Household cleaning hacks you should know

MANILA, Philippines - Having a healthy household does not just mean eating the right food, but having your house germ-free as well. While we exert too much physical effort in cleaning, we also exert too much money on buying cleaning products. Be pragmatic and avoid overspending on household supplies. You probably didn't know it, but here are some cheap, convenient, and easy-to-do cleaning tips that would help you stretch your budget and patience in cleaning even further. 








White Vinegar
Aside from cooking with vinegar, you may also use it to keep your dishwasher, windows, floors, microwaves and refrigerators extra clean. Pour an equal amount of vinegar and water on a cup and dip a cloth or sock. Run it over and use another cloth or sock to remove the dampness.

Ice Cubes
Every few weeks, toss in a handful of cubes in your sink. Add some orange, or lemon to ward off some stenchy odor.

Newspaper
Don’t throw away your old newspapers. Use it to get rid of garbage grime and crusty dips and drops of garbage juices.  Cover the bottom of your trash can with old newspapers to soak up leaks and odors.

Clay Doh
If you think that clay is only for playtime, think again. Clay Doh can be used to pick up the small pieces of broken glasses and glitters. Just press the clay into the area and the glass or glitters will stick onto it.

Lemons
Utilize the power of citrus to clean your microwave, which becomes smelly most of the time because of the different food heated.  Squeeze lemon juice into a small bowl of water and place in the microwave for five minutes. The fresh scent will eliminate the cooking odors and condensation from the steam makes the random splatters that have hardened easier to remove.


Mouthwash
Aside from killing bad breath, adding a considerable amount of mouthwash to a gallon of water and mop the vinyl and tiles.

Baby Oil
Baby oil helps the dirty water bead roll down the drain faster. Use this to clean your sink, toilet bowl, or tub.

Potatoes
Did you just went on a camping trip? To remove hardened mud on your clothes, especially comforter or blankets, slice a potato in half and gently rub the cut end on to it. Soak the fabric in cool water after before tossing them into the laundry.

Rice
Having a hard time fitting your hands while cleaning a narrow vase? Just pour  two tablespoons of dry rice and half a cup of warm water inside the vase. Shake the vase vigorously while covering it with your hands.  Drain the vase afterwards.

Blow Dryer
Give chandeliers a quick cleaning with a blow-dryer (set on low) or a feather duster. For tougher jobs, fill a spray bottle with one part vodka to five parts water, spritz on fixtures and blow-dry.

Hair Spray
Walls doodled with markers  can be cleaned by misting them with hairspray and wiping them immediately. Crayon on walls on the other hand could be removed by scrubbing with a toothbrush covered with toothpaste. You may also use a damp microfiber cloth with baking soda. Hairspray may also be used to remover lipstick stains on clothes.

Chalk
For those who are not aware, chalk has a powerful absorbing quality. Greasy and oily fingerprints can be removed by rubbing a chalk on walls, even clothes.  Wash it with water after to make it completely grease-free.

Onion
Peel and cut the white onion in half. Rub the onion back and forth over the grates of a hot grill. The onion will deglaze the grates and add a little extra flavor the next time you grill in for some barbecue adventure.

source: philstar.com

Iceland defies IMF, writes off 24,000-euro mortgage of each household

REYKJAVIK - The Icelandic government said Saturday it would write up to 24,000 euros off the mortgage of every household, making good on an election campaign promise despite international warnings over the plan.

The cost of the measure is estimated to reach 150 billion krona (900 million euros, $1.2 billion) over four years, the government said in a statement, without giving details on how it would be financed.

The Progressive Party -- led by Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, winner of late-April elections -- had won voters over with its campaign promise to offer household debt relief.

Gunnlaugsson has said since taking office that the scheme would not hurt public finances, and had initially suggested that foreign creditors of Icelandic banks would bear the write-off.

But there have since been no details on the financing plan for the scheme.

The debt relief promise has been met with skepticism elsewhere, with both the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warning against it.

The IMF had said that Iceland has "little fiscal space for additional household debt relief", while the OECD had called for the mortgage relief efforts to target only low-income households.

Standard & Poor's had also slashed the outlook for Iceland's long-term credit rating to negative from stable, saying the plan could damage foreign investors' confidence if it is to be funded by existing creditors of Iceland's banks.

The agency further warned that it could still lower Iceland's ratings over the plan.

Many Icelandic households are struggling to repay housing loans indexed to inflation that seemed safe prior to the 2008 financial crisis but has caused borrowing costs to skyrocket following the krona's collapse against other currencies.

"Currently, household debt is equivalent to 108 percent of GDP, which is high by international comparison," said the government in a statement.

"The action will boost household disposable income and encourage savings," it said, adding that the debt relief would begin mid-2014.

source: interaksyon.com

Water crisis to hit Philippines in 10 years if no new sources are tapped, expert says

The Philippines is facing a water crisis over the next 10 years unless new sources are developed to meet growing demand, an expert said on Wednesday.

On the sidelines of a forum, Edgar C. Lopez, Philippine Waterworks Association president, said Metro Manila, Cebu, Davao, Baguio, Angeles among other urban centers could face severe water shortage by 2025.

"There is a [Japan International Cooperation Agency] study that says that in 2025 if we will not conserve water, there may be some problems. But of course we can always start conserving now and look for other sources," he said.

He blamed dwindling water supply on population growth and wasteful use.

But while the Philippines' mega cities could dry up in the coming years, many people in rural areas still don't have access to piped water.

Lopez said 20 million Filipinos still rely on their own means for their water supply, including pumps that extract ground water, a technology deemed unsustainable and dangerous as prolonged use could lead to the formation of sink holes.

To address concerns on inadequate supply, Lopez said both the private sector and the government should look into investing in new water sources and supporting the development of water districts.

"The private sector will play a lot because the government cannot afford these projects," he said.

Water districts, Lopez said, require P100 million in investments to secure their supply.

Private sector role big

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the private sector has a big role to play in terms of securing water.

In a live chat on Thursdauy, Amy S. P. Leung, ADB Southeast Asian urban development and water division director, said private firms can practice "good stewardship" to protect water resources, which would minimize their business risks and keep costs low.

"Large businesses can be encouraged to show leadership to their suppliers. All businesses in all countries must be made water-aware and take responsibility for their use of this critical resource," Leung said.

She said public-private partnership (PPP) is one of the options but governance has to improve as well to ensure water as a resource is managed effectively, and as a service delivered efficiently.

"More should be done on water sector reforms and implementation of effective regulatory regimes," she said.

Another problem confronting developing nations like the Philippines is that government money does not often reach the poor households because of the "lack of last-mile connectivity."

Leung said the lack of funds for expansion remains a constrraint, adding that utilities do not receive enough funds from the government or they cannot achieve cost recovery in the tariff they charge users.

"Numerous studies show that providing piped-water access is the cheaper and safer alternative for all, including the poor," she said.

source: interaksyon.com

Schools Pass Debt to the Next Generation

The deleveraging of America is well under way, as individuals and companies recover from the excess borrowing that helped to produce the boom and left many people vulnerable when the bust arrived. Household debt is down nearly $900 billion over the last four years, partly from repayments and partly from defaults.

During the crazy times, homeowners could get mortgages that allowed them to pay less than the full amount of interest being charged, with the rest added to the principal. Commercial property owners generally paid the full amount of interest, but did not have to repay any principal until the loan matured in five or 10 years. For both homes and commercial properties, lenders were willing to rely on extremely optimistic appraisals.

For property buyers, those days are gone,

But for some borrowers, it is still possible to borrow now and pay nothing for decades.

There is a furor in California because the Poway Unified School District, in San Diego County, borrowed money last year on terms that even Countrywide would have laughed at during the boom. It will not pay a dime of interest or principal for more than two decades. Only then will it begin to service the bonds.

It is paying a high price. Although it has a good credit rating — Aa2 at Moody’s and AA– at Standard & Poor’s — it will eventually pay tax-exempt interest of up to 6.8 percent for the borrowings. When it issued more conventional bonds last year, it paid rates that were much lower, ranging up to just 4.1 percent.

For borrowing $105 million in 2011, taxpayers — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the children and grandchildren of today’s taxpayers — will pay $877 million in interest between 2033 and 2051.

In San Diego, the bond issue first gained attention on The Voice of San Diego, a Web-based publication, which published an article this month headlined “Where Borrowing $105 Million Will Cost $1 Billion: Poway Schools.” As the Voice noted, others, including Joel Thurtell, a Michigan blogger, had written outraged articles about the bond issue. But it was the Voice article that attracted national attention, including a report on CNBC.

It turns out the Poway bond issue is not unique. This kind of borrowing has been going on for years, particularly in California, where the tax revolt that began with Proposition 13 in 1978 has made it harder and harder to finance education or other local government services. Assorted propositions approved by voters have made it very difficult to raise taxes at all.

According to a Thomson Reuters database, school districts issued nearly $4 billion in such bonds last year, and have sold almost $3 billion more this year. Back in 2006, when the credit boom was in full bloom, $9 billion worth of so-called capital appreciation bonds were sold.

The Poway issue is unusual in delaying interest payments for so long, but there have been others. Its neighbor, the San Diego Unified School District, borrowed $150 million in May, promising to begin payments in 2032.

School districts’ logic for borrowing for construction projects always was that those who benefit should pay for a construction project. In the case of the Poway bond, however, it is at least possible that it will be the children of today’s students who end up paying the bill. By then, many of these school buildings may be obsolete, or at least in need of another refurbishing.

In a statement, the Poway district pointed out that the bond issue was the fifth part of a plan to modernize the 24 oldest schools in the district, adding that while that bond “has a total repayment ratio of 9.3 times the principal amount,” the overall borrowing program has a repayment ratio of just 4.2. That means that for every dollar borrowed, $3.20 in interest will be paid.

To put that into perspective, a 30-year mortgage at the same 6.8 percent interest rate would require $1.35 in lifetime interest payments for each dollar borrowed, or a repayment ratio of 2.35.

“The most important value received from the building program that is difficult to quantify is the educational value of providing today’s students with quality learning facilities,” said John Collins, the superintendent of the district, which has 34,000 students. “It is also difficult to calculate the dollar value of savings realized by avoiding the inflated construction costs of postponing the completion of the building program for a decade or more.”

Your guess may be as good as his as to just how inflated those costs will be. But it is hard to believe that the district would not have been better off borrowing on terms that called for repaying the loan more quickly. The interest rate would have been lower, and the power of compound interest would not have caused the total payments to rise into the stratosphere.

But the option of getting reasonable financing may not have been available to the Poway district, or to many of the other districts that have resorted to these capital appreciation bonds. Poway officials had promised not to raise taxes, and this way they won’t have to. At least not until 2033. They set the payments to begin after earlier bonds are paid off.

Nationally, it appears that fewer and fewer school districts have been able, or willing, to find ways to finance new buildings — or even to pay teachers, as property tax revenue plunged with the deflating of the housing bubble and pinched states reduced assistance. State and local governments are spending less and employing fewer people now than they were before the recession. Adjusted for inflation, state and local investment in buildings and other assets is at the lowest level since 1998. Over the last 30 months, the economy has gained about half a million jobs in manufacturing, and lost nearly as many in state and local government.

Should districts issue such bonds? It is not an easy question to answer. Much of this expensive borrowing is a result of local officials searching for a way to meet their responsibilities at a time when opposition to taxes has become a mantra. This generation will not pay for what it needs, so some of its leaders have decided to saddle future generations with the bills.

source: nytimes.com

Dishwashing bars could pose health risks

It is ironic how an object used to clean and wash dirt in kitchen utensils can actually pose danger to our health.

A recent study of the Philippine Society of Microbiology (PSM) confirms that the use of bar solution in cleaning the dishes is a risky practice because it could bring negative effects to every household particularly on the aspect of health.

With the aid of a third party research agency, Proctor and Gamble commissioned a research and survey to reinforce this study and come up with such results. It was in late February 2012 when the survey was conducted. There were 150 respondents and 10 control households. Ms. Jan Ang, Joy Brand Manager, added that 6 out of 10 moms use dishwashing bar solution.

According to Dr. Jessica Simbahan, Immediate Former President of PSM, results show that dishwashing bar solution is highly contaminated with germs and is 10 times more unclean and unsanitary than a dirty sock. Also, it is considered as the dirtiest household item tested among other items like trash bin, toilet seat cover, and toilet bowl rim. During the survey, a luminometer or germ meter was used to gauge the level of contaminants in bar solutions and other household items.

However, Dr. Supachai Basit (incumbent National President for Philippine Society of Microbiology) stressed that besides bar solution, improper hygienic practice can also contribute to the increase of germs. “When a detergent solution is left exposed and is kept soaking, the level of contaminants increase,” Dr. Basit explained.

Below are some simple sanitation tips advised by Dr. Basit:

1. Clean and change your sponge regularly. Sponge is another culprit in the kitchen because microbes thrive their especially when it is moist or soaked in water.

2. Clean the cutting boards well. There should be a separate cutting board for raw food and cooked food.

3. Wash hands before and after meals and snacks.

4. Don’t share hand towels.

5. Use anti-bacterial dishwashing liquid. It is better to directly apply the dishwashing liquid on the sponge rather than dilute it in water.

Food poisoning, infection, diarrhea and typhoid are some of the risks that can be acquired and experienced without proper hygienic practice and mindfulness.

The research aims to support Joy Dishwashing Liquid’s ongoing awareness called “Nay, Gising!” an awareness campaign that aims “to serve as a wake-up call for Filipino moms and to educate them on proper kitchen hygiene.”

source: interaksyon.com

Organizing The Kitchen Counter for Everyday Use

Many people consider a well-organized kitchen to be one of the secrets to household happiness. However, if you have a busy family that's constantly on the go, you might find that keeping your kitchen organized can be a difficult and even daunting task. If you'd like to transform your disorganized kitchen into a more efficient and pleasant living space, why not start with the kitchen counter? Here are some easy tips you can use to organize your kitchen counter for everyday use.

Eliminate Clutter

A cluttered and disorganized kitchen can be a very difficult place in which to work. If your countertops are filled with clutter, you naturally don't have as much useful space in which to work. Clutter also tends to make a room look too small and "busy." In fact, countertop clutter can make even a large kitchen seem too small.

Eliminating unnecessary clutter should be the first step towards organizing your kitchen counter space. Start by removing any paper clutter, such as notes, unopened mail, school papers, or the daily newspaper. You should also remove any items that simply do not belong in the kitchen. Once these unnecessary items have been removed, it will be easier to decide upon an organizational strategy for the items you do use every day.

Countertops versus Cabinets

When organizing your kitchen, it's important to make a determination as to which items are best stored on the counter and which ones are best stored in the cabinets. In the case of small kitchen appliances or items that are used quite frequently, the countertop is often the best choice. However, if you only use your bread machine or yogurt maker on an occasional basis, storing it in the cabinet can free up a lot of countertop space. Take the time to carefully assess each item that you're currently storing on your kitchen counters. By finding alternate storage areas for infrequently used items, you'll have more countertop space available for everyday use.

Once you've stored your infrequently used items in the cabinets or pantry, you might decide to add a few new items to your countertop area. For example, if you're currently storing your spices in a cabinet, you might find that you'd use them more frequently if they were stored in a convenient spice rack on the countertop.

Baskets, Bins and Boxes

Baskets, bins and boxes can be the perfect solution when it comes to organizing your kitchen counter. For example, although you probably wouldn't want pencils, pens and note pads cluttering your countertop, it's hard to argue with the fact that they are all useful items. Instead of dealing with the clutter, tuck a pad of paper and a couple of pens into a small bin or basket. You'll be able to keep the items close at hand while still keeping your countertops organized and neat. Baskets and other containers that don't have lids can be convenient for items you need to grab quickly. However, lidded boxes and bins can go a long way towards reducing visual clutter, making your entire kitchen look more organized.

Home design expert, Alyssa Davis of Metal-Wall-Art.com, is particularly skilled in designing with metal fish art and metal wall decor for bathroom.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alyssa_Davis