Dollar Stretcher ideas on making healthier potato chips at home, keeping razor blades from getting dull too soon, extending the life of  appliances and more.

Healthier Potato Chips

Seeking a salty, crispy snack one afternoon, my husband and I stumbled across microwave potato chips. We thinly sliced a potato using a Japanese mandolin, lined the slices up on a microwave bacon pan, spritzed them with a little olive oil and sprinkled on a pinch of sea salt. Then we microwaved them on high for five to six minutes until the slices crisped up. We have since tried various seasonings and love them all!
Kym

Next Year's Bulbs for Less

Many grocery and discount stores have beautiful hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils for sale in small pots this time of year. In a couple of weeks, these flowers will wilt slightly and the stores will sell the pots for as low as fifty cents each. I buy the ones that have the most bulbs in the pot and take them home to plant. While they are no longer in their glory this year, I can plant them where I have bare spots and they come back beautifully next year.
Susan

Not So Concentrated

When I make juice from concentrate, I add about 3/4 of a can more water than the directions call for. It makes the juice only slightly less potent, but my family never notices and I end up with at least an extra cup of juice or more per can of juice made.
Adriane T.

No More Dull Blades

You can make razor blades last for months by either putting them in alcohol or drying them with a hair dryer for a few seconds after you use them. It is the water rusting the blade that dulls them very quickly.
Wanda

Bill Alert!

If you're on the computer all day, take advantage of it! Most basic email programs (I use Microsoft Outlook) have a calendar program for scheduling meetings and events. I program each of my monthly bills into the calendar with a recurring "Alert" to let me know every month at least two days in advance of when a bill is due. (I pay 98% of my bills online, so paying the day before works for me. If you are still mailing checks, you may want to set your alert a week ahead of time.)
Anita B.

Updating Plastic Vertical Blinds

I have vertical blinds in many rooms in our home. I have changed their look several times by purchasing fabric to recover the inserts in the verticals. I make a paper pattern and then cut the fabric. I use a hot glue gun to glue down on the insert and then put them back in the vertical casing. A decorator originally did this in our master bedroom and charged me $5 per vertical plus the cost of a designer fabric. I have changed the fabric in the verticals myself twice. It can be time consuming and you need a large table or work surface to cut and glue the fabric panels, but it will only cost you the price of the fabric. I have also found large pieces of decorator fabrics on eBay that were being sold because they were at the end of the bolt. I remove the old fabric before replacing or the insert will become to thick to fit back into the casing.
Colleen

Protect Your Appliances

Before our kitchen appliances were even a year old, we had a repairman out twice. With the high cost of repairs and the warranty about to run out, I asked him how to best extend the life of our new appliances. He said that a frequent and expensive repair is replacing electronic parts in kitchen appliances. He said that simply using surge protectors would prevent costly repairs. When an electronic part on my microwave needed repair, he had to replace the whole electronic panel. The electronic panel alone cost $200. We now have our refrigerator, microwave and oven all plugged into surge protectors.
Kristel

Homemade Breakfast Sandwiches

My husband and I love breakfast sandwiches from fast food restaurants and the frozen food section of the grocery store. I found a way to make them for a lot less money, and they are healthier, too! I whisk 12 eggs with a little bit of milk and whatever seasonings I feel like using. Then I spray a 13x9 baking dish with cooking spray and pour in the egg mixture. After baking for 15-20 minutes in a 350-degree oven, I cut this into 12 squares. Then I put the egg squares on toasted English muffins, bagels, biscuits, etc. I also get pre-cooked sausage patties that are thin and fit perfectly on English muffins from our warehouse club. I add cheese if I feel like it, making a great breakfast, lunch, or dinner! I usually make 12 at a time and freeze some of them so they are ready to go.
Susie

All the Plastic Bags

I had been taking my reusable cloth bags to the grocery store often enough that I completely ran out of the plastic grocery bags I use for wastebasket liners. In desperation, I used the plastic bag that a twelve-roll pack of toilet paper comes in. Then I used the plastic bag for a three-roll pack of paper towels. I started noticing how many plastic bags I threw away like the ones on furnace filters and mail-order clothes. Why not re-use them at least one more time? I re-use bread bags and newspaper bags all the time, but I never think of these other wrappings as spare plastic bags.
Jan

Home Grown Potatoes

We have always had a vegetable garden, but this year we moved to a smaller home with a smaller yard. We managed to plow an area for the garden, but it will be much smaller than normal. I love to plant sweet and white potatoes, but there will not be enough room for them this time around. Therefore, I'm going to plant them in big deep plastic tubs that hold around 19 gallons. I'll make a few holes on the bottom of the plastic tubs for water drainage and then I'll put in good mulch. Once this is done, then I'll plant the potato eyes. When it comes to harvesting the potatoes, all I'll have to do is turn the tub on its side, roll it around to loosen up the dirt, dump it out in my garden (no sense in wasting good dirt), and out will come the potatoes with the dirt!
Betty B.

Want to live better on the money you already make? Visit TheDollarStretcher.com to find hundreds of articles to help you stretch your day and your dollar! Copyright 2009 Dollar Stretcher, Inc.