What is one helpful tip or piece of advice you would like to share with the collective?

If you live with a cat who roams freely outside, look down at your hard wood floors and rugs all the time to avoid stepping and skidding on something slippery.

Buy your cat a pet fountain, especially if he’s male. This will get him to drink more water, which will keep his pee from smelling like ammonia. More importantly this will help prevent FLUTD (urethral blockage), which can easily lead to death and is expensive to test and treat.

For neat sides on knitted scarves and such, don’t knit the last stitch. Instead, just slip it onto the “active” needle, then flip the work around and start the new row like normal. This will keep the edges from getting that rippled knotty look, and you’ll see a smooth line of loops.

MIlo here: If you live with someone as dopey as Gail, creep up behind her and drop something slippery on the floor as often as possible.

In order to painlessly get knots out of a child’s long hair, wash the hair with shampoo. Then put conditioner, pulling the conditioner through the wet hair. Comb the hair with a wide-tooth comb while the conditioner is still in the hair. Rinse it out and voila! Knot free.

Men: try sitting while you pee. It’s an excellent opportunity to do Kegel exercises, and there’s no risk of leaving the toilet seat up.

“Take whatever you want in this world”, says the Lord… “and pay for it.”

@gailcalled & @wildpotato Follow Robert Heinlein’s advice, “Never try to outstubborn a cat.”

@Patton Always put the toilet seat AND lid down. Piss off everybody equally.

You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. Shut up. I’m fuck.

@ETpro My wife loves it when the lid is down. She finds it much more aesthetically pleasing that way. To each his own, I guess.

If you use OS X and wifi open the Terminal in Applications/Utilities and enter.

open /System/Library/CoreServices/Wi-Fi\ Diagnostics.app

From there you can move your computer and router around to get the best connection. You want the orange bar high and the green one low.

If your shoes become untied on a regular basis, reverse the direction of the 2nd loop around the 1st.

Here you go—> link (see the comments)

To tie a granny knot, it’s right over left, then left over right.

@serenade: Can you draw me a picture, please? Are you talking about a double knot?

Aerosol hairspray removes pen ink like magic.

@JLeslie that’s one of my favorites along with: Use meat tenderizer to get out blood stains. Moisten the stain with water. Sprinkle with meat tenderizer and leave it overnight. Wash it out the next morning with soap and water..

@Sunny2 I never heard that one. I have never had a blood stain I couldn’t get out though.

Anytime something happens on your computer and you have NO IDEA how to fix it, do a system restore by searching “System Restore” in the start box and clicking it.

It has never failed me. (Except when your computer is so messed up it won’t even turn on. Then you’re screwed. WARNING: Anything you installed after the restore point will no longer be there.)

Don’t rub another man’s rhubarb.
Never point a crayon at a colour blind pastry chef.

If you dislike ‘linty’ toilet paper as much as I do, buy Charmin Ultra Strong. It is fabulous, and you need far less to get the job done. (Make sure you don’t get the regular or ultra soft Charmin by mistake… they are extremely linty!)

Store your toothbrush(es) and your toothpaste in a small (short) crock or a canister (without the lid). Solves the ‘what to do with the toothpaste’ problem.

Bounty makes the best everyday paper napkins. Much softer than others, and strong, too.

@jca Did you get your bathroom beadboard situation solved in time for the party?

Do not sunbathe regularly so that you ‘tan’. Do not start smoking cigarettes or do anything that may make you addicted to nicotine. There is no vitamin or cream in the Universe that will reverse the damage those two things do to your skin. As often as possible, when you have an errand to run, walk anywhere that is a 5km round trip or less.

Credit and interest is all about the APR. That’s what let’s you compare apples to apples.

“don’t take advice from others. Learn for yourself”

A fresh coat of paint will make your house look like new.

To have a bathroom that looks like new, a fresh coat of paint and a shower curtain is like a miracle.

@augustlan: Yes. I ran the AC for a few days after googling “painting in humidity” (when I found out it’s best not to paint in humidity if you can help it), and then the paint adhered properly to the beadboard. My bathroom looks like new with new vanity, new towel bars and toilet paper holder, fresh paint and new shower curtain.

“Never tickle a sleeping dragon.”

“Always use your fucking blinker on the freeway! And If someone has their blinker on in front of you, slow down and let them over, don’t honk at them and get mad when they end up having to cut you off just because you were too big of a douchbag to let them over.”

“pet squirrels are awesome.”

“If you tell the religious people who go door to door spreading the word of god, that you “only worship Satan”, they won’t knock on your door ever again. ”

Buy lemons on sale, or get them from friends for free or from your own trees when they’re in season. Then slice them or quarter them and put them in freezer bags and pop them in the freezer. The juice is as good as new for about 6 months when you thaw them out. And you’ll have lemon juice year round for cheap. I also zested a bunch of them the last time I did this and put about a tablespoon of zest into individually wrapped packs. Then, when I’m making soup or whatever else calls for zest, I just pop one out of the freezer and throw it into my dish.

This question was asked about 5 years ago by Bri L and I am not looking for it now, but if you search and find it, you’ll find a lot of great tips on it (and see who was in the Collective back in the day, the Prehistoric Era of Fluther!).

@jca “prehistoric Fluther” just makes me feel old…...can we call it “Original Fluther”?

The best dog toys are the ones you don’t spend a lot of money on. For example, putting dry kibble/biscuits into an old plastic bottle that has a few little holes (big enough for the kibble pieces to fall out if the bottle is moved correctly but small enough that the kibble doesn’t pour out easily) cut into it can provide a lot of entertainment for your dog whilst making them work for their food. Trying to get the kibble out is good mental stimulation for your dog but, if they are a chewer rather than a strategic roller, use a soft plastic bottle or keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t attempt to eat the plastic too!

Keep a package of babywipes and bottle of water in your car. Babywipes are quick sponge bath, freshen up, wipe clean cuts & scrapes, dust a dashboard, soak up spilled drink or food, pat clean muck from your clothes, asborb some oil or product from your hair midday or before a date right after work and cleans shoes up real quick for dates or interviews if you notice dirt after leaving home.

Today I discovered how to remove the four blobs of superglue that I thought were permanently attached to my white formica kitchen counters. It was a miracle.

I saturated a cotton ball in nail polish remover, splayed the ball over one blob, covered the cotton ball with saran wrap and then put a heavy weight on the saran wrap. An hour later I removed everything and was able to scrape up the softened glue with a butter knife.

I then repeated it three more times.

If anyone has any good advice for getting old staines out of carpet I woukd love to hear it. I feel like I have tried everything but can’t afford new carpet and covering it isn’t easy!!

@Leanne1986 Can you afford professional carpet cleaning? Sometimes they work wonders and it is not very expensive.

@JLeslie I may have to resort to that but I was hoping that there was some home remedy that I was unaware of. So far, vinegar has helped to fade the stain.

@Leanne1986 What is the stain made out of?

I don’t really know as it was here when I moved in over three years ago but, as a guess, I would say something like bolognese sauce!

@Leanne1986: They also have those carpet cleaning machines you can rent from supermarkets. I never tried them but I have a friend that keeps her carpets looking good with those machines. Another option is to pull the carpeting up and have bare floors or pull it up and have small area rugs.

Be proud when you can afford to pay taxes. Feel good about contributing to the greater good. Give taxes a more positive connotation.

@jca I think I might try one of those as a friend said it worked a treat on old puppy wee stains! It’s currently covered by rugs!

Never assume you know who and what a person is, based on where they live.

“Always trust your intuition, it will never lie to you.”

Be prepared for power outages. I just lived without power from Friday night until today. Lost all of our food. :(

We had no battery operated radio (which would have helped a lot) and only two flashlights in the house.

@augustlan:A really useful gadget is a crank radio/flashlight.

Reviews

I’ve had a cheap one (w/o flashlight) for years. I also recommend a miner’s headlight you can wear. Safer than candles.