’s considered a form of work.)
So my friend Ed sent me this tip, which he found on ThriftyFun.com:
“Big Bad Mama” says you can stop a mosquito bite from itching by using rubbing alcohol and scotch tape…
[The] ... itch can be unbearable and cause the skin around the bite to swell. To make a long story short - after I applied ... rubbing alcohol, I put a piece of scotch tape directly on top of the bite and to my surprise - the itch stopped - immediately!
I left the tape on for about 4 hours and when I pulled the tape off, I could actually see the poison extract from the mosquito - on the tape. Somehow the adhesive on the tape collected the fluid from the bite and I held the tape up to the light and I could see the tiny penetration hole on the tape from where I was bit.
" Stop the Itching from Mosquito Bites"
Gregg O'Connell
I was showering one morning, and I put the conditioner in first. You should have seen it - I freaked out, like some natural order had been interrupted. But don’t worry, it will NEVER happen again.
Which brings me to an article I just disovered in the Real Simple Website. It turns out there is much to be learned about proper hair washing - including the the need to use “just two shampoos"…
You might have heard that hair can become “bored” with a shampoo and conditioner if you’ve used them for too long. And it’s true that hair can seem lifeless after a month or more of the same routine.
A buildup of conditioners may be the culprit, says salon owner Johnny Lavoy, but “the good news is that you don’t need to fill your bathroom with four bottles of shampoo to rotate every week. Using a clarifying shampoo twice a month or so should correct the problem.”
"Hair Care Myths, Debunked"
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Remember what Don Corleone said about revenge in the Godfather? He said it isn’t worth it - that vengeance wasn’t going to bring Sonny back - nor would it bring back Phillip Tattaglia’s son.
Interestingly enough, a study authored by Kevin Carlsmith at Colgate University agrees. About revenge, not Tattaglia’s son…
The results suggest that, despite conventional wisdom, people—at least those with Westernized notions of revenge—are bad at predicting their emotional states following revenge ... .
The reason revenge may stoke anger’s flames may lie in our ruminations, he says. When we don’t get revenge, we’re able to trivialize the event, he says. We tell ourselves that because we didn’t act on our vengeful feelings, it wasn’t a big deal, so it’s easier to forget it and move on. But when we do get revenge, we can no longer trivialize the situation. Instead, we think about it. A lot.
“Rather than providing closure, it does the opposite: It keeps the wound open and fresh,” he says.
"Revenge and the people who seek it"
Laura Chifiriuc
We are a massively sleep deprived society - and many of us are also on a first name basis with Dave, Jay, and Conan.
The problem? According to an article in the LA Times Health Blog “Booster Shots”, “Almost seven in 10 Americans spend some part of their final two waking hours each day in front of the television, and most let television programming—not their level of sleepiness or their need for a full night’s sleep—dictate when they go to sleep...”
Roughly 40% of American adults sleep fewer than seven to eight hours, even though doing so raises their risk of daytime sleepiness, obesity, illness and even death… .
So if Americans are going to close their yawning sleep gap, they’ll need to do it by either leaving the TV off at day’s end or taking the bold step of turning it off in the middle of the show they’ve tuned in to.
"TV is Americans' principal pacifier, sleep stealer"
