21 Grandma’s Old Life Tips Everyone Should Try

A basic sponge and baking soda can make a great eraser for little grease spots, fingerprints, and stains on your walls. Or any other painted areas such as furniture or wood fences.

Just sprinkle a bit of baking soda on your dry sponge and scrub the stained area in a circular motion. And then use a clean dry cloth to wipe the baking soda off to get rid of any remaining dirt. If you’re worried that this technique might ruin the paint, try just a tiny bit of soda first and see how the surface reacts.

If you wanna extract the maximum amount of juice from your lemon or lime, first put them in a microwave for 15 seconds. After that, give them a little roll on a hard surface. And now feel free to use your manual juicer.

When you smash some glass or pottery on the floor it can be pretty hard to notice and pick all the tiny fragments. Especially if the glass is transparent. Guess what can help you? A slice of bread!
After you remove all the big pieces, carefully wipe a thick slice of bread across the floor to pick up any tiny fragments. They should get stuck in the bread. But make sure to do this very carefully or just put on protective gloves. And don’t absent-mindedly make yourself a sandwich right afterwards. Just sayin’.

If you’re a huge fan of garlic, here’s a tip for you. Cut one garlic bulb in half and rub an empty bowl for a nice flavor. Now you can put your pasta, risotto, or salad in the bowl and enjoy your meal.

Pringles tubes are made from a mixture of paper plastic and metal, which makes them a good option to organize groceries. You can paint the tubes in a plain color to make them match your stylish minimalistic kitchen and then attach removable labels on the side.

Have you ever struggled with threading a needle? Here’s an easy way out. Place your toothbrush on the table and put the thread across the bristles of the brush. Now gently push the needle down over the top. The bristles will help you poke the thread up through the eye effortlessly. Once you’ve got the loop just use your fingers to pull it through.

If you’ve got these annoying tea stains on your favorite mug that won’t wash off, try to apply some toothpaste to your sponge. This is also applicable when you need to make your dirty cutlery shine. It’s better to use a mildly abrasive sponge — it’s pretty helpful when it comes to removing dark spots on dishes.

Let’s say you’ve recently received a really gorgeous bouquet. But the flowers got this sad look in a blink of an eye. You can extend their living very easily and almost free of charge. First, fill the vase with fresh water and put a couple of teaspoons of sugar. This will help to nourish the flowers.
Before you put the flowers back into the vase, cut about an inch off the stem. But make sure to slice it at an angle like this. This trick will increase the surface of water absorption. Repeat this with all the stems, especially with hard ones. And now put the bouquet back into the vase. The flowers should cheer up within 12 hours.

If you suffer from cold feet, put them into a vase — no wait — use a hairdryer to warm up your slippers before using them. This tip is also applicable to your outdoor winter shoes.

Speaking of feet, phew — there’s a great way to get rid of unpleasant smells. Apply about 10 drops of your favorite essential oil on 2 cotton balls. Now place the balls into the shoes and leave them overnight. Remove them in the morning and enjoy the fancy smell. You can also mix a couple of your favorite fragrances to customize your shoe fragrance even more.

If your drain is a bit dirty and smelly, there’s an epic tip to solve this issue. Put down a couple of spoonfuls of baking soda and pour down a little vinegar. And now just step back and enjoy the show. It will foam up and help to loosen any dirt.

We all tried to light a match outdoors in windy weather and failed. Well, we’ve been doing it all wrong... There’s an easy way to prepare a matchstick in advance using a sharp knife. Carefully carve back the 4 corners just behind the head of the matchstick. Then repeat the same technique one more time, so it looks like this. These 8 little splinters will help create a stronger wind-resistant flame.

If you have a small wardrobe with limited space for hanging new clothes, remove some metal pull tabs from the tops of old drinking cans. They can make the perfect holding loops for fixing the second hanger. Just put the ring over the hook. This is how you can double and even triple the storage space on one hanging rail.

If you need to make an emergency candle you can use one very common item from your fridge. Have you guessed what it is? Butter. Cut off a piece of chilled butter and place it on a heatproof dish. Poke a hole straight down the center using a toothpick or a wooden stick.
Now we need a wick — you can use a common cotton string or twine. Cut the corresponding length and poke it through the hole, so it goes all the way to the bottom of your candle. Gently coat the end of the wick with butter and light up your brand-new DIY candle.

Use hair straightening tongs to smooth out those annoying creases on your tie. Or, let’s say you’re working in a shop, and you have to deal with fluffy piles of cash. The tongs will help you quickly iron your money to put them in smaller stacks. Which then fit neatly into your backpack — hey let’s not go there.

Wow, this zipper is tough! Why can’t it slide smoothly like all other zippers? But don’t rush to throw away your coat. Grab a bar of soap and gently rub it up and down against the zip. Repeat it on both sides. Can you feel the difference?

Cut one leg off your old tights and put 2 long cardboard tubes inside it. Go ahead and thread it under your internal door with one tube on each side. This will protect you from any draft because the tights will seal up any gap underneath the door. You can also use this trick when you need to make a full blackout in the room. Just make sure to use thick black tights.

Let’s say you’re visiting a conference in another city and your schedule will be very busy. You can prepare your outfits for each day in advance and put them into different compartments of your hanging clothes storage organizer this way. Now put it right down into your suitcase, zip it, and you’re ready to go. When you arrive at the hotel, you can just carefully pull out this organizer and hang it in the closet in just 2 seconds. But don’t forget to take the shoes too!

Is there a way to drive a nail into a wall without hurting your fingers? The answer is yes! Grab your comb and push the nail in between the prongs. This way you’ll keep your fleshy fingers far away and safe. And once you’ve got it started you can gently slide out the comb and finish driving the nail.

If you need an emergency metal scrubby sponge to wash your pot or pan, use a piece of tin foil. Crumple it up into a ball, apply a little bit of dish soap and your brand-new sponge is ready. Now start scrubbing and get ready to be amazed. It works very well, ha? By the way, the tin foil doesn’t have to be new, you can recycle the piece you’ve already used for cooking.

And the final tip is for perfectionists. If your shower head has a hard water buildup, the water won’t come out straight down. To fix this fill a plastic bag with plain white vinegar. Then put the shower head inside the bag, attach it with a band and leave it overnight. In the morning you can give your shower head a little scrub with an old toothbrush or clothes brush. This should help remove the remaining hard water dirt. This trick is also applicable to faucet heads.