Baking soda: the multitasker

Hello again, and welcome back to Tips from Toni, a column where I tell you things I’ve learned about keeping a house while simultaneously knowing very little about keeping a house. Send me stuff at tpennello@timesleader.com.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Baking soda has a crazy number of uses, certainly more than I will be able to list, but here are a few:

• Keep an open box in your refrigerator to absorb the funky smells of your three-week-old leftovers and rogue onion you forgot about in there. Replace the box every month to keep the magic going.
• Sprinkle it on your mattress and leave it for a few hours before thoroughly vacuuming it up. This will absorb sweat and (some of) your sins, and get your mattress feeling pretty fresh again.
• Sprinkle on top of your cat litter for the same deodorizing effects that I’ve been talking about for the last three bullet points.
• Form a paste by mixing baking soda with water one-to-one, and use as an abrasive to get grease off of your pans.
• Pour it down your drain followed by white vinegar. Leave for at least a half-hour and pour boiling water down to clear those pipes. Bonus points if you completely plug the drain while the baking soda and vinegar do their thing down there.
• Heck, you can just leave a bowl of it out in a stinky room for, you guessed it, deodorizing effects. Put a couple of drops of essential oil in there. Go wild.

• Keep a sachet of it in your lunch box so you don’t have to be reminded of every lunch you’ve ever brought to work when you open it up.

Remember to only use a fresh box to bake with. Baking soda really does absorb all of the odors and moisture it comes in contact with. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t appreciate that kind of depth of flavor in my cookies.

What wild stuff do you do with baking soda? Let me know at tpennello@timesleader.com.

A generic eraser

There is a brand name for a sponge that claims to “erase” things in a way one might consider “magic.” You know the one. I know the one.

I love them very much, but you may notice that they fall apart pretty quickly when you use them. They are really meant to only be used once, but if you’re buying two of them for about $3, you may be tempted to use them far past their effectiveness.

But did you know that you can get them much cheaper? I’m not even talking about the dollar store brand. Even cheaper than that. Come on, dream big.

The material that makes up those things is called melamine foam, and it works so well because it is abrasive. When you use one, you’re pretty much very gently sanding whatever it is you’re cleaning (you may want to reconsider using them on painted surfaces in light of this). Fun fact: melamine foam is also used as insulation and for sound-proofing.

So what does this have to do with you and your budget?

Melamine foam is available in bulk from various online retailers, and you could end up paying as little as 10 cents per sponge if you buy them that way. Get a pack of 100 for about the same price you would pay for two of the name brand, and make your own magic.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR